‘It was a bigger op than I thought’: Georgie Parker’s hip replacement at 53

She’s been a staple on Aussie screens for decades and may seem forever young to those who remember her from classic shows such as A Country Practice. 

But Georgie Parker has now 53 and has undergone a hip replacement, after suffering osteoarthritis for more than a decade.

Appearing on a Monday’s episode of The Morning Show with Larry Emdur and Kylie Gillies, the seven-time Logie winner opened up about the surgery that forced her to take nine weeks off from filming Home and Away.

She explained that she had osteoarthritis in her hip and hadn’t been able to cross her legs for 12 years, calling it a “miracle” that she was finally able to do so again after her surgery in February.  “It was a big operation, it was bigger than I thought,” she revealed on the show. “But the relief was pretty immediate and I’m back to doing what I want to do, but I’m taking my time. It was a life-changing experience.”

Gillies told the former All Saints star she thought hip replacements were usually associated with people older than those in their 50s, and questioned the impact it had on Parker.

“I hid it as well as I could and I stayed as fit as I could,” Parker said of her hip problems. “I’ve got scoliosis as well so I’m working with that, as well as the hip. Unfortunately, when the hip loses that movement, your whole body acts like a splint. So everything is compromised. You have to think about how you sit, you think about how you stand, you think about how you get up.”

Read more: Hip pain and how you can avoid it

Saying that she was originally diagnosed with osteoarthritis – a type of arthritis caused when the flexible tissue at the ends of bones wears down, causing joint pain and loss of movement – at just 40 years old but was told at the time that she was too young to have a hip replacement.

With the worst of the pain over now, however, Parker joked she was now “part-robot” because her new hip was made of titanium.

‘It’s a little bit heavier than the bone, so it’s getting used to moving that around,” she said.

And, while she admitted it was hard being away from work for so long, she said her Home and Away co-stars including Ray Meagher visited her and sent her messages and flowers. Viewers haven’t yet seen her character Roo depart the show because filming runs so far in advance of screening, but she said all will be revealed soon when she packs her bags and leaves for a few weeks.

What do you think? Have you had a hip replacement? How long did it take you to recover?