[fuzzy]

Hello Maria, I have read about you buying 3 seats to travel by air. I have tried that and it was simply not enough. I need to lie totally flat, legs straightened out to get relief and refuel for more. That is still that way but I recover much faster. 15 minutes flat really gives relief to make it some longer in a sitting position. Impossible before, needed 1 hour then lasted 30 min.. So luckily I got business class (frequent flyer miles)for this flight over and back and can confirm again I am so glad I managed to to that rather then buying 4 (in the middle !!) seats. By turning the seat all the way back and then padding the foot rest and then laying my legs *on top* of the foot rest with my feet hanging over the end of the foot rest I managed faily well coming over as I was basically flat. Still I am worried a little about that flight back in 2 days but I think I will be fine but I am so glad I did not have to make the return trip at 2 week!

The bone graft. I am very skinny and my bone values are not so good at T-2. It seems Zeegers had no concerns with that and actually the upper hip area turned out to be pretty good density wise. By feeling along the top of the hip bone I can clearly feel a hole in it, where the bone was taken but the pain at this site is very low now, just need to keep pressure of it sometimes.
My back pain is 0, nil there is only the leg troubles whcih seem to be improving and I am not stiff at all, unlike before. I have to be downright careful. Before when standing the pain would rise fast and my back would get really stiff to move to a new position weather to sit or worse getting up. These problems are much less now.

I don't remember if I wrote this but I drove a car for 1.5 hours. This was impossible before. Now the pain was stable and not increasing and my feet were much better with the strong pain in my right leg gone. Quite a bit of discomfort (main be pain 3 to 4) in my lowerback but manageable. After the drive I had to get out very carefully but was moving fine with no after effects after 5 minutes, pain in low back went away right away after getting out of the car! This was on NO painkillers, at 4 weeks post surger.

I really do feel lucky this is turning out so well and Dr Zeegers is a magician.