A couple of weeks ago I received a call from Mr John O'Donnell, the surgeon who performed my
ligamentum teres reconstructive surgery in May 2015. He was doing follow-up calls on everybody who had received the surgery to find out where they were up to, which was frankly amazing to me and totally unexpected.
Today is 4 years since my surgery so it's a good time to add a follow-up post to the
series.
The first thing I want to say is - I'm so glad I had this operation. It turns out I have a fairly high pain tolerance but when I think back to how totally uncomfortable I was, all the time... this is so much better. I've never had a single day of regret in the last 4 years.
In general today, I have full mobility and no problem with things like stairs, sitting, standing etc. I've previously attempted
jogging but I'm terrible at it so these days I see a personal trainer in a gym with experience in old ladies' hips(!!), use a cross-trainer and/or exercise bike at home, and I swim. Some of my movement is limited but that's mostly preventative, not because I can't do it.
The main ongoing issue has been muscular. I'm not sure how many years I favoured that left hip, but when I started seeing the PT in October 2018, and despite doing all the physio after the op, I was still favouring it, to the point where my left quad, hamstring and calf were visibly smaller than the right leg. I could stand on my right leg for several minutes, but on my left leg for only seconds before I started wobbling. This made me "crooked" and caused pain in lower back, knee, neck and a bunch of other aches and pains. My lovely PT has spent considerable time "evening things up", and now I'm starting to feel much more aligned.
I do have some ongoing issues with my left knee and in 2016 I went back to Amir, who sent me for an MRI and subsequently referred me to
Dr Jane Fitzpatrick. Initially I thought the
pain was due to the ligament being removed from there to use in my hip, but the MRI showed it was missing cartilage inside the patella (knee) which was causing that pain. Again, I don't do things by halves and apparently the hole in the cartilage is around 2cm, so now I visit Jane annually and have an injection of
Durolane which helps fill the hole for the upcoming year.
Damaged knees are a classic sign of wear for old netballers - "Netball Knee". Nowadays
Netball Australia has a whole program around preventing knee damage, but in my day you ran out on the bitumen courts wearing Dunlop Volleys and there was no thought to correct landing technique or anything else. I played netball from age 10 until my mid 30's so it almost certainly came from that.
This has made me consider the chicken/egg scenario - was I uneven before and this caused left hip/knee problems, or did a structural hip problem cause everything else? Did the bad knee cause the hip wear? Did the hip cause the knee? I have orthotics now - was it feet that caused it all? Who knows!
Anyway, back to the hip. If you're considering the surgery - do it! It was a long road and lots of pain and hard work but ultimately absolutely worth it. I can't imagine what I wouldn't be doing now if I hadn't had it.
