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Home And Away actress Georgie Parker has opened up about her battle with osteoarthritis, after being admitted to hospital earlier this year.
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!
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