- (1)My Ilizarov surgery that I received by taking KTX
Kim Gwang-Hu
The word “limb correction” itself is hard to understand, but I had this hard surgery twice. With my knee as the focus, I had a surgery in the lower part during my freshman year of high school and the upper part in 2008.
From the moment I started walking, my legs were bowed and my body was weak. So my parents took me to the hospital since I was little. However, the doctors could not diagnose what was wrong with me. So there is not one thing I haven’t tried to grow since I was little. I tried hormone shots, I went to growth clinics and oriental medicine clinics. I even went to energy, spirit therapies, however, I still wasn’t as tall as the other children in my age.
In elementary school, I still had the hope to grow taller even though I was shorter than children my age. Some kids would make fun of my height but I was still as tall as the girls my age. So I didn’t have to deal with too much teasing. More than anything my teachers took good care of me and protected me.
As I entered middle school, I started comparing myself with the other kids who had started their growth sprouts, and I became more timid and my personality started to wither. My feelings became more disturbed as I hit adolescence. I think and the insecurity I had about my height was on its worst stage. Before I entered high school, my aunt had watched a TV program about a surgery that could make me taller and she looked for the doctor.
At that time the doctor had been transferred to the Korea University Guro Hospital and was getting ready to move to Seoul. Through my aunt and mother’s request, I was able to meet the busy doctor. I was extremely nervous at the time. After several examinations and talking with the doctor, we set the surgery date to be during my freshman year’s winter break. After that I entered high school.
There were not many kids who teased me in high school. Most kids had already gone through puberty and were busy worrying about themselves and applying to college. Most kids did not have time to mess with others and because of that I was able to adjust to high school quite well. Time flew by pretty fast and on my summer break, I went up to Seoul to be checked up. Fortunately, KTX, a high speed railroad, had opened for the first time and I was able to travel from Busan to Seoul in 3 hours. I was a little nervous and excited by the thought of being in Seoul for the first time. In Seoul, I was checked up and we waited for my surgery date. Our school was having a school festival on the day before the surgery and my teacher comforted me. I was thankful because other teachers also gave me courage. After that I received the date and I was hospitalized.
After the surgery, my mother and I got to talk a lot about Seoul in the 2-person ward. My mother told me to be courageous even though there was a rough time ahead of me. Also, we talked a lot about how many more centimeters I would grow. With that hope the day of surgery came. Perhaps because of the pressure I felt about fasting, I was not able to digest well but still I binged because I knew I had to eat plentifully. I was extremely nervous then.
In my head, it was a major surgery and from the night before when I got an IV, I could feel the horror. Normally, I would not be scared of injections because I was used to hospitals; but, that time I genuinely faced horror. I was going to have the surgery the next morning, but I could not fall asleep.
At 8:00 a.m., half asleep I thought, “It’s finally surgery day! What happens to me now?” as I was taken to the surgery room on a hospital bed. In the surgery room the doctor talked to me nicely to calm my nerves before the anesthesia kicked in. I fell asleep doing an impression of a popular comedian and that’s how the surgery started. I think the surgery took quite some time. When I felt that I was put in the recovery room after the surgery, my whole body shook and I felt chills. I felt like my mind was awake but I didn’t sense pain. I guess I was not fully awake from the anesthesia yet. I thought it was a major surgery because I had gone in in the morning and had come out of the surgery room at night.
However, how did my mother feel as she was waiting outside the room? Two days after I became conscious, I heard my mother telling people around her “I cried because he came out of the surgery so late and I prayed to God that he would come out safe and sound.” I also felt sorry and for some reason it made me cry too. My life in the hospital started this way and it was definitely not easy.
I had no strength on my legs and couldn’t use my legs, so going to the bathroom and this was very difficult and inconvenient. So I was anxious during eating and had indigestion problem. The days didn’t pass by that peacefully because I felt that I causing inconvenience to other people. Every patient in the hospital was in pain and was uncomfortable so I wasn’t the one causing them harm, but I don’t know why I thought that way then. My life in the hospital passed by this way, with which I had my mother to depend on every day.
Still, everyone I met in the hospital was good people. Because everyone in the hospital was in pain, we relied on each other and shared information about the food and the life in the hospital. They became companions whom I could talk to. There was a 1-year older hyung (an older brother who is not necessarily related to family) who was hospitalized next to me so I didn’t feel too lonely at the hospital. If it weren’t for the people around me, I think life in the hospital would have been harder. However, on the weekends I did feel a bit lonely. Because I was from Busan, not a lot of people could come and visit me in Seoul. Seeing other patents always have visitors on the weekends made me feel lonely. When I was in pain, I felt the significance of people around me and I missed them. That was when I felt that humans cannot survive alone.
One time I got correction from the hospital maybe because my legs didn’t fit right. Even though I had received anesthesia, the correction process still gave me excruciating pain. I can’t explain how painful it was when the anesthesia was going away. I had to put a handkerchief in my mouth and bite it to go through the pain. That day, the lunch menu was samge tang (chicken stew) but because of the pain I didn’t even want to eat any. It was so painful that I could not fall asleep each night and I cannot count the number of painkiller shots I had. Later on the pain was so severe that I could not sleep even though the painkillers.
Each and every day I had to live through the pain. But I started getting on my own feet with the fixator on my legs. I slowly started walking with the help of a device that made me walk with crutches and exercises that made me use my leg muscles. It was quite interesting that I could move with such device. It was easier to move the lower part of my leg. But I think my thighs were stronger than my calves. I was hospitalized for four weeks, and then I left the hospital with the fixator. I was scheduled for outpatient visits.
Being home was the best. The pain at night reduced when I slept at home rather than in the hospital. The joy of being with my family was really the most effective painkiller. The television was also a great painkiller that helped me forget the pain. I usually fell asleep while watching television.
Around the time fixation was going to completed through outpatient visits, we heard surprising news. It was that I had to receive another surgery for my tendon. My ankles were not able to keep up. Oh no! Leaving my ankles tied eventually resulted in impaired ankle tendon.
So I received a second surgery. Fortunately, the surgery was done after fixation had already been done and while I was in the waiting stage for bone union. In my memory, the tendon surgery was also quite painful. I was taken aback by the newly inserted fixators and the fact that I was about to get used to walking with the fixator. Around the time the pain was going away, I asked the doctor to take off the fixator. So after a week, the fixators were removed from my feet and I was discharged. The tendon surgery was over, and now I was just waiting for bones to union. But schooling was a problem.
I had had surgery in the winter and now it was past spring and going towards summer. In that situation I had to return to school. However, because the semester had changed, I had no idea about the books, my teacher, or where my classroom was. So my parents and I discussed that I would be going back to school with my braces on. With the help of teacher from the previous year,, I was able to find out who my sophomore year teacher was. After I got her contact number, I called her to find out which books I needed and where to go for class. Like so, I returned to high school as a sophomore.
The first bath I took in order to go to school
Thinking about going back to school gave me the feeling that I smelled and that I needed to take a bath. So we decided to wash only my upper body. I left my legs outside the bathroom and lied down while I was washing my upper. Because I was afraid of water touching the operated area and causing inflammation, I covered my legs in big plastic bags. That bath felt very refreshing. For months I hadn’t washed properly. The only way I could clean myself was with a wet towel. After taking a slightly more proper bath, my body felt lighter. My mother made a pair of pants that covered my legs. SO on my way to school, I wore the normal school uniform shirt and the pants that my mom had made for me. I attended school delightfully.
Putting studying aside, I was nervous about returning and seeing all my friends again. I life routine changed because of school. Because my mother had to go to work I woke up early and got ready for school. I packed my lunch from home because the cafeteria was located too far. So in the morning my mother would pack my lunch and I would wash my face and brush my teeth until my mother came to wash my hair. Because the bathroom floor was slippery, my father helped me to carefully hold onto the sink with one hand. With the other hand I brushed my teeth waited for my mother to come to wash my hair.
After I was done getting ready, my father drove me to school whenever he was not busy. But I usually took a taxi to school. It was around 7:20 when I arrived at school, which was fairly an early time to be at school at. But because my mother had to be at work by 8:00 a.m. and I couldn’t move so quickly, we had to move that early.
My classroom was on the third floor in an old building going so there was no elevator I could use to go upstairs. Anyways, I had to get to my classroom. My mother or teacher helped me with the crutches and I concentrated only on climbing up the stairs. The safest way to go up the stairs was to hold onto the handrail tightly and walk up sideways one step at a time. Because of the pain, I was more concerned about going up safely rather than going up quickly. I went into classes, but as I expected, listening to lectures was not easy.
During lunch time, all my friends went to the cafeteria and I sat alone in the classroom with my packed lunch. I have no complaint about eating lunch there. My friends often brought me fruits or food that was especially good from the cafeteria. I was extremely thankful to my friends. Like so, I spent my days going to school and going to the outpatient clinic. When summer break arrived, my fixator days came to an end. I thought the more times I went to the outpatient clinic, the more I would get repaid with increased height. So I was full with a sense of accomplishment, not so much of pain. I had the fixator removed in August and put on leg braces to support my weakened legs.
It took a year for my legs to get strong enough to take the braces off. But I thought my increased height was worth the 1 year period of having to keep the braces on. When I was done with fixating the lower legs, it was my last year in high school. Now I had to study harder and take care of my health. After spending a year after the surgery, I didn’t have any discomfort other than feeling weak at times. But, I couldn’t run fast. Even though I loved sports and couldn’t run that fast, there were a lot of sports I could do so I was content. At the end of the year, I took the university entrance exam and got into college.
Kim Gwang-Hu
The word “limb correction” itself is hard to understand, but I had this hard surgery twice. With my knee as the focus, I had a surgery in the lower part during my freshman year of high school and the upper part in 2008.
From the moment I started walking, my legs were bowed and my body was weak. So my parents took me to the hospital since I was little. However, the doctors could not diagnose what was wrong with me. So there is not one thing I haven’t tried to grow since I was little. I tried hormone shots, I went to growth clinics and oriental medicine clinics. I even went to energy, spirit therapies, however, I still wasn’t as tall as the other children in my age.
In elementary school, I still had the hope to grow taller even though I was shorter than children my age. Some kids would make fun of my height but I was still as tall as the girls my age. So I didn’t have to deal with too much teasing. More than anything my teachers took good care of me and protected me.
As I entered middle school, I started comparing myself with the other kids who had started their growth sprouts, and I became more timid and my personality started to wither. My feelings became more disturbed as I hit adolescence. I think and the insecurity I had about my height was on its worst stage. Before I entered high school, my aunt had watched a TV program about a surgery that could make me taller and she looked for the doctor.
At that time the doctor had been transferred to the Korea University Guro Hospital and was getting ready to move to Seoul. Through my aunt and mother’s request, I was able to meet the busy doctor. I was extremely nervous at the time. After several examinations and talking with the doctor, we set the surgery date to be during my freshman year’s winter break. After that I entered high school.
There were not many kids who teased me in high school. Most kids had already gone through puberty and were busy worrying about themselves and applying to college. Most kids did not have time to mess with others and because of that I was able to adjust to high school quite well. Time flew by pretty fast and on my summer break, I went up to Seoul to be checked up. Fortunately, KTX, a high speed railroad, had opened for the first time and I was able to travel from Busan to Seoul in 3 hours. I was a little nervous and excited by the thought of being in Seoul for the first time. In Seoul, I was checked up and we waited for my surgery date. Our school was having a school festival on the day before the surgery and my teacher comforted me. I was thankful because other teachers also gave me courage. After that I received the date and I was hospitalized.
After the surgery, my mother and I got to talk a lot about Seoul in the 2-person ward. My mother told me to be courageous even though there was a rough time ahead of me. Also, we talked a lot about how many more centimeters I would grow. With that hope the day of surgery came. Perhaps because of the pressure I felt about fasting, I was not able to digest well but still I binged because I knew I had to eat plentifully. I was extremely nervous then.
In my head, it was a major surgery and from the night before when I got an IV, I could feel the horror. Normally, I would not be scared of injections because I was used to hospitals; but, that time I genuinely faced horror. I was going to have the surgery the next morning, but I could not fall asleep.
At 8:00 a.m., half asleep I thought, “It’s finally surgery day! What happens to me now?” as I was taken to the surgery room on a hospital bed. In the surgery room the doctor talked to me nicely to calm my nerves before the anesthesia kicked in. I fell asleep doing an impression of a popular comedian and that’s how the surgery started. I think the surgery took quite some time. When I felt that I was put in the recovery room after the surgery, my whole body shook and I felt chills. I felt like my mind was awake but I didn’t sense pain. I guess I was not fully awake from the anesthesia yet. I thought it was a major surgery because I had gone in in the morning and had come out of the surgery room at night.
However, how did my mother feel as she was waiting outside the room? Two days after I became conscious, I heard my mother telling people around her “I cried because he came out of the surgery so late and I prayed to God that he would come out safe and sound.” I also felt sorry and for some reason it made me cry too. My life in the hospital started this way and it was definitely not easy.
I had no strength on my legs and couldn’t use my legs, so going to the bathroom and this was very difficult and inconvenient. So I was anxious during eating and had indigestion problem. The days didn’t pass by that peacefully because I felt that I causing inconvenience to other people. Every patient in the hospital was in pain and was uncomfortable so I wasn’t the one causing them harm, but I don’t know why I thought that way then. My life in the hospital passed by this way, with which I had my mother to depend on every day.
Still, everyone I met in the hospital was good people. Because everyone in the hospital was in pain, we relied on each other and shared information about the food and the life in the hospital. They became companions whom I could talk to. There was a 1-year older hyung (an older brother who is not necessarily related to family) who was hospitalized next to me so I didn’t feel too lonely at the hospital. If it weren’t for the people around me, I think life in the hospital would have been harder. However, on the weekends I did feel a bit lonely. Because I was from Busan, not a lot of people could come and visit me in Seoul. Seeing other patents always have visitors on the weekends made me feel lonely. When I was in pain, I felt the significance of people around me and I missed them. That was when I felt that humans cannot survive alone.
One time I got correction from the hospital maybe because my legs didn’t fit right. Even though I had received anesthesia, the correction process still gave me excruciating pain. I can’t explain how painful it was when the anesthesia was going away. I had to put a handkerchief in my mouth and bite it to go through the pain. That day, the lunch menu was samge tang (chicken stew) but because of the pain I didn’t even want to eat any. It was so painful that I could not fall asleep each night and I cannot count the number of painkiller shots I had. Later on the pain was so severe that I could not sleep even though the painkillers.
Each and every day I had to live through the pain. But I started getting on my own feet with the fixator on my legs. I slowly started walking with the help of a device that made me walk with crutches and exercises that made me use my leg muscles. It was quite interesting that I could move with such device. It was easier to move the lower part of my leg. But I think my thighs were stronger than my calves. I was hospitalized for four weeks, and then I left the hospital with the fixator. I was scheduled for outpatient visits.
Being home was the best. The pain at night reduced when I slept at home rather than in the hospital. The joy of being with my family was really the most effective painkiller. The television was also a great painkiller that helped me forget the pain. I usually fell asleep while watching television.
Around the time fixation was going to completed through outpatient visits, we heard surprising news. It was that I had to receive another surgery for my tendon. My ankles were not able to keep up. Oh no! Leaving my ankles tied eventually resulted in impaired ankle tendon.
So I received a second surgery. Fortunately, the surgery was done after fixation had already been done and while I was in the waiting stage for bone union. In my memory, the tendon surgery was also quite painful. I was taken aback by the newly inserted fixators and the fact that I was about to get used to walking with the fixator. Around the time the pain was going away, I asked the doctor to take off the fixator. So after a week, the fixators were removed from my feet and I was discharged. The tendon surgery was over, and now I was just waiting for bones to union. But schooling was a problem.
I had had surgery in the winter and now it was past spring and going towards summer. In that situation I had to return to school. However, because the semester had changed, I had no idea about the books, my teacher, or where my classroom was. So my parents and I discussed that I would be going back to school with my braces on. With the help of teacher from the previous year,, I was able to find out who my sophomore year teacher was. After I got her contact number, I called her to find out which books I needed and where to go for class. Like so, I returned to high school as a sophomore.
The first bath I took in order to go to school
Thinking about going back to school gave me the feeling that I smelled and that I needed to take a bath. So we decided to wash only my upper body. I left my legs outside the bathroom and lied down while I was washing my upper. Because I was afraid of water touching the operated area and causing inflammation, I covered my legs in big plastic bags. That bath felt very refreshing. For months I hadn’t washed properly. The only way I could clean myself was with a wet towel. After taking a slightly more proper bath, my body felt lighter. My mother made a pair of pants that covered my legs. SO on my way to school, I wore the normal school uniform shirt and the pants that my mom had made for me. I attended school delightfully.
Putting studying aside, I was nervous about returning and seeing all my friends again. I life routine changed because of school. Because my mother had to go to work I woke up early and got ready for school. I packed my lunch from home because the cafeteria was located too far. So in the morning my mother would pack my lunch and I would wash my face and brush my teeth until my mother came to wash my hair. Because the bathroom floor was slippery, my father helped me to carefully hold onto the sink with one hand. With the other hand I brushed my teeth waited for my mother to come to wash my hair.
After I was done getting ready, my father drove me to school whenever he was not busy. But I usually took a taxi to school. It was around 7:20 when I arrived at school, which was fairly an early time to be at school at. But because my mother had to be at work by 8:00 a.m. and I couldn’t move so quickly, we had to move that early.
My classroom was on the third floor in an old building going so there was no elevator I could use to go upstairs. Anyways, I had to get to my classroom. My mother or teacher helped me with the crutches and I concentrated only on climbing up the stairs. The safest way to go up the stairs was to hold onto the handrail tightly and walk up sideways one step at a time. Because of the pain, I was more concerned about going up safely rather than going up quickly. I went into classes, but as I expected, listening to lectures was not easy.
During lunch time, all my friends went to the cafeteria and I sat alone in the classroom with my packed lunch. I have no complaint about eating lunch there. My friends often brought me fruits or food that was especially good from the cafeteria. I was extremely thankful to my friends. Like so, I spent my days going to school and going to the outpatient clinic. When summer break arrived, my fixator days came to an end. I thought the more times I went to the outpatient clinic, the more I would get repaid with increased height. So I was full with a sense of accomplishment, not so much of pain. I had the fixator removed in August and put on leg braces to support my weakened legs.
It took a year for my legs to get strong enough to take the braces off. But I thought my increased height was worth the 1 year period of having to keep the braces on. When I was done with fixating the lower legs, it was my last year in high school. Now I had to study harder and take care of my health. After spending a year after the surgery, I didn’t have any discomfort other than feeling weak at times. But, I couldn’t run fast. Even though I loved sports and couldn’t run that fast, there were a lot of sports I could do so I was content. At the end of the year, I took the university entrance exam and got into college.