Eric Jones, of southern New Jersey, is not your typical volunteer firefighter. Jones, who works as a communications technician by day and a firefighter by night, has worked and fought fires with a prosthetic leg since the mid-1990s. Eric was diagnosed with cancer when he was 11 years old and required the amputation of his right leg above the knee. Years of activity and injury began to deteriorate both his quality of life and the functionality of his left knee.
Not unlike many people with knee pain, Jones’ issues started with an injury. “I tore my meniscus, then I had it scoped, and a few years went by. The pain started to get gradually worse and got to a point where I needed to do something,” said Jones, who began to change the way he went about his days to reduce the ongoing knee pain.
“I wouldn’t go to outings. If there was walking involved, I wouldn’t walk. I stopped riding the fire truck and fighting fires, and my attitude became negative. Being in pain made me upset.”
Even with the physical and emotional pain he was experiencing, Jones was still hesitant to make the decision to have knee replacement surgery. Like Jones, many people dealing with knee pain find ways to change their lifestyle and daily activities to avoid consulting a doctor or considering replacement surgery.