LEWES, Del. - 99-year-old Donna Williams had a total hip replacement on March 29th, 2021. She's been taking her recovery process one big step at a time.
Walking is so easy for Donna that she can push her walker and walk Gabby the cat at the same time.
"I guess whenever I want to go someplace, I do it," Donna says.
Just a few months ago, Donna could hardly walk and used to wake up in the middle of the night in pain, which woke her daughter Kristine up three to four times a night.
"Before the procedure, she was basically dragging her right leg," says Kristine Snyder Ransom. "She couldn't move it. She was in extreme pain. She was on the walker. I tried to take her out for a walk. She couldn't walk halfway down the driveway."
Now Donna walks all the way down the street and to her favorite places in the house.
"To the table of course," Donna says.
Kristine says Dr. Trinity Pilkington was the only doctor in the area who could do an anterior hip replacement. That's the procedure she wanted for her mom because the recovery process is faster than with getting a traditional posterior hip replacement.
"Instead of cutting the muscle, we go between the muscle," Dr. Pilkington says.
Dr. Pilkington says the majority of his patients are 20 to 30 years younger than Donna and that most of them go home the same day after their hip surgery. Donna spent a few days in the hospital.
"The ball and socket here are basically united and fused, where there's basically no space between the two bones," Dr. Pilkington says. "Every time that she would stand or try to move her hip, she's basically grinding that bone on bone... We end up putting a metal socket into that ball and a metal stem into the femur, so it ends up looking something like this."
Dr. Pilkington says Donna had an advanced arthritic condition and that there really wasn't any other option to relieve her of pain other than this procedure. He says her good state of health made her a good candidate for surgery despite her age.
Both Dr. Pilkington and Donna's Physical Therapist from Summit Orthopedic Home Care, Mary Teletchea, watched how quickly Donna recovered.
"By the end of the first week, she was walking better, she was able to get her legs up onto the bed and her daughter even felt safe with her walking to the bathroom," Teletchea says.
Dr. Pilkington says Donna now has full, unrestricted activity and goes to outpatient therapy three times a week.
Kristine says her mom can walk by holding onto her therapist's arm and that the goal is to have her walking with just a cane by July.
"I'm expecting her to live several more years," Kristine says.
Donna can now walk into her 100th birthday party on August 1st. Kristine says they're planning a trip to Ohio.
