Back in April 2025 Jack thought he’d just pulled his groin during a football match, but within 5 days he was in hospital, in horrific pain, and couldn’t even walk.

Jack has now been unable to walk without aid of crutches or a walker for over a year, and is in constant pain. He started his business just 1 month before this began and lost his full time job because he was unable to work. He has been struggling to keep his business afloat due to his immobility. Jack’s still awaiting 2 more operations before he might be able to walk again unaided.

Initial scans were extremely worrying, as they discovered a 12cm cyst inside of the femur bone, which later got diagnosed as Fibrous Dysplasia by specialists at Royal Orthopaedic Birmingham.

This condition replaces your bones into liquid cyst and there is no prevention or cure.

After several trips back and forth to Birmingham and months down the line, the specialists surprisingly felt that the cyst wasn’t the ONLY thing causing his inability to walk and there was something else at play!

After lots more scans and confusing appointments, they found an issue in BOTH hips - severe FAI Cam and labral tears. The scans showed extra bone on the femoral head that sits in the socket, so the hips “catch” every time he moves and cause extreme pain.

After a steroid injection into the hip joint didn’t improve his symptoms, and actually made them a lot worse, they knew surgery was the only option. But to operate on the hips, the cyst had to be gone first as Jack was told his leg would literally break in the operating theatre as it’s too weak!

Jan 2026, 9 months on, Jack had his cyst removed and replaced with bone powder and the leg stabilised with a large plate fitted to the side of the femur. Doctors were initially reluctant to do this surgery unless they absolutely had to, as it’s very invasive and there’s no guarantee that the cyst won’t grow back again in future…

A week in hospital, 6 weeks of wheelchair use, and he was ready to start physio.

When starting physio Jack had gone from being a fit, healthy footballer a year ago to not even being able to push against the physios hand with his leg. Physio appointments on NHS are every 3-4 weeks, so whilst some improvements have been made he’s still very weak and the issues in his hips are still preventing him from fully recovering.

Currently, Jack’s having to wait for a specialised MRI in Birmingham, so they can determine the type of surgeries he’ll need on both hips. The wait for this is 4 months.

With still such a long road ahead and lots of work to do, any help to speed this process along would be greatly appreciated.