Friendships are invaluable. I am certainly grateful to my two close friends who recognized something was wrong one day in the summer of 2020. They observed me walking and told me that "my walk was off." My friends, along with my rowing coach, encouraged me to get it checked out.
Because I was only around 50 years of age when the discomfort in my knee began, I had been delaying a total knee replacement surgery for almost 20 years.
Most of my life, I have been active from sports in my youth to simply running and walking as I have gracefully gotten older. After a while, I began to feel the years of wear and tear on my left knee.
I had always been aware of Andrews Sports Medicine and the great work that they have done in working with athletes. Therefore, I scheduled an appointment and made the two-hour drive to Birmingham.
I grew up in Livingston, Alabama and have lived in the Tuscaloosa area most of my adult life. I’ve always worked in the warehousing industry and spend most of my days on a forklift.
First, let me say Dr. Jeffrey Davis is amazing!!! A great surgeon and Christian.
I am in my early 80's and have played competitive (i.e., tournament) tennis since I was twelve years old. I began to experience knee pain sometime during 2018 due to deterioration in my left knee, which was probably caused by a combination of the many years of playing competitive tennis and an old high school football injury. After having a couple of shots in the knee during that year to provide temporary relief, the pain increased to the extent that it became necessary to stop playing completely early in 2019.
July 8, 2019
Dr. Moore, I am writing this note to you to thank you for extending my quality of life and I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you.
Firstly, two years ago you replaced my right knee, which had been very painful for several years; shortly after surgery I was able to not only walk up Uluru and snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, as well as hike where Sir Edmund Hillary hiked in New Zealand, with my precious daughter, Heather, who passed away shortly after that trip. What a blessing that was for me.
My husband, Leland Millsaps, worked for Jim Walter Mines in Brookwood, AL for more than 30 years. After leaving the mine industry, Leland has spent the last 15 years owning and managing a garage door installation business.
I’m almost 72 now, and very modestly state that younger men can not believe my physical condition and abilities. Most men at my age would have taken pain medication, changed careers, started taking it easy, so forth and so on.
When you talk about your kids and mention that things run in the family, you might think good grades, sports excellence or even good looks. For me and my daughter, Danielle, it seems that joint problems run in our family!