Quote from: ghkid2019 on July 01, 2020, 11:57:42 AMI am sorry all this happened to you unicorn. When you started the surgery I was in middle school. Today, I have graduated highschool and your recovery is still pending. Surely this will be the last procedure you need? Bone graft to fill in the gap in legs? Hopefully you will recover, and need not to suffer any more
OPPORTUNITY COSTS
CONGRATS!!!🎉🎊🎈 Are you relieved? Happy to embark on your new journey? This was probably THE most exciting time of my life, flying the coop and going to college. If anyone had asked me to jump, I'd have said How High? (Debbie Gibson song... very telling of my old age 👵🏻).
Last procedure? Maybe not. In the best case scenario, this could be the 2nd last surgery. Even if everything heals and fuses perfectly on the right leg, I still need to remove the Guichet stainless steel nail from my left leg because it has already proven to slough significant metal debris and cause contamination of the bone and soft tissues on my right leg. It's just that due to the severity of my current condition, the mere thought of removing a fully fused left leg nail is pure luxury (risk of fracture at removal because the Guichet nail is slightly too big for my asian femur diameter. Hence, while fused, my cortices are appallingly thin).
Your observation about the huge milestones you passed in the last 4 years is poignant. Because in contrast, my life was paused on every level, I achieved nothing in this entire time and the quality of life deteriorated with each passing year. I feel like Job in the Book of Job (not Steve) but the poor dude definitely lost way more cattle than my one cat. So he did suffer a worser fate than me and I'm probably taller than he'd be today, so that's some consolation 🥶
That said, an interesting analogy to your remark is this. While 4 years would have represented 1/4 of your entire life, which is too much to lose at such a crucial age, it only robbed 1/10th of my life. So anyone planning to do LL should really consider the risks of having their lives put on hold for way longer than expected. It's one of the key risks to factor in alongside reserve funds, doctor, internal/external, femur/tibia, support network etc etc etc.
Why do I say this? Because without sufficient reserve/repair funds, if you run into trouble, very few people would be willing to help you. Even in the UK, it was a long shot to be accepted at the NHS because I voluntarily inflicted this on my healthy body, cosmetically, privately and foolishly. So, don't expect charity from anyone who's never considered/done LL. The world is not that sympathetic to our plight. To many, it’s a first world problem of the privileged few.
Same thing, missing out 1/4th of your life at such a critical juncture (high school, university, career, marriage, children etc) poses life-changing opportunity costs. If someone goes through LL between high school and university, and their life is frozen for several years... the impact it'll have on their fate is definitely more significant than it is for me in my 40s.
Remember that last scene in Back To The Future when Michael J Fox helped his teenage father overcome his bully? It was a life defining moment like many things are at your age. And the impact was huge, propelling his life to change 180 degrees from literally 'poor dad' to 'rich dad'.
At my age, while the opportunity costs are way less critical than yours, my biggest regret of these 4 years is my loss of ability to have children. While I was already at 11:59pm of my biological clock when I started LL, I was still hoping to meet someone, get married and have a family... or at least manage the one part I can control, have my own kid.
This is the opportunity cost of pivotal timing that I had colossally underestimated, doing LL surgery in 2016. I foolishly lapped up all of Guichet's fast track 3-months sales pitch instead of wisely assessing the long-term consequences should things go horribly wrong. Like in a Sliding Door moment. (another old movie 👵🏻).. I could be a happy single mum today having chosen to have a baby on my own in 2016 vs becoming taller albeit crippled in every way. It's this one lapse of judgement that will forever taint my life.
So today, I brace myself for the harsh reality of 'not having anything at all' (vs the smug aspiration of 'having it all'). Even if I could biologically conceive a baby at this age and poor health, I can't even afford to feed it. Alone, I'm merely surviving on £40 per week of groceries and making ends meet to pay my monthly mortgage to avoid becoming homeless too. Everything else is really optional. My eBay site literally lists everything I own at 50% off because nothing in there could heal me any sooner.
Anyway, not to drag you through my pity party, I'm just making a point that timing to do LL is just as crucial as having enough reserve funds for repairs. Just because the opportunity costs could be damning high and we end up metaphorically ‘paying’ for our mistake for the rest of our lives. Think Poor Dad, Rich Dad...
