‘With every step, I winced at this crunching sound... my joint had been shattered’

When lockdown came into force, I was anxious. I’m at high risk of getting a severe form of Covid-19, since I have rheumatoid arthritis and swallow an army of immunosuppressant drugs every day. I live in London with my boy – Mr Darcy – my handsome Lucas terrier, but my parents felt it was safer for me to be with them, in Hampshire. We get on well. Ever since I was diagnosed with RA aged 18 (I am now 46), we have been through so much adversity together that we have become a team.

It was March 25, another day much the same as the day before, I thought, until it happened. I was walking Darcy on Stockbridge Down when I heard my left hip make a crunching sound. Over the past 28 years, I have had multiple joint replacement operations, and two of these have been hip replacements and revision surgery on this particular left-hand side. With every step I made, I winced at this crunching sound – like a tyre going over gravel. Unbeknown to me I had broken my pelvis and fractured my hip. Essentially my replacement joint had shattered.

With Mr Darcy alongside, I staggered a quarter of a mile back to my car. In shock, I drove home. With hindsight, I don’t know how.

The following day, an X-ray was taken confirming a “catastrophic” hip replacement failure. I was advised not to walk at all, to use a wheelchair and if I had to move around the house, to get around on a gutter frame. No stairs. It was frightening going from an active person to someone trapped in a body, unable to move for fear of doing more damage. To add to the trauma, no operation could be done because of Covid-19.

Ordinarily, I would have had surgery immediately. Yet we were nowhere near “the peak” of the virus. It was a question of waiting, the surgeon told me. I could see his point. I understood the risk of getting the virus, too, and feared passing it on to my parents. We were stuck.

I can honestly say the last 12 weeks have been the most gruelling I have endured. I have been down some dark paths: paths of wanting to give up – simply take my own life and be done with further pain and surgery. Why bother living like this? I have been down paths of reliving the trauma of previous surgery – dreading the operation to come, yet knowing that unless I have it I won’t be able to walk my Darcy again, something I so desperately miss.

I have felt tearful, exhausted, angry, and alone. I have also been down paths of gratitude: I have felt grateful to my parents, to my sister, to my friends who are supporting me.

It’s the waiting I cannot accept. Initially, yes. But now? I turn on the TV to hear that the NHS is open to all; to come forward – we will be treated. It is not open. I have met a surgeon whom I like and trust and he wants to help. He wants things to move forward. He knows this operation is urgent. But he, too, has to wait for a clear pathway to treatment. I believe it is frustrating for him, too.

I do not know nor understand quite who is responsible for so many people feeling unheard and left to cope, in pain, with no treatment. I feel utterly abandoned by the system.

I understand Covid-19 had to be a priority, there was no other option – yet to hear hospital wards are not full – and then to hear the NHS is open, it’s not true. I hear the infections rates are decreasing, that the virus is under control; and yet I am still waiting.

I have not walked for nearly three months. I have been trapped in my body but worse, in my mind. Thousands are at risk. People are dying. Something has to change.

To add to the trauma, no operation could be done