Zac Newland is an independent, intelligent young man who lives on his parent’s dairy farm in Malanda, Far North Queensland. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy at a young age, Zac has had to walk with leg braces and a walker. It was extremely important to do this as the weight-bearing helped to wear in the hip joint.  At this stage Zac was pain free and had no trouble walking with the leg braces (KAFO’s).  He is a keen swimmer and tries to keep fit. He is a straight-A student in Year 12 at the local high school and aspires to become a mechanical engineer after attending university, and later in life he hopes to take over his family’s farm.

Last Christmas and totally out of the blue, Zac experienced extreme pain to the point where Christmas day was spent lying flat out.  He later learned that the hip had dislocated, the femoral head had worn and there was bone on bone from the hip joint which was the source of the pain.   He had been able to walk in the braces but now movement in certain directions became impossible due to the pain. Since then he has not been able to weight bear or walk, because when he tries to stand the hip causes the muscle around it to seize and the femoral head pushes into the hip causing excruciating pain. However, he has been able to keep up his stretching, and still uses the brace to get his leg straight. He attends a physio weekly in preparation for a hip replacement operation at the end of November, after he graduates.

The operation is at Pindara Hospital on the Gold Coast, and is expected to take around seven hours. After it is complete, Zac will stay in recovery for another three to six days and then he will have to stay on the Gold Coast for rehab for another month before he can come home.

Once he gets home there will be ongoing rehab with the physio. As you can imagine, this is very expensive, and there is a long road to recovery. However, he is confident that he will be able to walk again with his callipers and walker. Zac hopes he will be able to start the first semester of university next year, free of pain.  One day soon, not only would Zac like to walk, he would love to run.