Home And Away actress Georgie Parker opens up about suffering with osteoarthritis

Speaking to New Idea,  Parker – who has played Summer Bay favourite Roo Stewart for the past eight years – revealed she had been operated on after getting a hip replacement due to her battle with osteoarthritis.

"I suppose as far as some people were concerned, I was handicapped or had a physical deformity – and in medical journals, scoliosis is called a deformity – and yet I don’t feel like that describes my body at all," she positively told the publication.

"I don’t use the word deformity, or bad back. I use the word challenge. It’s not my bad hip, it’s my hip that has been operated on – and now I call it my good leg."

Eight weeks after the procedure – which she undertook at  Sydney’s North Shore Private Hospital –  Parker, a fitness enthusiast  revealed she's focussing on getting through rehab, seeing her physiotherapist once a week and training daily.

"I must stink of chlorine," the 53-year-old quipped.

"Physical obstacles really don’t have to define you," the popular TV star says. "There is pain and there is discomfort and there will be medical intervention – but there is always a way of finding a challenge and making that challenge make you a better person. That’s what I think."

"I would encourage everyone who has some kind of physical impediment not to be conscious of what they can’t do, but find out what they can do – and do it! The antidote is staying active. You need to move it, or you lose it. That cliche is true," she maintains.

Wishing Georgie a speedy recovery and we commend her fighting spirit!