Are you doing the things that make you feel good?

When you feel good, how do you act?

When you feel good, how are your relationships?

When you feel good, how is your energy?

When you feel good, how do you sleep?

When you feel good, how do you look after yourself?

When you feel good, what plans are you making?

In my rooms I see patients often when they are in pain and discomfort. When they aren’t feeling good. When they aren’t sleeping. When they can’t keep up with their family or friends anymore. When they’ve had to postpone a trip due to their pain, or they’ve ended up in emergency over the weekend. When they can no longer walk more than a few steps. When they feel like they have to apologise to everyone around them for “being slow”. When they can no longer be in the garden or enjoy cooking, or the things that they used to do in their spare time and now long for. When getting up in the morning is harder and harder. When they’ve started to lose confidence.

It’s important to me as your surgeon to know how you want to feel and what makes you ….well you.

To know what is happening with you and in your life to help advise you, to tailor a treatment plan for you, and to guide you on how to feel better - whether that’s treatment now or in the future. Sometimes I see patients and then don’t see them again for another few years, when they know it’s time to take a different approach and they are truly ready for surgery.

So my question to every patient, when I see them for the first time or perhaps the 4th time is …

Are you doing things that make you feel good?

EK.