Patient Stories: Joe Verhun
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"I can hardly believe my life. I feel ecstatic. I feel alive. I tell people that I'm 60 going on 35, and I mean it. Dr. Dick gave me my life back." Dr. Don Dick and (inset) Joe Verhun. |
Joe Verhun has not been sick a day in his life. But up until very recently, he was in constant pain for the past 35 years.
A truck driver by profession and cowboy by choice, Joe suffered a work injury to his left knee more than 35 years ago. Years of therapy did little, if anything to help, and as the pain in his knee increased over time, Joe's quality of life decreased accordingly.
"I've lived with chronic pain all of my adult life," says Joe, adding. "For the past fifteen years I've been taking pain medication. For the past two years, I had to double up on those meds, because I was at a point where I could barely walk without them."
Living with constant pain impacted Joe's life in ways he never thought possible: from limiting his ability to earn an income to contributing to a failed marriage. Looking back now, this self-described tough-as-nails Alberta boy realizes he spent half his adulthood planning his life around his lack of mobility, his tolerance for pain, his ability to cope.
That all changed in May 2008, when Joe met Dr. Don Dick, an orthopedic surgeon at the Royal Alexandra Hospital who assessed and agreed that what Joe needed was not more pain medication, but a complete knee replacement.
A few weeks later, the two-hour surgery happened. After a couple of days in recovery, Joe left the Royal Alexandra Hospital a man completely transformed.
"I can hardly believe my life. I feel ecstatic. I feel alive. I tell people that I'm 60 going on 35, and I mean it. Dr. Dick gave me my life back."
Joe now enjoys driving his semi-trailer, currently moving drilling rigs across Western Canada. When he's not on the road, Joe the stock trader is busy checking his investments online, or Joe the cowboy can be found in his riding arena on his 23 acres near Leduc, where he enjoys teaching kids how to swing a rope or to ride one of his five horses. He and his wife of five years, Lorna, plan to trailer their horses to Arizona this winter for an extended camping trip. Life for Joe, finally, is not about coping, it's about living.
But sometimes, Joe has to pinch himself to believe how his life, after so many years of struggle, has changed after a single, two-hour operation at the hands of a skilled surgeon.
"At four weeks, I was walking around like any other normal person. At six weeks I was riding my horse and fixing fences. At eight weeks, I danced at my niece's wedding. Now that's something."