I Broke Both My Legs to Become 2cm Taller

Despite my Scandinavian surname, my body emerged from adolescence a statistical anomaly — 174.9 cm, a full centimetre below the average height of a British man. 

For more than a decade, I’ve endured the judgment of others, the cruel jab of their chins as they look down to meet my gaze. Height-advantaged people will never understand what it is like to spend a lifetime being the punchline of jokes, first at school and then at the office. By the age of 34, I never went out, and couldn’t take it any more.

Here Comes Reddit

In the Reddit forum r/short, amongst the never ending torrent of complaints, I notice a user mention he is having a leg-lengthening surgery and will soon be leaving the group. 

I dig into the details — a leg lengthening operation comes in at around $200,000 (£150K) in the UK, an unthinkable sum. But overseas it can be performed for only $20,000. 

Spend 6 months in Turkey, and come back 2cm taller, why not? Thanks to technology and what they call ‘globalism’, the clinic in Turkey uses the same equipment and LON method used everywhere else, and with even better 24-hour nursing support during recovery.  

Their marketing literature assures me the incremental stretching of my broken femurs will add 2 cm, bringing me to a respectable 176 cm, over the magic hump that divides the world into tall and short.  

In the 1800s, strivers would ride a horse like Napoleon, or wear an impressive hat like 5’6” Winston Churchill. In 2025, real men get their legs broken.

The Clinic

In a quiet suburb of Istanbul, Dr Demir Osman spends his days breaking short men’s legs. He must have been a sadist as a small boy. Now, he’s a small (of course) older man with a reassuring smile. The day I arrive, he explains the saws, wrenches, and wedges he will use to crack my femurs. It all resembles an episode of Black Mirror. Maybe my tingle of terror is common, because just at the moment I am about to run for the door, a kind looking nurse enters. 

“Aiyla,” Osman says, “please show Scott our recovering patients, miracles, every one of them.”  

After meeting a half dozen men from all over Europe, in plasters and crutches and appearing hopeful, I decide to ‘man up’, no pun intended, and make it through this.

A pamphlet declares. “Become the You Were Meant to Be!” in bold letters, above before-and-after photos of weak looking men, later transformed, striding confidently into boardrooms, their legs long enough to kick doors open. 

“Two centimetre? Pfft, we make you NBA star!” Dr Osman jokes. Aiyla hands me a waiver longer than my in seam. I sign it, trying to ignore phrases like “risk of nerve damage” and “spontaneous bone degeneration.” 

Like an astronaut waiting for takeoff, I am ready to reach the stars.

The Surgery

The operation room reeks of antiseptic, the aroma hitting my nostrils like a splash of vodka mixed with bleach.  Another nurse I haven’t seen before straps me to the gurney, her cold gloved hands insistent. Monitors beep erratically to the rhythm of my anxious heartbeat. 

Dr. Osman leans over me, mask muffling his encouragement: “Don’t worry. Relax, Scott. Soon, you walk like a giraffe.” 

An IV needle pierces my arm with a sharp sting. As the anaesthesia kicks in, the world blurs into the haze of fluorescent lights and blue medical garments. Turkish pop music plays from a tinny speaker—some upbeat tune with synthesizers and wailing vocals that clashes with the metallic clinks of the surgical tools being laid out. My eyelids grow heavy, my mind drifting away from the buzz around me.

In the blackness, fragments pierce through—distant echoes of bone saws whirring, a high-pitched grind vibrates through my skull, akin to being at the dentist but a million times worse. Sweat beads on my forehead even in unconsciousness, and even in my dream, a deep, throbbing ache pulses through my thighs.

Waking up is hell incarnate. My eyes fluttered open to blinding lights, throat raw and tasting like I’d gargled with sandpaper. Nausea roils my gut, bile rising as I dry-heave into a plastic basin Aiyla thrusts under my chin. Then the pain hits—a searing, viselike agony in both legs, as if they’d been run over by a truck. Looking down, I see metal braces encase my thighs, rods protruding like shiny skewers, skin puckering around the entry points with aggressive red swelling that throbs with every heartbeat. I can’t help but howl in torment.

Dr. Osman enters, his calm voice my only lifeline. “Success! Now, we will only need to turn these rods daily.” He then injects me with a dose of morphine.

I awake an eternity later, not knowing what time it is. Osman is there. He shows me a wrench and explains how to use it to expand the gap between my bones by 0.5 mm every 8 hours.

For weeks, recovery is a symphony of suffering while living in their sparsely decorated Istanbul clinic. Each morning, I wake against the sweat-soaked sheets clinging to my skin, until Aiyla comes to change them. Turning the rods is ritualistic torture: I clamp the wrench onto the exposed metal and twist—a half millimetre at a time. The bone stretches with a creak, bone and muscle fibres tearing microscopically, sending waves of nausea that make me gasp. 

The Curse of the Extra Centimetre

Three months later, I hit my target: 176 cm. I hobble through Istanbul on my crutches, expecting admiring glances. Instead, I find every shop has a doorway designed for hobbits. Bam! My head grazes the top of a doorway, sending brass trinkets crashing. The shopkeeper, a short man with thick eyebrows, glares at me disapprovingly. I flee, only to clip my forehead getting into a tram with a low ceiling. Passengers giggle as I clutch my throbbing skull.

I had become used to daily massages at the clinic. At a hammam, the masseur, a burly man named Murat, kneaded my legs with such force I feared they’ll snap again. “Why you do this?” he grunted. “Short is good. Less pain. Tall people, back problems.” I mumble something about confidence, but his words worry me.

I call a car to return to my Airbnb. I’m unable to fit my sore legs, into the back of his tiny Fiat and need to sit in the front passenger seat. As we go over a bump, my knees hit the dashboard, and I feel as if I’m back in Dr Osman’s house of pain. The driver must have noticed, as he declares deadpan, “Turkish people, not too tall.”

All Roads Lead to Leeds

By month five, I am relieved to be returning to Leeds. The city of Istanbul seems designed to punish my extra two centimetres. I can’t board a minibus without smacking my head on the door frame. A street vendor’s awning collapsed when I stood up too fast. Even prayer calls from the mosque feel like cosmic mockery.

One day, I check in with Dr. Osman, if perhaps someday, it would be possible to reverse the procedure. He chuckles. “No refunds, no shortening. You live with tall now.” 

I book a flight home, hopeful. I am happy to leave this traumatic experience behind me, and restart life as a tall man.

Upon returning, I am shocked to enter an empty house and discover my wife, Anne, has left. Being 5’2”, I told her I was doing this for the both of us. I am deeply disappointed she hasn’t appreciated my sacrifice. 

But this is the start of my new life, and I need to embrace it. After banging my head on the way in, I sit down at a pub and detail my journey to a reporter from the local newspaper who has been sent to chronicle it.

***

Local Lad Gets a Leg Up in Istanbul

- By Simon Baker, The Leeds Ledes

Simon Baker, a freelance journalist for TLL, accompanied Scott for a week as he went through his daily routine after returning from a life-changing leg-lengthening procedure in Turkey. 

On the first day I accompanied Scott (who appeared to still be suffering intermittent pain from the surgery), he introduced me to his life and the changes he felt, seeing everything around him 2cm shorter than it used to be.

Throughout the day. We frequently encountered an angry woman named Kate outside his workplace. A local dental hygienist, she and Scott had briefly dated. According, she has asked Scott why, if he’s so tall, isn’t he rich? She wouldn’t date a tall man who had less money than herself and asked if he could get a refund for the operation. She is resentful Scott misled her.

The next morning, at a Saturday work picnic, Scott’s coworkers asked him to join their volleyball game and cover the net. Whilst appearing happy to be able to reach the top of the net, Scott winced in extreme pain every time he landed from a jump.

Afterwards, we decided he needed a few beers. His mates at his local, the Pig & Whistle, bought me a pint and said they had nicknamed him “Lofty Loser” for his habit of smacking his forehead on the pub’s ancient oak ceiling beams every time he played darts.

Scott was looking for a job more suitable for a tall man. His trousers, tailored for his 174.9 cm self, exposed his ankles to the chilly Leeds drizzle. At the job interview, the hiring manager mistook his ill-fitting clothes for a “bold fashion statement” and rejected him for being “too trendy.”

On Thursday, at a Leeds speed-dating event, Scott’s height makes him stand out. A few women comment on his “towering presence,” but when he bangs his head on a low chandelier mid-date, they all pass, citing “clumsiness concerns.”

Back at his Leeds flat, as he stood up to grab a packet of crisps, Scott forgot his new height and caught his bouffant hairdo in an ancient, wobbly ceiling fan. Another scream. Luckily, his hair loss came after the dating event.

On our last day, at a family gathering, Scott’s mother, a sprightly 4’11” woman, demands he stop “lording it over us” with his height. When he bumps his head on her kitchen’s slanted ceiling, she cackles, “Serves you right for messing with God’s design!”

Afterwards, Scott showed me a question he had received from a BuzzFeed quiz. “Would you rather be short and happy or tall and miserable?” 

He tapped “short” without hesitation, laughing through his tears.