CarolE Jarvis

66-year-old Carole is back ballroom dancing, swimming and going to the gym after her Unicompartmental knee replacement operation.

20 years ago I broke my right leg in an accident, and the knee had become progressively more painful.  I had cortisone injections in to the knee, and I was using a "Tens" machine in the last month or so to cope with the pain of walking. I had to cut down on my dancing and had completely given up walking for pleasure, which I used to do a lot. I did keep working in the gym to strengthen muscles around the knee, but with non-weight bearing exercises only.

The operation was on 13th May 2003. The physiotherapists got me walking the next day with crutches, and doing exercises, and I left hospital with one stick four days later. I was able to walk short distances slowly, without the stick, and I drove the car a week later and did some shopping in Tesco's.

The clips were in for 10 days and after that I returned to the gym to do some exercise.  By now I was no longer using a stick, and swimming was just possible - not much kicking with the right leg to start with, but it improved daily and within a week was getting stronger. I used Arnica (homeopathic cream) on the bruise and scar and they soon got smaller. After about 3 weeks, they were hardly noticeable and I started dancing again. It was good not to have the pain, but to begin with the muscles needed strengthening and the constant hour-long activity of a dance lesson proved too much at this stage!

We went on holiday to Switzerland in late July/early August 2003. This was a great success. I did quite a lot of walking including one easy 5 mile walk on level paths and two steep alpine walks. All of these were familiar walks but I could not have contemplated them prior to the operation.  I managed these quite comfortably, if slowly. On August 1st I walked to the top of the Dent de Nendaz and back to the cable car – an ascent of 900 feet on mountain paths. The level walk of 5 miles was the following day, and on the 3rd August we walked down to another village and back up – very steep paths, the difference in altitude being about 900 feet once again. After that holiday I started dancing lessons again.

Without the operation, I would undoubtedly have had to give up dancing and weight bearing exercise. I don't know how I managed to live with the pain before the operation. I feel I have been given a new lease of life.