Dear Editor:
This letter is to the medical professionals who perform joint replacement assessments and surgeries and family doctors who gaslight our condition.
Although I understand that there is a long wait time for these surgeries, why do you make a person wait so long before they are deemed ready? Why wait until they have one foot in the grave before allowing the surgery to be performed?
If replacement parts are good for 20-plus years, why let them go through years of using pain killers that will ultimately damage their kidneys and/or liver? Or cortisone shots that may not work? What happens when someone who is 80 receives a new hip joint but dies two to three years later? Do you go to the family and ask, ‘’Do you remember that new hip your relative got two years ago? Since they only had it for two years, and it’s still good for 18 years, do you think … um … maybe … we can remove it and use it for someone else?’’
I am in my mid 60s, and about 20 years ago I tripped and landed on my left knee on a bare cement basement floor. It didn’t bother me much afterward, but in the last three years it has been very painful. Cortisone shots do not help. I would prefer not to wait another 10 years before I qualify for a knee replacement.
Both my parents and my oldest brother died before they reached the age of 70. My oldest sister is the first in our family to reach 70 years of age. I may not make it past 70, but maybe I will.
So, why not let me get a new knee and let us have 20 years of good life together instead of only five to 10?
Anna Nieuwenhuis,
Durham