Bill Martin, 59, suffered a back injury in 1989, but that didn’t stop him from practicing taekwondo and earning a second degree black belt in the 1990s.
Injections and therapy helped him manage for years, until his grandkids came along. He needed two people to help him up off the floor after playing with them. Then he started feeling numbness and loss of feeling in the legs, and the injections stopped working. Falling was a regular occurrence, and the pain became excruciating.
“It was at the point that literally I was in tears in the doctor’s office,” Martin said.
In October 2018, he underwent back surgery, then a total hip replacement in April 2019. After the hip replacement, Martin started physical therapy – an important part of his recovery – at CHI Memorial.
But as the pain subsided, Martin faced a common post-surgery problem: How could he regain strength and fitness without hurting himself and backsliding? He also needed to shed the pounds he gained over the years as his old injury festered and he became more and more stagnant.