A New Year, A New Hip

So, it would, methinks, be fair to say that I have had a mixed relationship with my hips. To be fair, up until the last four years, we have all got on very nicely. After all, we grew up together, enjoyed early sports, matured through school and the salad days of early life, went through university together, then started the road to work.

To be honest, for decades, no problem at all; if anything, we both embraced the tough, flexible, bendy, demanding world of Shotokan Karate. I suppose that if you think how many hours, weeks, months, years, and indeed decades that you put your body through the regular, tough, and repetitive stretches, kicks, stances, virtually all of which are quite low, when you train in karate, then on reflection, maybe it is no surprise that, as The Stranglers famously warbled, “Something Better Change”, released in 1977, when my young punk limbs were happy pogoing at the punk gigs in Birmingham, or spending hours training in the dojos of Sutton Coldfield and Digbeth.

So, let’s fast forward to Friday, 23 January 2026. It is 10 am and I find myself, for the third time lucky, in the reception area of the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in South Birmingham. Now, essentially orthopaedics is when your body starts to get older and becomes victim to “wear and tear”. Which is basically where the soft tissue starts to dissolve, so that means hard tissue starts to grind into other hard tissue. And bit by bit it gets harder and the pain escalates, and before you know it you are no longer the person you were.

Silly, taken-for-granted things like not being able to put your socks on. I dropped my car keys in Morrisons’ car park after going to the gym; I was just stuck. I could not reach out to pick them up. No one was near, so I just sat there helpless like a child until a chap walked up close enough for me to ask for his help.

So, I had gone from waking up one day with a funny feeling in my leg, to going to see a physiotherapist, to trying exercise that just made me hurt, to discovering by accident after a scan that I had advanced osteoarthritis. It slowly made life harder and harder, the pain escalated, and it affected everything that you take for granted.

Sadly, in my case, because of my extensive cancer treatment and dangerously low immune system, I have been unable to have my hip replacement until now. After cancellations on the original date (20 October 2024), which was stopped on the day due to an ingrowing toenail, which was an open wound and therefore too risky, the second cancellation was on 19 December 2025, when I was given a flu jab by my GP and guaranteed it would not get infected, and it did. So, my wonderful consultant assured me that he would get me back ASAP, and fair play, he did.

So, at 16:30 I went into surgery. I had my smock on and my plastic pants, and as much anaesthetic as I was allowed. Truth is I did not want to be awake, so that I found myself conscious enough to enjoy the sound of sawing and hammering that accompanies such surgery.

As ever, it was a delight to actually wake up. I have endured a few operations in my time, and two in particular where it was not at all sure that I was going to wake up at all, but delighted to report that I did.

I was then delighted to be moved into a private room rather than be put onto a four-person ward, so there I was, at last, operation done. For several hours I had no sensation at all, and then slowly it wore off. Within six hours I had sensation back in my feet and legs. I also had a 13-inch bandage covering the surgery. First thoughts were that, bit by bit, I noticed that there were two socks on the end of my feet, that there were basically clamps, and what happened is that every 10 seconds each clamp got tighter, to the point of pretty darn tight. There was then a 16-second delay and then the other foot started clamping again.

So, after two nights and three days of being in the peaceful solitude of my own rather nice room, I was advised that, due to a new patient, I was to be removed at once to a ward. Within five minutes I found myself in the company of three gentlemen. Pleasantries were made and they all seemed very nice, three older English gents like myself, each of whom had a tale to tell. All was OK until I noticed that two of the gents appeared to be hard of hearing, and as each bed had a TV attached to it, which meant that they had to have the volume on extremely loud. Now, in isolation, this would have been tolerable; however, by coincidence, they were both watching the same channel. So what you had was full-on volume coming from one bed, then a 15-second echo of the exact same programme. To be fair, it was awful, deafness in stereo. Luckily, the chap opposite me had on industrial ear defenders and, quite frankly, on reflection I wish that I had some.

However, to be fair, within an hour, having passed all my physiotherapy tests, both walking, turning, going up and down stairs, and in and out of bed, and all medical markers good, I was released into the night to start my slow recuperation.

On reflection, my care was first class. The staff were tuned in and very approachable, the private room was great and the food was excellent, the cleaning was zealous, and the quality of care was excellent. Overall, a great experience, and at last my hip was replaced, and I can honestly feel the difference already.

Now I need to keep up the daily improvement in my condition. I have been superbly well looked after by my special friend and the duty of care has been outstanding. Now all I have to do is get fixed on my left side and then do it all again on my right. NHS, bring it on. They are magnificent.