I happened to see a broadcast on EBS's "Doctor" program featuring Professor Song Hae-ryong performing surgery to help people suffering from their short height and giving them hope. At that time, I thought, "I will definitely get height lengthening surgery someday." I had been stressed because I was short since I was young, and I felt small and lacked confidence next to tall people. Looking back, I don't think I suffered any particular disadvantages because of my height, but I think it was because of my own dissatisfaction and inferiority complex.
After being discharged from the military, I consulted with my parents and decided to have height lengthening surgery. My parents knew better than anyone how much stress I had been under because of my height, so they actively allowed the surgery. After deciding on the surgery, I looked up information about the surgery on the internet. The internet showed that it seemed to be a simpler surgery than I had thought, and I thought that I would be able to grow taller quickly with just a little suffering. And the doctor I saw on TV before! I consulted with Professor Song Hae-ryong at Korea University Guro Hospital. But even when I consulted with the professor, I was determined to have the surgery. When the professor saw that my height was about 167-168cm, he said that it was not a very short height, so don't have the surgery! But no matter what he said, I didn't hear it, and I told the professor that I would have the surgery unconditionally, and I set the date for the surgery.
Me, full of inflated expectations!
Even after setting the date for the surgery, I continued to look for information about the surgery on the internet. Among them, there was an internet cafe with information about height lengthening surgery, and I read stories posted by people who said that their lives had changed after the surgery in that internet cafe, and I was filled with overwhelming expectations. According to the stories and information posted on the internet, most of the content was that '3-4 months is the end of suffering.' I really thought that if I suffered for only 3-4 months, my height would grow by several cm, I would return to school, and I would live a new life, so I was filled with overwhelming expectations and hope, and I was admitted to the hospital two days before the surgery date. The day before the surgery, my parents listened to the explanation about the surgery from the attending physician and signed the consent form. They said that if hair got into the surgery area on my legs, it would cause an infection, so I shaved my leg hair with a razor and got an IV, but I was filled with excitement and hope rather than fear about the surgery.
From the day of surgery to discharge
I went into the operating room and the nurse said, "Anesthesia is going in," and that's all I remember. My mother said that the surgery took 6 hours. When I woke up in the recovery room after the surgery, the pain at that time was so painful that I still remember it vividly even now, a year after the surgery.
And even after returning to the hospital room, the severe pain continued. I was given an IV of a pain reliever to alleviate the pain, but the pain was still severe. And blood kept coming out from the pin-embedded area under my right foot, so I changed the bandages at night. And in the early morning, I was told that I was lacking blood, so I received two units of blood transfusions. It was so painful that I kept getting pain injections every few hours. I hardly slept because of the pain. About 2-3 days later, when I unwrapped the bandages on my legs, I suffered even greater pain. Due to the inflammation, the surgical area was hot and my whole body temperature soared to about 40 degrees.
I kept getting antibiotics for about 2 weeks, but I still had a fever and the extreme pain continued. The professor found an antibiotic that was right for me and changed it, and I got two IVs of antibiotics, twice a day, morning and afternoon. After about a week, the inflammation level became almost normal, and the heat in my legs and the heat in my body disappeared. And the pain almost disappeared, so I finally regained some energy. At that time, I thought, would I have been able to solve this inflammation-induced pain treatment if I had had surgery at a private hospital? Doctors from the Department of Infectious Diseases also came to examine me for inflammation that was not treated with antibiotics, and I recovered through various treatments, but I wondered if a general private surgeon could have solved my condition. I also thought that I was glad that I had surgery with Professor Song Hae-ryong, who has a lot of experience.
And usually, people who have surgery unwrap their bandages and go to the sports rehabilitation center the next day to practice walking, but I had to wait about 5 days after unwrapping the bandages to go to the sports center and practice standing up for the first time due to the inflammation. Perhaps because I had been lying down for a week, when I first put my feet on the ground, I felt the blood rushing to the tops of my feet and the pain was so severe that it felt like they would burst, and I cried. But after about 2-3 days, there was still pain, but I was used to it and I could walk quite well. And the teachers at the sports center made the exercise fun and treated me kindly, so the rehabilitation exercise time was the only time of the day that I could relieve the stress of pain and it was a time that I looked forward to.
The pain of lengthening after discharge
By turning the dice on the Ilizarov by 4 turns, I steadily increase my height by 1 mm per day. This is commonly called lengthening, and when the lengthening reaches a certain point, the pain of lengthening begins. I suffered extreme pain again when I had lengthened about 3cm. Not only did the lengthening area hurt, but also my knees and ankles hurt so much.
From this time on, I could hardly do any walking exercise that I had been doing little by little, and I spent all day lying in bed. As the legs are lengthened, the skin and muscles on the back of the ankles and legs must also be stretched, and in order to do that, you must continue to walk and stretch. If you don't, you will get tiptoeing as a side effect, and I had severe tiptoeing because I hardly exercised.
And I went to the hospital once a month to see the progress. Around the time of my third outpatient visit, I had achieved the lengthening length that I had aimed for, so I set the date for the second surgery to fix the lengthened leg bones and correct the tiptoeing. Since I had almost no bone callus formation, I also set the date for the surgery to draw my blood, centrifuge it, and inject the ingredients that promote bone formation.
Second surgery and after
When I came to the hospital room after the surgery, I couldn't move my ankle at all because it was a surgery to insert a metal pin on the top of my foot like an Ilizarov, so it was uncomfortable, but I didn't have much pain because I had suffered so much during the first surgery, and I was even happy because I thought it was almost over. And my condition was good, so I was discharged less than a week after the surgery.
Tiptoeing is normalized by turning the dice on the metal pin on the top of the foot, just like turning the dice on the Ilizarov, and raising the metal pin up.
Usually, it was said to be over after raising it for about 2 weeks, but it took me a month because I had severe tiptoeing. A month later, I had the metal pins removed from the top of my foot at the hospital, and two months later, I had the Ilizarov removed.
After removing the Ilizarov, I wore a detachable cast-type brace to strengthen my legs and ensure safety. It has been about 2 years since the surgery, and bone callus has almost formed, so I am waiting for the time to remove the internal fixation device.
About a year after the surgery
When I had the surgery, there were quite a few people who were hospitalized after having this surgery. But when I listened to them, they didn't have the extreme pain that I had, and they didn't have a fever due to inflammation. Even if they had the same surgery, some people suffered like me, and some people had almost no pain after 3 days of surgery, and some people even said that they had no pain at all after the surgery because of the pain reliever.
Also, I am said to have a constitution that does not form bone callus well. Almost a year after the surgery, thanks to the bone formation promotion surgery, some bone callus was formed, but because my original constitution does not produce bone callus, I had to wear a brace and I could not walk without crutches. When I go to the outpatient clinic, I see people who had surgery 2 weeks earlier than me and people who had surgery 2 months later than me walking around like normal people without crutches or braces.
In other words, this surgery is a surgery with too much individual variation. Usually, the process is almost good and the results are good, but you can suffer from inflammation, tiptoeing, and poor bone callus formation like me. Of course, there are treatments for these situations, but the pain you experience in this process is indescribable.
If you want to have this surgery, I think you should not think about this surgery too easily, consult with the professor thoroughly, and make a firm decision.
