In June 2025, I went on a safari holiday to Zambia. I had a wonderful week exploring a new country and getting close up to wildlife – and then, on the very last day, climbing down from the safari vehicle my hand slipped on a greasy pole, I fell backwards…. and broke my hip. Apart from anything else, it stopped me writing for a couple of months! Now I’m back in London with fingers to keyboard, here’s what will probably be the first of a series of blogs about my experience!

One day I will be free of crutches!
A disabled man raising his crutches at sunset. Positive concept of cure, recovery, medical miracle, hope, insurance etc.

Inevitably, the first question people ask is, “how is the pain?” Of course, they mean physical pain. And in truth, there isn’t any. Or at least, hardly any. Just some superficial discomfort from the “wound” on my thigh, where a well-meaning surgeon cut me open to indulge his hidden passion for Medical Meccano. The real pain, the one nobody asks about, is mental. And a huge part of that torment? Crutches.

I’m told that after total hip replacement, some people do have post-operative pain going up into their groin, or further down their legs, but I’m glad to say I’ve never experienced either. Not that I know about, anyway. For the first few days after the operation, I was dosed up with a relatively gentle cousin of morphine. Once or twice I made the mistake of admitting to a pain level higher than 3 “on a scale from 0 to 10” and got given a much stronger relative, designated “for breakthrough pain”. Fortunately, after a few hours of the weirdest daydreams, I knew never to ask for that again!

I need a crutch for the mind as well as the body

So, the mental pain. Just as well nobody asks; I’m not sure I’d want to talk about it. Those who don’t know me well wouldn’t understand, and the ones who do would regret asking as soon as I’d got out a sentence or two. Too much information at best, wallowing in self-pity at worst. Thus, I do my level best to stay cheerful and positive, whilst knowing all the time that I must be a nightmare to live with.

The reality slowly sinks in

But to crutches. In one sense, of course, they’re a saviour. After my hip operations, I couldn’t have got up and walked without them. At first, I was preoccupied with getting the hang of them. Walking, or at least moving in a chosen direction without tripping over. After a day or two, though, the initial euphoria of reaching the bathroom independently began to be eclipsed by a growing awareness of the crutches and their shortcomings. A week later, all the time assuming “it must be me”, I realised that it wasn’t, actually. There are no solutions to most of the faults that wind me up, and thereafter, every necessary interaction with crutches comes accompanied by an overwhelming desire to get rid of them. Exacerbated by the knowledge that I can’t, of course, at least not for a few more weeks.

Calling all inventors

In the last few days, I’ve read several articles about amazing new inventions. A solar-powered backpack that heats up an electric blanket to keep down-and-out street dwellers warm. A low-cost domestic power storage unit that could revolutionise electricity supply. But I search in vain for news of a replacement for crutches!

I’m not criticising their assistance for walking. I’m pretty sure I’m not following the correct technique, but the physios gave up on me early on. Anyway, once I get going, I can move at a reasonable speed, without pain, and without fearing I might fall over. I can even manage to hobble short distances around home in the kitchen or bedroom with just one crutch where there are objects close by that I can cling to if needed.

It’s not the walking; it’s the stopping

No, where the real frustration begins is working out what to do with the damned things when I stop walking. They won’t stand up. Balance them against a wall, the table, anywhere actually within reach, and it’s guaranteed they’re fall sooner rather than later. Of their own volition. With a crash. Always out of reach. Never just one of them, of course. And never on their own. They always tip something small and important onto the floor with them. Those tubular dominoes don’t clip to anything (with the notable exception of the garden umbrella pole). I’m naturally clumsy and in the years BC (before crutches) dropped things all the time. Which was tolerable when I could pick them up again. Now I can’t. I’m dependent. There is a solution to that, one of those long-hand things made for picking up rubbish, but if I resorted to those I’d need one for every room or need to carry that around too…

I admit to missing the underarm crutches I came back with from Zambia. They were easier to prop upright. But the physios here in London were horrified when they saw them and scared me with stories of people permanently damaging nerves under their arms, so I heeded their advice. The ones they gave me don’t prop, they fall to the floor. Which is a problem, as I’m not allowed to bend down to pick them up.

I admit to being extremely lucky. Whenever I ask – and quite often when I don’t – my wife willingly picks up dropped crutches and carries the one I’m not using up or down stairs. She never complains (at least, about my crutches). But that’s not the point. I don’t like being dependent on anyone any more than necessary. I smile recalling a TV programme I used to love as a child, “Bewitched”. The star didn’t need crutches, but if she had, she’d only have had to wiggle her nose and they’d come flying into her hands. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

The impossibility of multi-tasking

To walk up or down stairs, I only use one crutch – so what to do with the other? The instructions provided and YouTube videos show that you’re supposed to hold the unwanted crutch at right angles to the one in use, gripping the ‘tube’ of the unwanted one against the handle of the one in use. All I can say is that whoever came up with that idea believes users to have impossibly enormous hands, the size of baseball mitts. Mine being medium/average, it takes more effort to concentrate on not dropping the unwanted crutch than to stay balanced with the other.

Until I needed crutches to walk, I never realised how often I need to carry things. Things that won’t go in pockets. A cup of coffee. The laptop. With a crutch in each hand, it’s impossible to hold anything else. It’s a struggle just to clutch a piece of paper, never mind a cup or plate. YouTube videos do at least present a solution to this problem. Put everything in a backpack, including your screw-top insulated coffee cup. Tellingly, though, the presenter doesn’t actually pack or don the backpack while standing with crutches. Do as I say…

It won’t last for ever

I’m now recovering from my third hip operation – the original implant, a “revision” (an internal clean-up keeping the same implant) and now a First Stage Revision, featuring a completely new implant. I’ve now been hospitalised three times and learnt to walk again three times in the course of just two months. I know from the aftermath of the second operation that walking with crutches gets easier and easier – then, I got as far as dispensing with one of them altogether. But as you can no doubt guess from the name of the latest operation, “First Stage”, there’s a second one to come – where, for reasons that would take a whole book to explain, the surgeon gets to take out what he put in a fortnight ago and replace it with a fresh one. Then, finally I hope, all will be well, and in a matter of a few months I should be walking unaided. I can’t wait.

Meanwhile, I know that I’m relatively lucky and shouldn’t be complaining. There are thousands, indeed millions, who have to live with crutches for the rest of their lives. There’s no accurate figure, but the best estimate seems to be 7 million. Just having to use them for a few weeks really brings home the meaning of the word “disabled” and how difficult life must be for all those afflicted.

The second thriller novel in my Repurposed Spies series, Spies on Safari, was inspired by a previous safari holiday in Botswana. Read more about it here