[00:00] But even today, just coming up from the underground station, I found myself bounding up the escalator, overtaking everybody and not feeling a thing.
[00:08] So he said, that’ll do.
[00:10] It was painful.
[00:11] I was hobbling.
[00:14] I was not moving easily.
[00:16] My walking was becoming very lopsided.
[00:19] I was kind of adjusting my skeleton almost because the right side was having to much of the work.
[00:28] I couldn’t run.
[00:29] I remember whenever I was trying to get a bus, I’d ask the kids, could you just run ahead and ask the bus driver to wait?
[00:36] One of my frustrations, though, was I’d actually had the pain on my left side.
[00:43] I thought it was thigh-related, not hip-related, since December of 2022. But it was only diagnosed as hip problem that required a replacement in June of 23. So for six months I was kind of labouring with this, what I thought was a muscular problem.
[01:00] I went from September first meeting to October surgery, which was a big relief psychologically as well as the prospect of some physical relief as well.
[01:12] So even before I first met Adrian, when I was doing this homework on the internet, his site at the time had a number of short videos, both with him being interviewed more than once, and also Christian, the German surgeon, being interviewed.
[01:28] Very compelling, very easy to understand and follow, and convincing.
[01:37] They talk about this approach that Christian pioneers called the Ruttinger approach.
[01:44] And by as I understand, it’s a method that has been understood for the best part of 100 years, but has not been widely practiced, at least certainly not in the in the UK.
[01:54] And the way they explained it, first of all, it’s a very it’s minimally invasive, it’s a very small incision, immediate access to the joint, no muscle tissue has to be touched, no nerves have to be touched.
[02:12] And this also enables a very fast procedure.
[02:16] And I said, well, how fast?
[02:17] He said, oh, about 20 minutes.
[02:18] I laughed.
[02:20] You’re kidding me.
[02:21] It turned out that my surgery lasted 24 minutes.
[02:25] So, okay, a little bit longer, but still amazingly quick for what you think they have to But the benefits of the approach is, so less risk of infection, less risk of blood clot, less risk of dislocation.
[02:41] And when I said, well, how less?
[02:43] And they said virtually zero.
[02:45] In fact, I think at the time, and I’m assuming still the case, they’d had no evidence of any dislocation, which, you know, it’s one of the abiding risks of conventional hip replacement.
[02:56] It’s, you know, it’s not that it’s a particularly high number with the other methods, but it’s particularly low.
[03:02] So I thought, okay, well, this sounds promising.
[03:04] There’s clearly, there’s no surgery that’s zero risk, but if this method at least reduces that risk.
[03:11] But they also said, not just the speed of surgery, but literally you’ll be discharged, providing there’s no other issues.
[03:18] You’ll be discharged within 24 hours.
[03:21] What?
[03:22] You think you think this surgery and the anesthetic and you know, you’ll be in the hospital for, you know, two, three days, but no, 24 hours.
[03:29] And that was the case.
[03:31] Adrian had actually been a patient of Christian’s anyway, and had his replaced.
[03:37] And he described in a lot of detail the approach and why he felt good about it before and why he feels very good about it since.
[03:44] And I said to him very simply, if it’s as good as you say it you know, I will be over the moon.
[03:52] And it turned out to be the case, but he was very, he was very frank.
[03:55] He was very honest, very straight.
[03:57] There was no hype.
[03:58] Well, there was no kind of complicated language or, you know, medical ease that I couldn’t quite follow.
[04:05] It was just very grounded.
[04:07] Um, and I felt that he was very, kind of empathetic with, uh, with the condition or with my condition.
[04:15] The hip replacement is effectively, I don’t even think about it, let’s put it that way.
[04:20] I believe, I feel as if my body is back to the way I remember it before December of 22, when I first encountered the difficulties in that area.
[04:34] I feel 100% in normal activity, mobility.
[04:41] My temper has disappeared.
[04:46] I don’t think about it.
[04:47] The only time I’m reminded that I have this prosthetic hip is when I go through security checks typically at airports, guaranteed it will beep.
[05:00] So it’s the hip adjoined.
[05:01] Yes, I think in terms of the time sequence, two weeks, the fact that it coincides with coming off a heavy dose of medication is good.
[05:11] I mean, literally, I must have been taking, I think, three or four tablets in the morning, a similar set in the evening, plus the syringe.
[05:22] So for me, it’s full on.
[05:24] I’m not a big meds person.
[05:27] So getting to the end of that, and I guess one other thing going through your mind is, well, I’ve been on painkillers for two weeks.
[05:35] When I come off them, what am I going to feel?
[05:38] But actually by that point, no, whatever lingering pain there had subsided.
[05:43] So that was good.
[05:45] But then being able to have this first post-operative consultation at that point was also reassuring because you’re thinking, well, if there is anything, any intervention required, that be a good point to it.
[05:57] Plus the fact that it’s the first time Adrian’s actually able to, as they change the dressing, able to inspect the scar, able to see how I’m moving.
[06:08] So there was a little bit of a mobility check, just a little bit like we’re talking now, just how is feeling?
[06:18] How has it felt?
[06:19] How are you moving?
[06:20] So yeah, very, reassuring.
[06:23] So at the six week consultation, which was the final formal consultation as part of the package that I bought from Adrian and his team, he said, so, you know, how’s it been going?
[06:32] And I said, well, really good.
[06:33] I told him how I’d resumed work and how I really felt I’d recovered, you know, full movement.
[06:40] And here I am eight, nine months later and feeling as if I’ve never had a hip replacement.
