ARDLEY FAIR, I'D SAY... (The 360 days from slipping over to a hip replacement: a cautionary tale...)

 Ardley Fair, I’d Say…

The incident…

I like the trip to Ardley from Solihull, for it is so straightforward for me. After a couple of miles on the A34 there is a short drive on the M42, before joining the M40 which then provides a simple journey to within a couple of minutes of the stadium. There is ample parking and then a short walk to a corner entrance and the football pitch. 

In January 2022, the visitors to Ardley United were Risborough Rangers, a team unbeaten in the league for some time but on this dull afternoon, they slipped up. As did I…

As I strolled from the facilities, past the grandstand to the far end of the playing area, Rangers had been warming up and a couple of wayward balls had drifted well behind the goal-frame and into some bushes about twenty-five metres away. Risborough’s players had just exited the pitch to get ready to play the game itself when I noticed one of their coaches collecting spare balls in bags. 

I called to him and motioned that I would fetch the two balls I had spotted, which he thanked me for but I remarked, “As long as you don’t laugh your socks off if I happened to slip over…” but he failed to hear me. However he did thank me and I walked away with my small backpack containing my camera hooked over my right shoulder. I retrieved one ball and side-footed it towards the advertising hoarding to the left of the goal, where it stopped and so I thought that when I had collected the other ball I would lift it over the rail from which the hoarding hung to make it easier for the coach to pick up. 

Hence I dribbled the ball at walking pace to within maybe 15 metres of the rail and clipped a neat left-footer over the hoarding but I didn’t see it land because my right shoe believed it had trodden on a banana skin of ice-rink proportions. It slid on the damp grass and slightly muddy ground and I felt my body thrust backwards as my legs sailed forwards and upwards…

It really was a slow-motion kind of event because I knew I had to prevent my camera from jolting against the ground, so I recall gripping my bag tightly and almost certainly I turned slightly left as I landed and skidded across the mud, taking most of my weight upon my supporting left hand and the left side of my back. Shaken badly, my left hand and torso really hurt but there was mud caked down the back of my jacket and also on my jeans. I had spare coats in my car but it was near to kick-off time by then and I chose to put up with the discomfort…

The incredible thing was that absolutely no-one saw me fall and thus nobody enjoyed a hearty laugh at my expense…

NO-ONE SAW ME...

When the coach walked past me with his bags of balls I asked him if he had heard me say about not laughing if I slipped over when I returned the balls to him and he replied in the negative. So, I simply turned round to show him my mud-caked coat and jeans, at which point he just stared, open-mouthed…  

I survived the game, Risborough lost 1-0 and I drove home, quite stunned and struggling with my left hand, which felt badly damaged.

ARDLEY'S WINNING GOAL HAS JUST FLOWN IN BUT THE GRASSY AREA BEHIND THAT NET IS WHERE I FELL...

The aftermath…

Having previously suffered some occasional pain around the left hip area, whilst lifting suitcases into the car or perhaps bending whilst gardening, for example, problems which usually eased within a day or so, I began to feel pain just below the groin on my left leg. 

My hand had been heavily bruised but surprisingly no bones had been broken but the leg pain refused to abate, so I began to wonder whether it wasn’t muscle damage at all but that something else was wrong and eventually I did the sensible thing and sought medical advice but that in itself was rather a problem, as it still is for many, many folks. 

The first appointment…

However, finally on 28th March I was offered an appointment with a GP at my local surgery but when I turned up to see him, I was mildly aghast to see that he was dressed ready to cycle home and his bicycle rested against a wall in his room…

He spoke with me, asked me to lie upon a couch and moved my legs about, then decided quite categorically that there was no back or hip problem but that I had just injured muscles in my thigh. He did suggest a gel for pain relief and perhaps some physiotherapy. 

However, I tried to manage and carried on as usual with walking and some exercise-biking but in truth there was never any improvement. Eventually, on 12th July when I attended my eight-weekly blood test appointment with a nurse at the practice, I mentioned my continuing thigh problem to her and she immediately made a phone appointment for me for the following day. She was concerned and I thought that if only the GPs at the surgery had been able to show such genuine concern, perhaps the correct diagnosis might have been made rather more quickly…

The telephone appointment…

After explaining about my symptoms to the GP during our phone-consultation on 13th July, I told him that I was favouring my right leg for support whilst walking, even though my right knee was arthritic. I was suffering some pain in that knee therefore and quite suddenly he began to offer me injections in my right knee… In the end, my frustration with his continuing insistence about needling my right knee must have displayed itself by my rather irritated attitude towards him. Did he not get me, as they say these days? Was he wearing his cycling togs again? It was some kind of improvement to my left thigh/hip area I needed, not some superfluous attention to my right knee… 

However, he suddenly became quiet and then offered me an X-Ray and again suggested physiotherapy, which this time, I attempted to arrange but I was told that for an urgent appointment it would be a three or four month wait… I was shocked. Who wouldn’t be? 

The X-Ray which was done on 26th July showed osteoarthritis in my left hip… 

I needed some physiotherapy and I would soon be very grateful to a local dog-walker, Striding Dave, who noticed my limp and alerted me to a private practice in Northfield, Birmingham.

I paid to see the guy on 17th August and of course he knew immediately that my thigh wasn’t the problem at all and during a second session with him, eight days later he suggested that I paid for a scan on my hip area, for he thought maybe I would need a replacement joint there.

The result…

The scan was fixed quickly and on 1st September I drove to Knowle for the pleasure of releasing more than £200 for the treatment and although the scan was not too much of a pain to endure, the result was clear: I needed a new hip…

I saw the physio’ on 7th September and we looked at the images of my scan on his computer, which confirmed the diagnosis even to my eyes.

In truth, the osteoarthritis had been in the area for a while, hence the occasional pain in my lower left-back area when having to jog across a road, or perhaps when working in the garden, or even lifting suitcases into and out of the car. 

After checking Parkway Hospital’s website about self-funding, I decided to pay for a hip replacement over sixty months but although I made a knee-jerk decision to seek an initial appointment there and was offered one for Saturday 10th September, I had cancelled it within 24 hours… 

I think I felt that because I was just about managing with the leg pain, then perhaps I could save myself a shedload of money by joining the NHS’s waiting list. However, all I knew from a letter I had received from the NHS was that I was to await another letter offering a consultation appointment but that if I hadn’t heard by a certain date in early November, then I should ring the number provided. That second letter never arrived…

Decision made…  

I was eating my evening meal on Monday 31st October when I simply admitted that I couldn’t deal with the waiting any longer and that I needed some kind of ‘quality of life’. A delay of perhaps 18 months to two years before hip surgery would not be helpful to a 72 year-old, I felt…

Hence I called Parkway the following morning and an appointment with Mr Makrides was offered for two days ahead, the 3rd November. The relief was palpable and the meeting with the Consultant proved to be so positive….

He looked at the images taken from my scan and was adamant that I needed the operation and even offered me surgery later in November…

However, I had two Cornish holidays booked before Christmas, one for bodyboarding at Mawgan Porth in November, possibly the last time I might be able to do that activity and another break near Christmas in Mousehole.

The Mousehole pre-Christmas break would involve losing money if it had been cancelled and so the Doc told me that his secretary would call me the following day to agree an appointment for January.

She did…

The 10th January 2023 was booked, I arranged the finance and although mentally, I gradually lost control of any optimism about my plight, I body-boarded successfully at Mawgan Porth and liked Moushole, as usual, pre-Christmas…

The strange pre-op days… 

On Sunday 8th January 2023, I managed 10k on the exercise bike at the toughest resistance, which felt fine but then walked in Chipping Campden after lunch with some real difficulty, resulting in an inability even to put any weight on my left foot for the remainder of the day.

It was just about the same on Monday 9th and naturally, the heavy limp was noticed when I entered Parkway Hospital for surgery on Tuesday 10th…

A YEAR ON & MY FIRST WALK AFTER THE HIP REPLACEMENT...