Why the most fearless woman in Britain was too scared to have a knee op!

YOU could not describe me as a fearful person, far from it — in fact, I live my life according to a few simple rules. Number one is summed up as: why stay in when you’ve got a chance to go out and do something fun?

Number two: refuse to spend time looking back and wallowing in nostalgia.

Number three: push your boundaries — every week do something new, and push yourself out of your comfort zone. The alternative is sagging into old age, with ever- diminishing horizons: a selfinflicted imprisonment.

I’ve climbed mountains and walked hundreds and hundreds of miles. I’ve partied all night and gone to work (a bit dishevelled) next day. But I’m also a control freak; it will be me who decides when to go home.

That need to be in control is the single reason why I postponed an operation to replace my left knee joint four times.

That, and, I must admit, fear. I was scared of this operation. What if I couldn’t walk, or play tennis again? It’s a common concern that one study found 88 per cent of patients experience. When I admitted to it on the ITV chat show Loose Women, I was inundated with support: I’ve had about 1,600 tweets and 340 messages.

For more than four years, I have experienced horrible searing pain in my knees first thing in the morning, partly as a result of a mild form of arthritis.

One by one, my joints became inflamed and swollen, but that condition is now controlled by a simple pill. My knees, on the other hand have just worn out — there’s no cushioning left between the joints.

This pain is the result of living life to the full, of being the woman who had a personal trainer for 12 years, who slipped a disc on two occasions and then carried on.

I’m the woman who broke her ankle hiking high up in the Scottish Glens, crawled down the mountain, through a fastflowing river, and then drove to hospital at Fort William 30 miles away — because I didn’t want to make a fuss.

After my broken limb was set in a temporary cast, I drove my car (an automatic) back to the lodge where my friends were staying for dinner. Two days later I went fishing for mackerel on the loch (men versus women, and the women won), with a plastic bin bag taped over my foot.

Something in my make - up doesn’ t respond well to the word ‘sensible’. I will rise to any challenge, any activity that’s guaranteed to annoy the sensible squad in their warm cardigans and supportive shoes.

In Australia a couple of years ago, I drove (alone) for two days in searing heat to the cattle country on the borders of Queensland so I could fish at 5am. I swam in the Glenlyon dam, watched only by six kangaroos.

Not one other person for miles. The water was thick and brown from the muddy soil and gorgeous. An unforgettable experience. I could possibly have drowned, but so what?

A few years earlier, in 35c (95f), I hiked 100 km out of Alice Springs with just a guide for company. We followed a long mountain ridge and swam in waterholes, collected fossils and photographed the beautiful grasses and flowers, camping when the sun went down.

Throughout all my adventures, I’ve been constantly aware of the pain in my knees. It reached a tipping point six years ago when experts said I had ‘over-exercised’ and worn away the cartilage, and that knee replacement was the only option.

I listened to the surgeon, looked at the reports and then filed them in a large plastic box I keep labelled ‘health’. In short, I carried on, refusing to accept that a key bit of my body had deteriorated to the point of being useless.

Over the next couple of years, I made some small accommodations to the pain: I cut back on long walks (over three hours), but was unwilling to abandon playing tennis.

every week, I spend an hour or so attempting to take a few games off my coach, long suffering Kevin. Travelling, for work or pleasure, I regularly pay to play with a local professional. I’m addicted to tennis. I started at 11, was in the school team, then played doubles every weekend through my 20s.

Tennis combines mental skill, physicality, anticipation, speed and agility. Obviously the last two are difficult now, but I am determined to wield a racquet until the time has come to go to the great tennis court in the sky.

But the sport is harsh on knee joints: you run, suddenly stop dead and turn. The impact is tremendous. After each game no amount of ice or painkillers made any difference to my pain.

The second surgeon I consulted 18 months ago told me that my pain was the result of bone grinding on bone. Sounds disgusting, doesn’t it?

he proposed operating in March 2017. I went to Australia for a month-and-a-half and played tennis three times a week.

As long as I kept moving it was bearable, but sitting in a chair for longer than 45 minutes was agony. At the theatre or cinema, I had to sit on the aisle, and would be writhing around in my seat. At night, it was worse.

After a few drinks to dull the pain, I’d drop off. But I would wake after an hour and start the same ritual night after night. Pillows under knees. Thrashing around in the bed, rubbing my knees with pain-relieving gel and then getting up an hour early to run a hot bath to relax the spasms in the rest of my body.

My face started to look even more hangdog than usual. The bags under my eyes got bigger, and no amount of make-up could disguise that I was starting to look like an old Beagle. Yet at the start of March 2017, I cancelled the operation — I could not face four weeks minimum off work.

I didn’t want to go bonkers with boredom, I didn’t want a general anaesthetic (worried about memory loss) and I wasn’t prepared to sit at home and vegetate.

The operation was rescheduled for May 2017. Then, I cancelled it because I had started swimming in the sea near my house in Kent in April and I enjoyed the solitude. After the operation, I would not be able to swim for weeks.

I went to Italy on holiday and found that even walking for an hour was grisly. My knees were swollen and miss- shapen anyway, how could I be so vain about another small scar?

Then, in April this year, the Duke of edinburgh, aged 96, went into hospital and had a hip replacement operation. The Duke was said to be depressed that he was no longer able to indulge in his favourite sport, carriage racing . . . what on earth was holding me back?

I am 71, not 96. I realised I needed to grow up, have faith in the surgeon, faith in my ability to heal and faith that my singlemindedness would see me back on the tennis court.

The operation was set for June, then July this year. Then I realised that it was scheduled for the week in the year when I had the most parties to go to. So I postponed it one final time.

I told ITV I would be off Loose Women for two weeks ( the surgeon said it would be more sensible to opt for at least four), and I spent a lot of time doing strengthening upper leg exercises so I wouldn’t need a stick: God forbid some spiteful photographer snapped me using a walking frame, looking 110.

The night before the operation, I ignored the instructions about avoiding alcohol and threw a party in my garden. We ate well, drank and gossiped till just before midnight.

I didn’t sleep a wink, it seemed like I was on death row, not having elective surgery carried out by one of the top knee experts in Britain, David Sweetnam. In the hospital, I refused a catheter, refused extra pain relief and asked for the minimum anaesthetic.

I woke up in the recovery room feeling spaced out. Two hours later, I staggered to the toilet, using a frame.

Next day I could walk unaided, and I haven’t used crutches or a stick since. I have religiously exercised my legs every couple of hours a day, squatting, stretching, keeping mobile at all costs.

I left hospital after three nights, and put ice on my legs four times a day for 30 minutes a time.

I have worked hard on recovery — it is a project I cannot fail at. Two weeks later, the dressings are off and I’m back on Loose Women. Apparently, my level of mobility is usually only achieved after six weeks.

I still can’t sleep for more than three hours at a time, but it’s improving. Luckily, watching Wimbledon got me through the painful first ten days.

I don’t know how long it will be before I am on a tennis court again, but I’ve booked a trip to Australia in December and my (male) opponent in New South Wales is ready and waiting.

I am ashamed I waited so long for the op, but there’s no stopping this bionic woman now.