When I was born, I did not come out fully made. I was early, and worst of all, I was a breach birth.
In a normal hip, the ball at the upper end of the thighbone (femur) fits firmly into the socket, which is part of the large pelvis bone. In babies and children with developmental dysplasia (dislocation) of the hip (DDH), the hip joint has not formed normally.
So there I was, without fully formed sockets, being yanked out of my mother feet first. I can only imagine that it was an unpleasant experience for both of us.
If I could go back and project to my baby in womb self, I would have advised that there was really no rush at all. Stay in there and get the finishing touches done. It's only the 80s, there isn't anything so exciting that you have to get an extra month of it.
The doctors did not explain to my parents the long-term difficulties of hip dysplasia. I was put into a leg brace (that apparently my siblings would pull me around by) and we all waited for the sockets to form.
Life carried on in quite a normal fashion, except for the grinding and clicking. And then in my 20s I started to get a lot of pain. A hell of a lot of pain. Chronic muscle inflammation. Spasms. Aching. In the winter I started to walk with a severe limp. Everything was seizing up. I had scans done. They were not good. Then I found out about the link between hip dysplasia and early onset arthritis. That was not a happy time.
But I was never one for giving up. I did physio. I exercised like a fiend. Swimming, badminton, zumba, running, extreme outdoors obstacle courses. One thing was for sure. I was going to make my body work for me, and I was going to put off the bad things (walking with a stick, hip replacement) for many, many years.
And it was all going quite well, until I was 29, and something else happened.
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