I Just Don't Understand

    I was going to title this piece "Parents Just Don't Understand" but I was afraid Will Smith would come to my house and slap me! You're an idiot! Hey, my mouse/rabbit/rat-killing friend! How are you? Long time no see! Well, if you wouldn't just pick up and leave for some exotic land all the time, maybe it wouldn't be "long time no see!" Unbelievable. I gotta tell ya, I get no respect. Anything constructive to say? Well, we REALLY don't care anymore, do we Boss? No, we don't, Sancho. But we'll leave that alone for now. 

    So as I sit here pondering what to write about and scouring the recent headlines, like; "American Power and the Multipolar Challenge"; "The Coming Israel-Hezbollah War"; "Your Appendix May Not Be Useless After All" (Seriously, I'm not making that up); and "Both Biden and Trump Contributing to the Declining IQ Scores of Americans!" (Okay, maybe I made that last one up.) However, one headline jumped out at me like Charlize Theron leaping into my arms! Moron... "The Men Paying To Be Taller: Demand For Limb-Lengthening Surgery is Soaring." Stop calling. I think we have a winner. And here are the opening 2 lines: "When Ryan (not his real name) arrived in Istanbul he was 5'7" - but when he returned to the UK he was 5'10". By having his legs surgically broken and then extended at the glacial rate of 1mm per day, he had achieved his target height." I have to be honest with you, I was just as shocked and confused at the "arrived in Istanbul" part, as I was the "legs surgically broken and then extended..." part. I kid you not boys and girls, the older I get the less I understand.

    "Ryan" left the United Kingdom to get taller. During his post-operative recovery he was immobilized in an Istanbul hotel room as a tiny new bone grew to bridge the gap formed by the surgery. There were regular therapy sessions with 20 other guys in this co-opted hotel room. "Some of them were screaming in agony," he recalls. Really?? Am I the only one who saw the classic film, "Midnight Express"?

    He paid 29,000 English pounds for the surgery that was pioneered to help soldiers recover from battlefield injuries. He knows this might sound irrational. But he said the procedure would cost even more in the United States, for the obvious reasons (at least to me, anyway) that it was safer and done by better doctors. Sort of a, "you get what you pay for," deal. But again, the main question still stands...Why?

    Well, Ryan seems to have had what a lot of men have. Something that only half-jokingly, and not completely accurately, is referred to as Napoleon's Syndrome. He talked about how his height-related insecurity began around the age of 16 while in college, and he started to notice many of his friends outgrowing him. "I remember feeling significantly smaller than my classmates, as if I was underdeveloped. There was a sense that I didn’t matter as much as the others and there was that something missing." This ongoing feeling of angst and low self-esteem led to anxiety and depression. "It just consumes you," he said. "You realize that there's something about you that's outside the standard deviation of people that you'd meet - and then you realize you can't do anything to fix it." So, instead of lashing out and trying to conquer Europe, Ryan decided to get taller. I suppose that's a good thing...sort of. But go figure. 

    Not soon after, Ryan read that cosmetic limb-lengthening surgery had been pioneered in the US at well over $130,000 a pop. This was something he just couldn't afford. So then he reads about how providers in Turkey, of all places, were outsourcing post-operative care and physical therapy to non-clinical settings (which is where the hotel comes in), that enabled providers to offer several versions of the same procedure at more affordable rates. 

    The medical people in Turkey have various levels for this procedure (as opposed to just the one high-tech version in the States). The first level is a duplicate copy of the US version. By implanting an extendable nail in the bone cavity (ouch), and then using magnetic sensors to lengthen it by remote control (OUCH!), it does away with the need for a bulky metal external fixator while also speeding up recovery and reducing the likelihood of infection, nerve damage, blood clots or the possibility of the bones not properly fusing. That version is about 45,000 British pounds.

    But (and there's always a "But"), if you're on a limited budget like our friend Ryan, you tend to opt for the lower-tech Lengthening Over Nail (LON) method that costs around 29,000 British pounds. This procedure DOES require that bulky fixation, which is wrapped around the outside of the leg and is attached to the bone through the skin with PINS (OUCH, OUCH!), making scarring and infections more likely. Now, hold on to your Apple Jacks kids, we're not done. This low-cost procedure also requires the patients to lengthen their limbs themselves by manually twisting a key in the metal fixation on four excruciating occasions throughout the day (BIG, BIG, OUCH!!!!!). C'mon...really?? Stop, Boss! You're killing me! When Ryan finally decided to do the less expensive procedure, he had sunk into a deeper depression and even though his girlfriend was horrified at the idea, she finally relented because she could see that Ryan was "at a breaking point, and he was going to do this no matter what I said." I guess that's love. In a weird, Dr. Kevorkian kind of way.

    Anyway, after the surgery Ryan remained in the hospital for five days maxing out on a cocktail of strong painkillers, morphine, antibiotics and blood thinners before being transferred to the aforementioned hotel. Personally, I would have demanded Strawberry Frosted Pop-Tarts and a gallon of milk! But that's just me. He considers himself one of the lucky ones, as he found the pain manageable. There are others who are not so lucky. A young man named Robert, who at the time was halfway through the 3-month process, was still hurting. "The pain is constantly there so I’m using painkillers. It stops you from doing anything like reading or watching films, but I sometimes manage to do some work on the laptop." By the time this is all over, Robert is hoping for 8 centimeters of growth. His full recovery will probably take nine months. He'll then switch from the wheelchair he has been in and graduate to crutches. Think about that, dear reader. Eight centimeters. Wow...

    Not surprisingly, this procedure is not really regulated. And there are unscrupulous doctors everywhere popping up in places like Mexico, India, and even Iran. Really? Iran? Raise your hand if you'd fly to Teheran for a procedure like this? I didn't think so. Needless to say, orthopedic surgeons everywhere have found out that there is a lot of money in this surgery and demand is soaring. Let me repeat that for those of you on the West Coast. "Demand Is Soaring!" For what? To be a few inches taller??

    But back in Iraq, a woman by the name of Makbulijana Haruni is the local patient welfare coordinator. She says they get dozens of inquiries a week. A WEEK! She explains that most requests are rooted in the desire to project more confidence, power and status at work. "We see a lot of businessmen who say I’m in a senior position and need to lead teams of people but with this height I’m not able to do this," she says. "People believe that if they are taller, they will be heard more, or more likely to be considered for promotions because they’re taken more seriously." Her main concern is trying to screen out patients with body dysmorphia. Haruni contends that body dysmorphia can be treated more effectively by therapy and antidepressants; surgery would be futile. And patients have to pass a pre-surgical psychological assessment to be eligible for the operation. She increasingly has to reason with patients demanding growth of more than 6-8 cm from the procedure, even though that escalates the risks of potentially life-changing complications.

    But again...Why? Well, as far as I can tell based on what I've read, the reason is something called "heightism." An American sociologist named Saul Feldman coined the term in the 1970s and said it's an unconscious bias that is hiding in plain site. Boss...Why is it that all of these things are always "hiding in plain site"? And to combat this last socially acceptable form of discrimination, he called for a "sociology of stature." It seems that over the past half century, researchers have been amassing an imposing body of research, with international studies showing that being tall correlates not just with enhanced educational outcomes, social mobility, romantic success, and acquisition of leadership positions, but a better quality of life in general." Elsewhere, anthropological studies across cultures consistently show that taller stature is linked to increased social status. Although the reason why is unclear, there is a lot of evidence to support the interpersonal dominance theory — that we’re more likely to defer to the judgement of taller people because they are more likely to win a physical confrontation. When, for instance, the journalist Malcolm Gladwell was researching how we unconsciously form erroneous first impressions for his book Blink, he found that 58% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were above 6 feet even though only 14% of men in the general population were that tall. On the other hand, if I may interject a personal viewpoint - I personally know plenty of men, under 5'7", who are successful, well-off financially, HAPPILY married, can play the piano better than I do, and don't give a flying f#%& how tall they are! And even more to the point, remember the great MASH episode where Radar is tired of being made fun of because he's short, so he sends away for some ACME elevator shoes? Then Hawkeye walks by and says, "Radar, either you got taller or the camp is shrinking." One thing leads to another and Hawkeye finally says, "Radar, some guys are 10-feet tall, only their bodies don't know it yet." Maybe these people need to watch a little more American TV. But I digress.

    Well, now. Is heightism hardwired into our brain? I don't know. I'm not that smart. And trust me, when I first read about all this, I really wanted to make fun of these guys. Go through all of that for a couple of inches? Really? (Go ahead, insert your own off-color sex-joke here, gentlemen!) But what this DOES say to me in an unnerving kind of way, however, is that everything I've read lately about the whole biomedical brave new world and the endeavors of the trans-humanists, may actually be coming to pass. 

    I mean, we all know people who've had work done. Women who've had tummy tucks, lip enlargement or whatever the hell it's called, breast implants or even just breast touch-ups. Men who've done the face-tightening thing (like their female counterparts) where they've had their skin pulled back so tight they look like a Star Trek extra, and you could play "Wipe Out" on their cheeks with Swizzle Sticks! I get all that. Honest. And I understand this sort of procedure may make you feel better and someone might think they are ridding themselves of some prejudice that may or may not exist. But it can't re-engineer the invisible power dynamics in every room that has been crafted by millions of years of evolution. Is limb-lengthening just an extreme cosmetic procedure or is it the next step in the trans-humanist evolution like anti-aging or biohacking?

    Eighteen months after his surgery, and three inches taller, Ryan has transitioned from just below average height to just above. We'll let him have the last word. "I just feel that I'm a default person now with my own attributes who can no longer be as easily dismissed," he says. "It forces people to engage with me for who I really am." 

write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com