Marilyn Wane got a new knee for her 60th birthday. She says the knee replacement wasn’t the best present she received, but ‘it was the most expensive!’
The new knee also fell a little short of expectations. Marilyn was told the knee joint implant should last up to 15 years, but things started to go awry around the 10 year mark.
‘I had the knee checked out a couple of times, because I had this pain that would almost stop me from walking,’ she says.
‘I found out later that the bottom part of my knee implant was loose, but it took a while to discover that was causing the pain.’
To be fair, the surgeon who performed the implant surgery had told Marilyn: ‘Look after it – we’re not very good at re-doing them.’
And it turns out that Marilyn, now 71, certainly likes to put her knees through their paces.
‘I like to travel,’ Marilyn says. ‘There’s not many places I haven’t been, but I think the top of the list for me was definitely Antarctica.’
Her most recent adventure – an eight-week journey from Cape Town in South Africa to Nairobi in Kenya – was almost thwarted by her troublesome knee.
‘I had this two-month trip to Africa booked and I was thinking, “If I can’t walk, I can’t go.”’
‘My physio had recently retired so I asked my doctor who I should see. They sent me to getback.’
Marilyn had an initial consultation with getback physiotherapist Jack Mason to understand what could be done before her trip to Africa.
‘Jack did a lot of hands-on work and gave me some exercises to reduce the inflammation and get me on the road,’ she says.
‘I went from Cape Town in South Africa all the way to Nairobi in Kenya. It was two separate tours on a big safari truck.’
‘I managed to survive and even did a trek in Namibia. God knows how I did it on a broken knee, but I got through it.’
By the time she arrived home, Marilyn’s knee had worsened and she decided to find out exactly what was causing the inflammation. Her surgeon told her that unfortunately, the original implant couldn’t be fixed – she would need another complete replacement.
‘Apparently revisions are much more difficult to recover from because the surgery is more complex the second time.’
At getback, Jack suggested Marilyn could prepare for surgery by strengthening the muscles around her knee.
‘Doing “prehab” at getback meant that I could prepare for the surgery using the exercise therapy devices, because they put no stress on the joint,’ Marilyn says.
‘So I did that for about four weeks pre-surgery, and that really aided my recovery.’
Post-surgery, Marilyn says that from her first day of rehab, she felt in a better place than after her original surgery.
‘Having gone through a knee replacement before, I knew what I was in for, and I felt that I was in a much better position than last time.’
‘The muscles around my knee were a lot stronger and I was doing the exercises more easily.’
‘Well, it’s never easy! But the strength in my knee was fantastic.’
Three months after surgery, aided by the the post-surgery rehab program at getback, Marilyn is feeling ‘pretty much back to normal.’
‘I’ve got about another three weeks of this program to complete and then I’m going overseas again, so the timing is really good!’
‘I was expected to make a much slower recovery, so it’s all the more miraculous.’
Marilyn has now super-charged her rehab to prepare for another challenging adventure to Canada and Scotland.
‘I’m doing the knee and hip buildup program at getback South Melbourne now,’ she says.
‘I’m going to take a train across Canada, then I’m travelling on my own to Scotland. My grandmother came from Scotland, so I’m going to do a bit of digging around over there.’
‘So I need strong knees for those Highland walks!’
Marilyn says she may start working on the rest of her body when she returns from her Scottish rambling. getback South Melbourne now offers exercise therapy programs and devices for all the major joints, as well as its existing spinal program.
‘I’m thinking about doing more of a whole body workout on a regular basis because I can see the benefit,’ she says.
‘I haven’t had any back problems yet, but I’ve got arthritis in all my joints, so I’m supposed to keep strong, and everything I need is in this practice.’
‘A lot of physio practices refer you on to an exercise physiologist, whereas here it’s a one-stop shop.’
‘The whole knee prehab and rehab was really well managed here. The staff are all very knowledgeable, and overall, I think it’s a great practice.’
