Joint Replacement Patient Stories

Bruce Campbell
“Living in Federal Hill, I walk everywhere. The only place I drive is to the doctor’s office,” says Bruce Campbell. But getting around, he admits, wasn’t always so easy.

As a high school and college athlete, he’d suffered knee injuries, and he’d had a lifetime of operations — 10 since the age of 17. At 60, he’d been on crutches for seven years. Then he found someone with the expertise to replace his right knee.

He’d read about Dr. David Hungerford at Good Samaritan Hospital, and when Dr. Hungerford told him that a joint replacement could be done, Bruce said, “Let's go with it.”

Six days after his knee surgery, Bruce was out of the hospital and in physical therapy. Four weeks later, he was off crutches. In two more weeks, he was rid of his cane.

Then he set off for Greece and the Greek Isles. “From the Acropolis, you can look down at all of Athens,” he says.

Bruce continues to exercise his reclaimed freedom: He and his wife have toured Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and Russia. “It was a lot of walking and climbing up decent-sized hills. Just the walk from the river to Peter the Great’s Palace was a good workout. And there are no elevators in those palaces,” he says.

“Before my knee replacement I couldn't walk 100 feet. I think anyone who has pain, or who can’t do the things they like to do, should get this done,” he says. “It’s that simple.”

Margaret Driver
“After my hip joint replacement, my physical therapist at Good Samaritan told me that I was too jazzy to use a cane, so she had me going up and down steps, getting on and off tables, and in and out of cars. I did everything that she said,” says Margaret Driver, “and that made my recuperation easy.”

Today, she says, “I’m not even aware that the surgery ever happened. It is forgotten. And anything I did before my arthritic condition I can do now. I have many social activities.”

In fact, Margaret loves to dance. But before her bilateral hip joint replacement, the pain in her hips made even grocery shopping difficult.

“The pain felt like a bone had slipped. I would stop and exclaim because it was very painful. Then I would get myself together and go on, but it would happen every so often and without warning. It started with one hip then progressed to both.”

As the arthritis in Margaret’s hips worsened, she says, “Everything went downhill as far as my ability to do normal everyday activities.”

Finally, she asked her doctor to direct her to the best surgeon he could find. “This,” she says, “was my introduction to the very wonderful Dr. Michael Jacobs.”

When Margaret attended Good Samaritan’s pre-admission hip replacement class, she met the rest of her future caregivers: “They took the time to explain how they would be working with me and what I could expect as a result of their services. This took the fear from me.”

She also got to examine a hip implant: “This was what was going to replace the problem in my hips, and we talked about it. So this too was very, very good.”

Nellie Gorge
She’s 78 years old. Her mornings start with a two-mile walk, followed by household chores and breakfast. Then it’s off to the mall or to an exercise class for seniors. Or she’ll go bowling.

“I’ve been a bowler about five years,” says Nellie Gorge, “but before I had my knee joints replaced, I couldn’t score higher than 79.”

Less than four months after her knee replacements, Nellie’s average league score jumped to 115 and she’d bowled a high game of 132.

Before her replacements, Nellie says there were days that her knees “were crunching so bad” that she couldn’t even walk.

The day of her first appointment with Dr. Darioush Nasseri at Good Samaritan, she had to be wheeled into the hospital and lifted onto the exam table. When she was told that she needed to have both knees replaced, and her right hip, she told the doctor, “I’m ready.” One week later, her right knee was replaced, and one month after that she had a new left knee as well.

“I just wish I’d had this done years ago. I was hurting all over, all the time, and nobody seemed to know what was wrong,” she says. “And all the time it was my knees and my hip…”

“Now,” she says, “I don’t have any pain in my knees, and I can’t wait til the hip gets done.”

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