"They offered to carry me down," she laughed. "They had this idea of what they thought a person with a hip replacement would look like."
"I guess I wasn't it," she added.
Mrs. Doucette, like many other Canadians, now faces the new predicament of a hip replacement patient -- the "repeat." Patients are forced to undergo full surgery or major tune-ups to their hips every 10 to 20 years, depending on their activity level and the resulting wear and tear on the new joint.
According to a Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) report from 2001, hip replacements are on the rise.
There has been a 19-per-cent increase in the total number of hip replacements done since 1994-95, as well as a higher incidence of repeats. Of all hip replacement surgeries, 11.3 per cent are repeats, meaning there are more sufferers than ever who've made multiple voyages to the operating room in their quest for a pain-free existence. Mrs. Doucette, an active swimmer, runner and stretcher, struggled with what she called "terminal low-grade pain" for most of her adult life.
At 50, sick of limited mobility and her inability to golf or use a Nautilus machine, she opted for a gruelling process where both hip joints were replaced, eight months apart.
The upshot? Mrs. Doucette could finally go about her classroom duties as a Scarborough, Ont., high-school math teacher without fear of continually increasing pain.
"Hip replacement is going up because people are living longer and know what can be done," Dr. Hugh Cameron, a hip and knee specialist at Toronto's Sunnybrook and Women's College Orthopaedic and Arthritic Institute, said.
Dr. Cameron has done hip surgery on more than 3,000 clients, and could remember volumes of patients from their early 20s to mid-60s who will be facing at least two major hip replacements in their lifetimes.
"If you get a hip replacement earlier in your life, you're going to face another one sooner or later. The more active you are, the faster the lining of the new hip wears," Dr. Cameron said.
Dr. John Antoniou, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Montreal's McGill medical school, concurs. "We're seeing an increase in the second and third time 'round surgery due to implants wearing down. With people staying alive and active longer, we can hope with the newer generation of implants that longevity will increase," he said.
No one has hoped for this more than Jeff Rudling, a former competitive weightlifter based in Whitby, Ont., who faced his first replacement surgery at age 21 and his second at 28.
"I've learned to walk three times," Mr. Rudling, now 34, said. "Once as a child, and twice as a full-grown adult."
The CIHI reports that of the 19,787 surgeries carried out in 2000-2001, patients aged 45 to 54 made up 10 per cent of surgeries; 18 per cent were performed on those aged 55 to 64, a trend to younger patients.
Mr. Rudling recounts a childhood filled with anti-inflammatory pills, body casts and a wheelchair due to a rare bone disease. After his first hip replacement surgery, he threw himself into weightlifting in order to make up for 21 years of physical difficulty -- but zest for exercise resulted in what promises to be a lifetime of numerous operations.
"Hopefully, because I've cut down on the lifting, my next surgery won't be for another five years, but it depends a lot on how active I am," Mr. Rudling added. Conceivably, he'll be celebrating his 40th birthday in conjunction with his fourth hip replacement surgery.
