Karen Spagnoli: Getting her life back after hip replacement surgery

Last summer, Karen Spagnoli was at the end of her rope. At age 50, she suffered from so much hip pain that she hadn’t been able to walk unaided for four years. She was dependent on her family and friends for everything from getting dressed to cooking and driving. She couldn’t do the things she enjoyed most, like traveling and working out. It took all the strength she had just to get to work.

Spagnoli thought she needed hip replacement surgery but put it off because she had gone through several other surgeries over the past four years: two knee replacements, a lower back fusion and a cervical fusion.

“Unfortunately, arthritis runs in my family and that’s the cause of all my problems,” Spagnoli says. “In addition, I played a lot of sports when I was younger. As a fast-pitch pitcher, I opened and closed my hips and bent my back a lot, which may have contributed to it.

“I finally decided to have hip replacement surgery because of the severe pain,” she continues. “Driving to and from work was awful. Sometimes I couldn’t even get out of the car by the time I got home because the pain was so bad. I’d had enough, and it was getting worse.”

So Spagnoli scheduled an appointment with James Scott, DO, an orthopedic surgeon at St. Mary Medical Center.

“Karen had some of the worst arthritic changes that I’ve seen in a patient,” says James Scott, DO. “Her arthritis was so severe that she couldn’t sit straight up in a regular chair.”

Dr. Scott performed Spagnoli’s first hip replacement in August 2024 and the second, just three months later, in early November 2024.

“Karen had some of the worst arthritic changes that I’ve seen in a patient. Her arthritis was so severe that she couldn’t sit straight up in a regular chair.” – James Scott, DO

“For someone like Karen, hip replacement surgery is life-changing,” Dr. Scott emphasizes. “She was dependent on others and now she can do things for herself again. Most important to her recovery, she set post-op goals for herself. She wanted to be able to travel again and get back to physical exercise, and she’s worked hard to realize those goals.

“Dr. Scott is an awesome doctor; I can’t thank him enough,” Spagnoli says. “He was very up-front with me and made me feel very comfortable. Before we went into the OR both times, he explained everything to me. Talking to him is like talking to a friend. And he gave me my life back!”

Spagnoli experienced immediate pain relief after her procedures. She has been walking on her own without assistance since late November 2024. She is already planning a trip to Las Vegas this year to see her favorite band, New Kids on the Block, and she’ll be going to at least one Phillies game.

“Dr. Scott is an awesome doctor; I can’t thank him enough. He was very up-front with me and made me feel very comfortable. Before we went into the OR both times, he explained everything to me. Talking to him is like talking to a friend. And he gave me my life back!” – Karen Spagnoli

“I love baseball and I couldn’t go to a game for four years because I couldn’t walk that distance, didn’t want to use a wheelchair and couldn’t sit in those ballpark seats for very long,” she says.

Spagnoli also looks forward to working out again. “I got a Peloton four years ago and haven’t been able to use it because my hips were so bad. I can’t wait to get on it! I also want to get back to taking spin classes and kickboxing.”

She also takes pleasure in the simplest things—such as stepping off a curb, moving her legs in and out of the car easily, and being able to sleep upstairs in the master bedroom again.

“Before my hip replacements, I was getting depressed and anxious,” she notes. “I only have one child, a son, and he was graduating from high school two years ago. I started worrying in March about how I was going to get to the stadium for his graduation in June. I couldn’t sleep because I was worrying about how I was going to be able to do a lot of things. Now I’m a totally different person. I’m doing things by myself and I don’t have anxiety issues anymore.”