Funny thing about hope. Sometimes it shows up as a door you didn’t expect to open.
Perfectly Imperfect: A Body Relearned
There are moments in a chronic illness journey that feel like turning a page, and others that feel like rewriting an entire chapter! My left knee fusion takedown was one of those moments. It wasn’t just a surgery. It was a reckoning with years of adaptation, limitation, and the quiet hope that my body might move differently again. I had lived so long with that knee fused in place that the idea of undoing it felt both exhilarating and terrifying. Like stepping toward a future I wasn’t sure I could trust yet.
What I didn’t know then was that this surgery would become one of the clearest lessons in listening to my body. Not the version of my body I wished for, or the one I pushed toward, but the one that was trying to speak to me in its own language. The takedown forced me to slow down and pay attention. To relearn what movement meant after years of stillness.
When “No” Became a Pattern
When I first started asking about a fusion takedown, it was more of a wistful “wouldn’t it be nice…” than a medical necessity. When Dr. Robert Salter fused my knee straight in 1974 (I wrote a tribute to him here), he told my parents that once I finished growing, we could revisit the idea of undoing it. So, in my early twenties, I sought out and met with surgeons. Not because I needed the surgery, but because I imagined how much easier everyday life might be if I could bend my leg again.
What I didn’t expect was how difficult it would be to find someone willing to undo it. Surgeon after surgeon told me no. Some said it was too risky. Others said it wasn’t worth it. Basically, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” A few didn’t even entertain the conversation. Each refusal felt like a door closing, and with every closed door, the hope I carried became a little heavier.
When Want Became Need
Everything shifted years later, when my doctors began raising the possibility and eventually the need, of a right knee replacement. That was the moment the conversation changed. I wasn’t looking anymore out of curiosity or convenience. I was looking because I had to.
I simply couldn’t imagine going through rehab with a newly replaced right knee while the left one was still fused. The thought alone made it obvious that something had to change. If I was going to face a knee replacement, I needed both legs to have a fighting chance. That’s when the “wouldn’t it be nice…” dream of a takedown finally became a medical priority in my mind.
The Call That Changed Everything
So, when I turned thirty, I did something that surprised even me: I tracked down Dr. Salter himself, the surgeon who had fused my knee when I was ten. I found him on the phone after all those years and told him, plainly, that he had done this to me, the fusion, and that I needed his help to undo it. And no surprise at all: he remembered me. Not just the case or the surgery – me. Down to the curly‑haired ponytails.
I wasn’t sure what I expected. A polite dismissal? Maybe another closed door. Instead, I told him about a surgeon I’d found some information about. He was doing some promising bone replacing bone procedures. Someone who seemed willing to take on complex orthopaedic cases. His name was Dr. Allan Gross.
Dr. Salter listened, paused, and then said something that changed everything: “Great guy. Senior guy. I trained him. Have your current surgeon send a referral.”
This wasn’t just a professional endorsement. It was the surgeon who shaped my childhood body, recognizing the adult version of me, still trying to make sense of what came next.
In that moment, the years of searching, the refusals, the frustration, all of it shifted. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was a path. A real one. And it came because I kept pushing, kept asking, kept believing that my body and my future were worth advocating for.
A Door Finally Opens
That moment with Dr. Salter didn’t just open a door. It reinforced something I had been learning slowly, sometimes painfully: self‑advocacy isn’t about being difficult; it’s about being heard. It’s about trusting your own experience enough to keep going, even when the experts say no. It’s about knowing that you are the one who lives in your body, and that gives you the right to seek the care that aligns with your life, not just your X‑rays.
That referral set everything in motion.
Part 2 opens at the moment hope stopped being theoretical and finally had a name: Dr. Allan Gross.
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FAQ
Why does this part of the story matter?
Because this is where the impossible begins to shift. Part 1 sets the stage for everything that follows. The years of “no,” the search for someone who could see possibility, and the moment the story finally turns.
What is a fusion takedown?
A fusion takedown is a complex surgical procedure that reverses a previously fused joint. In my case, it meant undoing a surgical knee fusion that had been in place since childhood.
Why was my knee fused in the first place?
At the time, fusion was considered the most reliable option for a severely damaged JRA joint. It offered stability and pain relief in an era before modern joint‑preserving surgeries were available.
Why did every surgeon say no?
Because reversing a fusion is rare, risky, and technically demanding. Most surgeons had never done one or had only seen one go badly.
Is a fusion takedown the same as a knee replacement?
No. A takedown and a replacement are two different steps, but in my case, they were done in the same surgery. The takedown releases the fused joint and restores enough space and mobility for a replacement to be possible. Once my knee was successfully unfused, Dr. Gross moved directly into the knee replacement in the same operation.