You could say I’m known for being a bit of a toughie. A woman who takes no prisoners. I’ve rushed through 77 years at top speed, determined to build a brilliant career by working extremely hard and rarely turning down an opportunity to learn something new.
Along the way I’ve been a TV presenter and a top BBC executive. A national newspaper editor and a Loose Woman. I’ve written seven books and appeared on every TV channel.
I’ve won plenty of awards and have fought hard to build my reputation as someone who speaks her mind. On ITV’s Loose Women, I think I’m known as someone who is pretty fearless.
And, yes, I suppose you could also say that I can be a bit of a curmudgeon at times. Men, marriages and new houses all came and went – usually when I decided it was time to move on. My busy life has been full of terrific experiences, and I haven’t regretted a thing.
Until now, that is – 2024 has been my annus horribilis. The year from hell. Worse than Covid, worse than the embarrassment of marrying highly unsuitable husband number four on the spur of the moment back in the 1990s – a bad decision as he was loathed by nearly all my friends, who (correctly) decided I was going through a midlife crisis at 50. He was 29.
Now, though, I haven’t been brought down by an ill-chosen bloke – but something much worse: my own vanity and pigheadedness.
Refusing to contemplate essential hip surgery a year ago, I delayed an operation until I could hardly walk. Racked with pain, my face lined and aged by nights without sleep, I tossed and turned for hour after hour. Each morning I would drag myself into the shower, shuffle to work, go home… and repeat the process. I sought opinions from one specialist after another, hoping for a magic injection or wonder pill.
I’d suffered with osteoarthritis since my 40s, aggravated by long-distance walking, too much exercise and tennis. I’ve had cortisone painkilling injections in my elbows, knees, neck and shoulders for years. Now, though, my left hip was worn down to the bone. Just putting my foot on the ground was excruciating.
Janet Street-Porter, 77, revels in the fact that she’s known for being a ‘bit of a toughie’, a woman that takes no prisoners
Half a dozen different anti-inflammatory drugs and several painful injections into the joint did nothing for me. Exasperated, my GP dumped me, and the months of dithering about what to do only ended up costing me a fortune in ineffective treatments.
Why was I so fearful of hip replacement surgery? Obviously, my behaviour was irrational – although a major operation, knee or hip joint replacement is now considered a routine procedure with the number of operations doubling over the past two decades.
In 2021, more than 99,000 patients in England, Wales and Northern Ireland had hip joints replaced, and the vast majority reckon their lives improved substantially as a result.
And it’s not as if I hadn’t had one joint replaced very successfully a few years ago – my arthritic left knee. I was out of bed and walking within 24 hours of the operation.
Afterwards, however, my sleep was severely disrupted for a year as the nerves regrew around the new joint, something I really hadn’t been warned about beforehand. I didn’t experience much pain during the day, but nights were torture.
Then, one day, without any warning, all the agony just stopped. That ongoing nerve pain was certainly one of the reasons I was reluctant to go through with hip replacement surgery. But deep down, there were other niggling reasons.
One, being reliant on other people, of being compelled to slow down for weeks, possibly months, during the healing process.
The advice given to those who have had hip ops is that you should take six weeks off work, stop driving and get help at home.
Janet’s 2024 has been her annus horribilis – the year from hell – after she delayed a hip operation until she could hardly walk
Second, there was a very real sense that hip replacement surgery meant I had suddenly become an ‘oldie’ overnight, one step closer to a coffin. I had a growing sense of my own mortality. If I stopped work, would I ever go back? Would I be considered employable or a risk?
Showing vulnerability is not in my DNA – I’d fought my way through life, determined to excel, never showing weakness in the male-dominated fields of print and television I’d chosen to work in.
So despite my obvious pain, I would not admit the secret dread I felt, preferring to pretend to go along with the ‘tough’ JSP image.
Little did I know how much this life-changing operation would lead me to reassess that image. I’ve always rather enjoyed being seen as cantankerous – in my mind, it felt like I was showing others how strong I was.
Today, though, encouraged by my fellow Loose Women, I find myself trying to look for the positives in life instead, and – dare I say it – soften up a little.
The road to surgery started last March when, following an MRI scan, a well-regarded consultant told me there was no alternative. My left hip had to be replaced before it was too late. Any longer and I would suffer serious mobility issues.
Still, though, I continued to take on work, signing contracts which meant I was committed to TV shows, speeches and appearances months in advance.
As the pain intensified, I turned into a complete misery, barely able to get up the stairs at the TV studios. The year before, 2023, I would go out to supper after work and meet friends at least two or three times a week. But by spring this year, I could not manage public transport and only took train journeys which didn’t involve changes. I cut down on socialising and took sleeping pills most nights.
On her road to recovery, the broadcaster walks between bars to regain her strength. Janet says returning to work was just as tiring as her Kilimanjaro climb
Soon I was taking tramadol, a highly addictive painkiller, at least three times a week, in order to get just four or five hours’ rest.
I stopped going up and down stairs in my own home, leaving things in piles on the landing, and stuffing them into carrier bags for the journey to the washing machine on the top floor once a week.
I felt vulnerable, weak and virtually housebound – and I hadn’t even had the operation. I went from an abrasive, shouty person to croaking and whimpering to my partner continually. Mentally, I was in poor shape, worried that the amount of painkillers I was forced to take would affect my judgment on a live TV show like Loose Women, where you have to be so careful about libel and accuracy.
My breathing became very shallow because of the pain and I started to suffer from acid reflux. I lost weight, I looked hunched up on telly, with huge bags under my eyes that no make-up could hide.
For the other Loose Women, I now realise that working with me must have been a bit of a miserable experience. I could just about laugh and joke and appear jolly on screen for an hour, but once the programme ended I slunk off home straight away, desperate to lie down and rest. My partner told me I had to do something, but I just ignored him.
By August, I had to travel to Edinburgh to do a show with Christopher Biggins. I managed it, but I now knew I couldn’t postpone my op any longer.
Scheduling the surgery wasn’t easy, but finally it was set for October 4. On the day of the op, I managed to slide downstairs at home as I rushed to get ready, badly bruising my back. I couldn’t have an epidural because my back was so tense, so I had a general anaesthetic.
When I came round three hours later, my surgeon, Vivek Gulati, and matron were smiling at the end of my bed: it had been a huge success. I was completely overwhelmed with relief and joy that I was feeling no pain.
With the assistance of a crutch, Janet strolls along the coast – one of many milestones achieved since the surgery
I ate a massive plate of shepherd’s pie, and posted a selfie of the new smiley JSP (with an oxygen tube up her nose) on my Insta feed – it would be liked by almost 90,000 people. It gave a completely fake impression of how I would soon be feeling. Just two hours later, things were very different. The sedatives and painkillers wore off, I was snivelling and desperate for anything that would stop the waves of nausea and pain.
I could not control my left leg; it felt like a ton weight. I was dying to get to the bathroom – but it might as well have been on Mars.
After operations like mine, you lose all dignity. But, despite my fears, I can say that it does pass. You get a raised toilet seat. You work out how to navigate a walking frame and, within two days, you’re on crutches.
A day after the operation I was walking up and down in a beautifully warm swimming pool, stretching and learning to rebuild the muscles in my leg again.
Hydrotherapy – carrying out a series of simple exercises under water, with no weight to carry and no resistance – is absolutely key to rebuilding the muscles around your new hip. And, for once, I did whatever I was told by the physio.
Out of water, though, I was struggling. Sleeping on my back in a single hospital bed was challenging and required another heavy dose of sleeping pills and tramadol. Which means you are so constipated you are swigging bottles of laxative and praying for action.
After four nights in hospital, I chose to stay at Lynden Hill Clinic near Reading to recover and rebuild my strength through daily physiotherapy and hydrotherapy sessions. Most people return home after a hip replacement, where they must rely on others or fend for themselves, trying not to injure themselves by picking things up, or twisting or bending.
I decided to spend my hard-earned cash on being looked after by professionals in a specialist clinic, because it meant the experts were in charge, not me, and I couldn’t overdo things.
My week-long stay cost the same as a trip to New York or a posh hotel in Scotland, but this was money well spent.
I didn’t have to think about cooking, laundry, looking decent, or being sociable. I was like a nun saying her prayers, concentrating religiously on my physio exercises, breathing in and out exactly as ordered. Each day, I felt stronger. It was almost a religious experience. After 77 years, my passion for work was replaced with an intense desire simply to be well again.
When I got home, I spent a few days by the sea in Whitstable, Kent, and managed to walk along the beach front with just one stick – using that to fend off dogs and stray kids on scooters.
After three weeks, I returned to the Loose Women studio to say hello and got a great reception from Brenda [Edwards], Ruth [Langsford] and Coleen [Nolan] and our studio audience.
Back home, though, I was shattered. I hadn’t felt this exhausted since climbing Kilimanjaro. But despite all my fears, I hadn’t slid into senility and old age. And I could imagine my old walking skills returning before too long.
That said, I still felt very nervous and vulnerable, frightened someone might knock into my new hip and upend me.
Every week has brought a new milestone. I went cold turkey and stopped the sleeping pills and the painkillers as soon as I got home.
A month on, I was back in the Loose Women studios working. I threw away the horrible compression socks after five weeks. At six weeks, I managed to get in and out of the bath all by myself. Happy day!
Of course, I did overdo things. I spent two hours gardening trying to stick in the last of the winter veg (forbidden) and sat at the computer for four hours (also on the banned list). Soon, my sleep started to revert to the old pattern of three hours, then a trip to the loo, then another two hours if I was lucky.
I whisked through my hip exercises too quickly one day because I was going out to dinner. Then my new hip really started hurting. That was a lesson learned.
Today, I might take a painkiller once or twice a week to get better sleep. Ditto sleeping pills. I am trying to live a new, sensible life with my new hip, which is still just eight weeks old. I’ve had to learn to accept help when I need it, too.
I know even more now that work makes me happy, so there’s no question of retiring. But I also realise that if I want a longer, relatively pain-free life, I have to moderate my lifestyle and exercise for at least 20 minutes every day.
And I’m also working on my mental health – trying to focus on the positive, rather than the negative in life. Just one hour of winter sunshine is to be celebrated, even if it is then followed by an afternoon of grey drizzle.
Changing the cynical mindset of the previous half a century doesn’t come easily! That said, I can feel the benefits already.
I am not a crumbling oldie just yet. But avoiding that fate is entirely up to me. Happy people live longer, apparently.
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