I'm a hip girl, not a knee girl!
I can't believe it's nearly 19 years since I last had surgery on my hips. I was born with hip-dysplasia and so my total hip replacement gave me a new lease of life. Good news is it’s still holding strong 19 years on.
But life brings us curved balls and this year, mine was learning that my walking was worsening not due to my hips, but because my right knee is too arthritic and unstable to hold me up. As I approach my 50th Birthday, my knee is saying “enough taking all the weight through this side!”
I’d felt the decline through the year. Where at the start of the year I could go out for 3-4 mile walks with my trusty poles, by late summer I was struggling to walk the half-mile into the town centre. When I’m standing to sing – my other passion - my knees lean on each other for support in an attempt to hold me up, and my shoulders, neck and calves ache from the strain. It feels like I’m slowly crumpling in on myself.
And so I have a right total knee replacement scheduled in January – subject to what happens with covid over Christmas of course.
As I prepare my body for surgery with physio exercises, I’m very conscious of what’s going through my mind. “I’m a hip girl, not a knee girl”
- First - and foremost - how will I be able to rely on my weak left side whilst my right side heals? For 50 years it’s been the other way around for a reason. I have started using my crutches to help reduce the pain and exertion, but it’s hard for my mind to switch sides, let alone my body. I know I have to unlearn to re-learn, but this is crazily mind-blowing!
- Secondly, what will it be like waking up in hospital without visitors? I’m very lucky to be having surgery right now, I know that. My partner and my sister will need to face-time me which will be weird. But most on my mind is that this is the first surgery I’ve had without my mum being there. Mum by my bedside pretending she’s not really crying, has been a constant through my many hospital experiences. She died a year ago and she’s on my mind a lot, even at my age.
- Thirdly, what if it doesn’t work, then what? This is obviously the biggest fear, the fear of losing my mobility for good. When I had my hip replacement it was the first time I had to sign my own consent forms with the risks of surgery laid out in front of me. It made sense of how hard it must have been for my parents, for years. This year, the stakes are higher signing consent forms to say I understand the many unlikely but possible risks from surgery, anaesthetics and of course covid. None of this puts me off having the surgery I need to get my mobility back, but it is making me somewhat nervous. At my pre-op assessment last week, it all started to feel a bit ‘real’.
Finally, what does all this mean for my virtual walking challenge to raise money for Steps? The last three months I have kept going, a mile (or sometimes less) at a time. I’m proud to have made it to the 200 miles marker (so I’d be somewhere in Northumberland on the Pennine Way but not yet into Scotland). But sadly, the last virtual section will need to wait until 2022. Feels like a good rehab target to me.
I will try to blog through the post-surgery rehab and share the ups and downs. Until then, thanks for all your support this year for Steps Charity this year – who really don’t take walking for granted.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.
Love Jill xx
Winter walks & wobbly hips
So the good news is I’ve now completed 41 miles of my virtual Pennine Way challenge. If I’d been walking the real trail, I’d be in Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire by now. But in lockdown-land I’m still doing my winter walks safely and locally in Walton on Thames.
My progress has been a little steadier than in my first week though, for two reasons.
First, I overdid some sweeping at home, and got myself out of alignment. For a few days I couldn’t move without severe pain in my knees, right hip (the real one, not metal one) and neck. Even my gentle yogic sun-salutations were too painful. Swimming in a warm pool is normally the best re-alignment – which of course is not allowed right now – but thankfully, visits to my osteopath are within the rules. My heart goes out to everyone who can’t exercise fully right now, and especially diff-abled people where their options may be even more limited.
The second reason was, of course, the snow. I love watching the snow fall and my partner will tell you that I turn into an 8-year-old giddy-kipper! My body, however, doesn’t compute. The fragile biomechanics lose their grip, and my fear of falling goes into overdrive.
I know I’m not alone in this. I was contacted by a new friend with DDH via the blog, whose hip dysplasia story is quite similar to mine in terms of childhood diagnosis. She commented that she dreads the snow for the same reasons.
I had my femur lengthened when I was 16 – very innovative at the time the surgery was done in the late 80s and for the first time I was straight if I stood still. It definitely helped my back, and also my singing (as I could use both sides of my lungs for the first time), but it meant that my orthopaedic surgeon couldn’t set my hips level 16 years later when I had my left hip replaced. And today, adds to the balance issues, as well as the unique gait.
So for a few days the closest a got was watching the winter walks series on the BBC i-player (well worth a watch if you want some calm and spectacular scenery).
In the last week, as the snow has passed, I’ve got back into stride on my own winter walks.
And I’m very thankful for them.
Jill Pringle was born with bi-lateral hip dysplasia. She is walking the virtual Pennine way to raise awareness of DDH and money for Steps Charity, whose motto is We Don’t Take Walking for Granted. You can support them, and Jill’s walk, on JustGiving here.
Virtual Walking Challenge: 16 miles imagining Edale to Crowden
In the last week since I set my challenge, I’ve walked 16 miles. A chunk of that last weekend, smaller walks each day in the week, and the final 3 miles this morning. I'm walking in Walton but imagining walking from Edale to Crowden on the Pennine Way.
If you have hip dysplasia then little and often is a good strategy (frankly even if you don’t). It keeps me mobile and stops my joints locking up, without too much pain. Right now, in covid lockdown, it’s also a reason to go out and get some fresh air every single day and get a digital detox.
I’m using my daily lockdown walks to complete a virtual Pennine Way – the oldest and most challenging national trail that runs from the Derbyshire Peak District up to the Scottish Borders. To help me, I’ve bought the trail-book by Stuart Greig that I’d use if I was actually walking there – so I can read and share where I would be after 16 miles.
The trail actually starts in Edale. I know Edale quite well and I can picture it clearly in my mind. My partner and I stayed just outside the village 3 years ago, but it’s somewhere we visited on Sundays from my childhood home in Sheffield. I once walked up to Jacob’s ladder as a teenager, but never made it all the way to the top. I remember my Dad talking about how easy it was to set off in sunshine only to have the mist roll in very quickly and you’re easily lost or stuck in a peat bog. I’ve written about Kinder Scout’s historic significance in getting us the Right to Roam before.
Today the Pennine Way takes you on an edge walk around Kinder Scout rather than right over the top and my walks along the river in Walton on Thames this week would have taken me right around Kinder, with amazing views of the dark peak’s famous gritstone outcrops. (in my virtual walk the weather is always sunny enough to see everything, unlike the reality of my foggy climbs on the South Downs Way).
Eventually, 9 miles in (so this Tuesday in Walton) I’d be crossing the Snake Pass. I know this road well, with its breath-taking bends and cliff-edge views that make it a favourite for bikers. My Dad was living at Lockerbrook Farm – high above the snake pass and Derwent dam – when my parents met, so it’s an area I cherish for more than its outstanding beauty.
The rest of my mid-week walks would have taken me just over Bleaklow Head, and so this morning, my 3-mile walk - which took me along the river from Walton past Sunbury Lock towards Hampton Court - would have been a much steeper descent down to Torside reservoir and then crossing the Woodhead pass to end in the village of Crowden. Somehow magically someone would have set up my tent in the campsite and I’d be having a cuppa and some ginger nuts right now with my boot-free feet on the grass.
Clearly, my walking has been much easier than the virtual trip I’ve just taken, as it’s predominantly flat and there are plenty of places to stop and sit, and I’m never that far away from home and a cat waiting to sit and relax on my lap. But it’s still walking – which not everyone can take for granted.
Thanks for following, for reading and to everyone who’s donated to Steps Charity in the last week. I’m so very grateful for your support!
Lockdown Walking Challenge: little and often on the virtual Pennine Way
I wholeheartedly support the need for another national lockdown until we are all covid-immunised and it’s safe to mingle again. My belief that it’s the right thing to do, didn’t however stop me from groaning as the local outdoor swimming pool closed last night and my next chance to unlock my joints swam away into the sunset! Well, maybe it’s my chance to set a lockdown walking challenge 2021.
I have been doing daily shorter walks around home – I usually take a walk at lunchtime or late afternoon for half an hour, to keep my joints moving and detach from tech for a while. In the first lockdown last year I used my hour a day outdoor exercise religiously.
This Saturday I walked with my trusty poles for 3.5 miles along the river. Caitlin has been doing her usual sterling job of keeping the BeaRCats community together virtually by getting us to pledge miles towards a team goal. This weekend we collectively smashed Lands’ End to John O’Groats by some distance and it was nice to play my part.
I’m definitely missing striding out in the open countryside. On New Years’ Eve I commented to my partner that I hadn’t recognised just how much walking the South Downs Way in 2019 had contributed to my mental health in that year. It gave me a big goal, a sense of purpose and helped me embrace @WalkingJill – the girl born with hip dysplasia – as a big part of my identity. It also helped me deal with my dad’s death that year and so when my mum died towards the end of 2020, I feel that I haven’t had the same outlet to process that she's gone.
The walking I’d done on the South Downs hadn’t just been about the physical action of one foot in front of the other. It was about connecting with nature, with my family childhood in the Peak District and ultimately with myself and my different ability. The national park was my own personal mindfulness app.
Since the lockdown state is likely to continue well into 2021, I feel the need to get more consistent about finding that walking rhythm and having that challenge to focus me.
In lieu of swimming I will have to use my wonky-yoga to try and manage the locked joints. And to do my lockdown walking miles this year in much smaller chunks without travelling.
Steps Worldwide’s work over the last 40 years reminds me that there are many people who can’t take walking for granted. 250,000 people are born with or develop a hip disorder every year. In 1971 I was one of them and I'm lucky that I can walk, just a bit differently.
I might not be able to use my right to roam the moors right now, but I can walk every day and I need to put that to some good.
So from tomorrow I’ll start logging my local daily walks towards a target of 268 miles – which is the length of The Pennine Way. It’s still my dream to walk it for real one day – the oldest and most challenging national trail from the Scottish Borders through Northumberland and Yorkshire down to the Derbyshire Peak District so close to where I grew up.
But in 2021 I’ll walk The Virtual Pennine Way.
And I’ll do it my own diff-abled way.
You can follow my progress on Facebook @WalkingJill and if you want to donate to Steps Worldwide you can do so here.