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Metal-on-Metal Total Hip
Replacement
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My
Experience with Hip Replacement
By Jimmy Connors |
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| You may know me as
a legendary tennis player, a fiery and passionate competitor,
often the underdog, who fought tough opponents such as Bjorn
Borg and John McEnroe. Never giving up, I frequently found
myself standing tall at the top of the tennis charts, having
held the men's singles World #1 ranking for five consecutive
years. I have won more tournaments than any other male player in
the history, with a record 109 men's singles titles, including
an Australian Open title, two Wimbledon titles and five US Open
titles. Even at age 39, I
was in the hunt for yet another US Open title. You may remember
that spectacular season of 1991 which holds some of the finest
memories of my career. I battled hard and left everything I had
on the court, under the lights in Flushing, NY. But
unfortunately, my career on the main tour would soon to come to
end.
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Not wishing to
remain idle, I immediately joined the senior's tour and played
until the age of 47. That's when my body began to betray me! I
wondered if I hadn't pushed it beyond its limits with all the
years of aggressive play. |
At first the pain started small. As a professional athlete,
dealing with at least a little pain had been a part of my life
throughout my career. It was easy for me to assume that it was
my back that was not troubling me: I wrote it off as a irritation,
an annoyance. If I could just get someone to attend to it
through massage, or work-outs, the pain would go away and
everything would be fine.
Slowly, the pain began to chip away at my life, robbing me of my
active lifestyle, until playing tennis and golf were no longer
possible for me. Running my dogs was out of the question. Even
the most basic of daily activities, such as climbing stairs and
driving my car, became unbearable. Eventually my quality of life
just dove to the point that I didn't want to do anything. I
didn't want to go out. I certainly didn't want to play tennis,
golf or anything besides just getting up and trying to function
on a daily basis. |
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Eventually the pain was all-consuming, until the Jimmy Connors
you used to see rifling cross-court winners and jumping tennis
nets... could barely walk, even with a cane. I wasn't afraid of
anything my whole life, my whole career, but the feeling of
being scared and not wanting to face what was happening was
overwhelming. I kept putting it off. The pain kept getting worse
until I could no longer ignore the problem. As I researched a
solution with my doctors, it became clear that I had to face the
facts. I needed hip replacement surgery.
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I met with a surgeon who chose to implant me with Wright's
CONSERVE® Total Hip with BFH® Technology, after considering such
factors as my age and activity level. He also chose a
minimally-invasive surgical approach, called PATH® Technique.
This breakthrough procedure only left a small scar and disturbed
little soft tissue under the incision, which allowed me to rehab
faster and experience less pain than I would have with
traditional hip replacement surgery. |
My surgery in October of 2005 was a great success! Along with
immediate relief from the pain that I suffered for up to six years,
unbelievably, I was able to stand within hours of my surgery. By
the next morning, my physician had me walking the length of the
entire hallway, unassisted! And even more incredibly, I was back
on the court and playing tennis just six weeks after surgery.
Just six weeks!!For the
first time is many years, I have no pain! No pain in my leg, hip
or my back. I just woke up after my hip replacement surgery and
asked myself, "Why didn't I do this before?"
This new hip has given me back my
quality of life! It's allowed me to do anything and everything I
did before. I invite you to lean more about what it's like to
experience hip replacement, so you would not be afraid like I
was. You do not have to put off reclaiming your active
lifestyle, like I did. |
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12/20/2006
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