The Gift of Walking: How Operation Walk Denver is transforming lives globally

Operation Walk is a medical humanitarian organization that provides life-changing joint replacement surgeries at no cost to those in need within the US and globally. The organization specifically performs hip and knee replacements. These surgeries are complex and require highly skilled medical talent, as well as a team of over 50 medical professionals for a week- long mission.

The results of these surgeries are truly life changing. Patients are given the gift of walking and mobility – and a new chance to thrive within their families and communities. Since Operation Walk began in 1996, the organization has transformed the lives of over 17,000 individuals in 25 countries.

Dr. Doug Dennis, orthopedic surgeon with Colorado Joint Replacement, is the Founder and Executive Director of Operation Walk Denver. Dr. Dennis established the Denver chapter after he volunteered with the organization in Nicaragua in 2002. There, he witnessed Operation Walk’s life-changing impact on patients and communities. With the help of Porter Adventist Hospital and its team of talented healthcare professionals, Operation Walk Denver went on its first mission to Panama in 2003. Since then, the Denver chapter has performed over 2000 free surgeries in Central and South America.

Here, Dr. Dennis shares a story of one of his more memorable Operation Walk Denver experiences:

I would like to share the story of a female from Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the northern hemisphere. On our first mission there, 70 joint replacements were performed – more than all joint surgeries performed in the entire country the previous year.

Johanna was 28 years old and afflicted with severe Juvenile Arthritis as a child. She could not afford the medical treatment she needed and suffered for many years. When I first met her, she could only hobble short distances with a walker. Both of her hips and knees were destroyed with hardly any flexibility in either her hips or knees. She was severely depressed and unable to attend school due to her pain and lack of mobility.

In patients with both knees or hips that are profoundly stiff, if both aren’t replaced at the same surgical intervention, rehabilitation of the one replaced is dramatically impaired as the opposite joint remains stiff. Therefore, both of her hips were replaced at the same time, a substantial undertaking for a disabled petite patient.

While her hip replacements helped relieve some of her pain, her mobility remained limited due to the arthritic destruction of both of her knees. While the next visit of Operation Walk Denver to Honduras is typically one year later, due to scheduling issues, we were returning to Honduras in six months, a true blessing for Johanna as both of her knees were replaced on that mission visit.

Today, Johanna walks normally and without pain. She is a productive and determined gal. To give thanks, each time Operation Walk Denver travels to Honduras, she travels from her small village to share her story and help her fellow Hondurans who will be treated by Operation Walk Denver. She insists on sleeping on a cot in the patient ward with all our postoperative patients to assist nursing staff around the clock and help the patients in any way she can.

Johanna is an example of how Operation Walk Denver team members receive back much more than we provide. We help to restore the gift of walking, and in turn, witness countless lives change for the better.

For more information on Operation Walk Denver, visit www.operationwalk.org