2023-08-07 09:00:22
“I feel like if I could do this, if I could use the fear and the feeling of constant pain to achieve something that I wanted so badly, I can do anything…Now there’s no stopping me.” With a winning smile, Martín Saldaño (34), from Buenos Aires who has lived in Germany for a decade, says he is going through the most important moment after an aesthetic operation that changed his life.
Saldaño all his life denied his height of one meter seventy. It was never a trauma, he emphasizes, but something that frustrated him at different stages of his love and social life. “They never bullied me, I want to make it clear… Yes, some couples I’ve had have at some point highlighted my height, so when I had this opportunity I didn’t miss it, even though my environment was not in favor of it,” says the Argentine who works in the marketing area of a technology company in the city of Colonia.
At the end of 2022, Saldaño traveled to Istanbul, Turkey, to undergo surgery that would allow him to be taller. “I had read a lot about this stretching process known as LONthat means bone lengthening on intramedullary nail and that applies a manual extension technique”. It is a completely different type of surgery than the implant in the heels that Ricardo Fort underwent to gain 3 centimeters.
Martín Saldaño before and after, together with the owner of the Turkish clinic where he was operated on. The person next to him also had the same surgery, but added 20 centimeters.
He plunged into the subject and there were several companies that seduced him: in Spain, Cuba, Poland, Germany and a couple in Turkey. “Finally, I chose her to carry out the process with the LON method in a specialized and renowned center in Istanbul. Why did I choose that one? For the professional quality, personal support that I felt from the beginning, but also for a economic issue“.
What did the lengthening surgery consist of?
The intervention, which lasted 4 hours, was not easy at all: it required cut the femur in half, with a transversal cut, which left an upper and a lower femur. “In that opening, a telescopic device is inserted that connects both parts -says Saldaño-. The body, believing that it is a fracture, ossify the area And after a while, the separation of both femurs stretches 1 or two millimeters per day, depending on the bone reaction.”
Martín Saldaño, next to his walker, in the gym of the Istanbul clinic to strengthen the weakness of his legs in the first weeks of surgery.
After the first ten days, he increased 1 centimeter and three months after the surgery he achieved the goal of 10 centimeters, thanks to good bone regeneration. “Throughout the entire process it is essential to work on the soft tissues with physiotherapy and train focusing on flexibility and strength exercises to make it easier for the body to adapt to the new measures.”
Finished the stretching process is carried out other surgery to remove external fixators used for the daily extension method, and for the re-education of the bone itself -there is no external implant- and of the soft tissues (muscles) that must accommodate the new height.
After a year a review is made to clean the area and notice how the body finished regenerating. If everything is in order, the new bone reacts naturally.
Saldaño took a week’s vacation to undergo surgery and “be involved in the recovery and prescribed medication to ease the pain, something that would not be easy.” He then stayed in the Istanbul clinic for three months. “There is also a specialized hotel and gym sector there, which is why I decided to stay there, in case any inconvenience occurred. On the other hand, since my work does not require face-to-face attendance, I could respond remotely.
Martín Saldaño, in Istanbul, together with the doctors and nurses who supported him on a daily basis. “Recovery was easier with them.”
Regarding the stage after he left the operating room, he acknowledges that “it was uphill”, but he remarks that “there was nothing that was not in the plans”. She assumed the risks and was always clear that it would be difficult months. “But who takes away my happiness? A happiness that allowed me to bear the pain. Because suddenly you live with constant pain for monthsbecause the body feels strange and suffers a lot”.
However, he stresses that “the situation was always under control. It was never an impossible situation. I was medicated with painkillers and when they were not enough they prescribed something more powerful. The doctors at the clinic said that I was an ideal patient and I must thank you. There are people who interrupt the procedure, due to the stress caused by the pain that gets out of hand.”
Faced with a possible “fear of suffering”, Saldaño dismisses it out of hand. “No, not at all. My only fear was to get to Istanbul and regret it, because they told me that going back could happen.” Costs of the whole process? He says that he paid 35 thousand euros. “I requested a loan from the bank to repay in six years. I pay about 300 euros a month that does not affect my daily economy.”
Martin Saldaño, in black, already operated and with his brand new 1.80m, next to an image of him (in white) before being operated on, when he was 1.70m tall.
“Feeling of Success”
The determination to have the operation was “an aesthetic issue living in Germany, because if I had stayed in Argentina I would not have done it. Here -she talks to Clarion from Cologne- the average height of the male is 1.80 and I felt like a bump from the floor”.
Saldaño lived some non-traumatic experiences, perhaps frustrating. “It happened to me from having meetings with girls via Tinder and more than once I read that they made their demands after a first meeting: ‘the man has to measure more than 1.75’. Knowing that I am now above average and that because of my height I look even more attractive makes me take the world ahead of me, I experience it as a sensation of success, of triumph”.
He always longed to be taller and never imagined that he could achieve it. “Although I did not experience it as a trauma, I admit that I never liked that physical characteristic, but I had a good life until the operation. Since I have lived in Germany, I have noticed that the height issue has a greater aesthetic value. I wouldn’t want to read that a traumatized Argentinean stretched out his prawns because it would be a lie… The most important thing here is the technological noveltythe unthinkable possibility that opens up to short people”.
Martín Saldaño, together with his mother Nora, on his recent trip to Buenos Aires last June.
At one point in the conversation with ClarionSaldaño accepts “to be a little strange or not simple at all” for having submitted to a volunteer Butcher shop. “What do I want to say? That my decisions are not monocausal, nor do my interpretations of the facts focus on a single factor. I can’t tell you that there was only one reason for the operation, although it is easy and striking to classify it as ‘an aesthetic issue’. Not at all”.
“Nor can I tell you that my empowered state of mind is only due to being 10 centimeters taller, but I am also aware that there is not only a feeling of success and triumph, but an improved self-perception, which makes me more successful now when dating the opposite sex.
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