Stairs, hills and hikes: How a new surgical device helped one woman enjoy walking again

Jeannie Sagle likes to walk. And not just a little stroll to pick up the mail or visit with a neighbor.

“Long distances — three, four miles at a time,” she says.

She typically gets more than 10,000 steps a day.

“Farther, quite often,” Sagle says.

So, when osteoarthritis wore away the cartilage in her knees, living with the pain and reduced mobility wasn’t an option.

Sagle’s first knee replacement, in 2019, solved half the problem. But a little over a year later, her other knee began slowing her down.

“It got worse as it went along,” she says. “By the end I was not able to walk very far at all, and it was bone on bone.”

In November 2021, Sagle got her second knee replacement, this time with Robert Tamurian, MD, using the ROSA® (RObotic Surgical Assistant) Knee robotic surgical assistant at MultiCare Allenmore Hospital.

The ROSA system allows surgeons to be more precise, make smaller incisions and preserve more bone. But all that mattered to Sagle was that the surgery made the pain go away — eventually.

Recovery still took some time, and Sagle says she had less patience with her second go-around.

“I’m getting older,” she says. “I don’t want to waste much time.”

Sagle, 75, says both recoveries were painful at first, but “the mind is a wonderful thing” because she largely forgets the pain.

“That part went quickly,” she says.

And she was eager to get back to walking. With the help of her physical therapist, Sagle focused on increasing her mobility.

Prior to surgery, she could walk no more than a short block without significant pain. Within three or four weeks after surgery, her physical therapist gave her the go-ahead to walk a block.

“By two months I was walking close to a mile,” she says. “By three months, it was close to two miles.”

Sagle says her physical therapist “told me what I could do and how much, so I wouldn’t overdo it.”

While she still has some swelling in her knee, it continues to go down. And most important, Sagle is back to doing what she loves.

“I can do hills.” she says. “It doesn’t matter the terrain. I can climb, I can hike. Stairs are no problem. All the things you need knees for!”

Even for those who don’t walk or hike as much as Sagle does, knee replacement can be a life-changer.

“I would recommend it to everybody who needs it,” she says. “The quality of life, if you cannot walk without pain, is not good.”

Whether it’s a long hike or the trek from the living room to the kitchen, “I’m thrilled to be walking without pain,” Sagle says.