Author: Proteinlevine

This is my experience with osseointegration. More to come

First 5 days in the hospital

I don’t think spending time in a hospital as a patient is ever fun. Besides having surgery and being in a decent amount of pain, you completely get taken out of your daily patterns and bodily rhythms like sleeping, eating, exercise, etc. I couldn’t wait to get home and get back to some normality.

The first 5 days in the hospital for me consisted of managing pain, doing 15 minute sessions of bone loading, taking meds, and trying to get more than 2 hours sleep which never happened. Not my idea of a good time, luckily I had some visitors and my wife was there every opportunity she had.


Carolyn caught me in a rare moment of resting
The doctors probably would have advised against this but i was losing my mind a bit and needed to move a little.

Time to start re-building

Here I am doing my first session of (bone loading) the next day after surgery. This type of rehab is started as soon as possible in order to rebuild bone density in the leg that received the implant. I haven’t put any weight on my right femur in over 14 years because i have been using the standard socket that all amputees use to walk. The typical socket squeezes the limb from the sides and doesn’t put pressure on the femur causing the bone to lose density and weaken over time.
Here I am leaning some of my body weight onto a scale in order to incrementally add weight to the bone. I started at 25lbs of pressure and the goal was to add 5 lbs a day for 15 min, 3 times each day. Surprisingly I barely felt the pressure, but I was also on pain meds at the time.
This is the pad attachment that i used for the bone loading. It connects to the end of the implant using an allen key.

Dec 3rd, About to go into the OR

This photo was taken 8 weeks ago as I am waiting to be taken into the operating room. It was without question one of the most anxious moments I ever experienced in my life. I just wanted to wake up and hear that everything went great and its time to start learning to walk again.

14 years ago when I first lost my leg, I quickly learned to accept that having only 8 inches left of my right leg meant dealing with discomfort from a prosthetic. I personally was not interested in crutches or a wheelchair.

I Made it!

This was my view for the week at HSS in New York City where i had the surgery done, not a terrible view.