Jeffrey Pop Sings Praise for Hip Replacement Surgery in His 40s
Jeffrey McCloy, also known as “Jeffrey Pop,” was used to living life in the fast lane. As a well-known Canadian punk musician with countless records, an avid skateboarder, and a talented soccer player, he was a “full-on” kind of guy until arthritis changed everything.
“I broke my leg playing soccer, and it was a severe break,” McCloy said. “It took a year to recover, but I experienced ongoing discomfort and pain.”
At the time, he didn’t know arthritis was causing these symptoms. “I did so many sports for years that my arthritis was masked,” McCloy said. “After my injury, I wasn’t in as good of shape, so it got bad fast.”
At 40, McCloy saw a sports medicine doctor who diagnosed him with osteoarthritis and expressed concerns over how progressed his disease was for his age.
The pain started in McCloy’s knees, then moved to his hips, impacting his walking. “I could feel grinding start to happen,” he said. First, he had to stop skateboarding. Soccer was the next to go. Eventually, McCloy needed canes to walk, which made him struggle mentally.
“I was mad at my body,” he said. “I went from being an unbelievably healthy person, who didn’t even drink, to having a sports injury, using two canes, and barely moving in a very short period.” This all escalated during the pandemic, so when the world finally re-opened, people who hadn’t seen McCloy in a while were shocked by his decline.
Arthritis took a lot from him, including his music. “I was forced to disconnect from my world,” said McCloy, who has sung and played guitar and bass for many punk bands. “Playing music became a problem. The volume of music and the drum kit was too much.”
After years of struggling with chronic pain and having his life turned upside down, McCloy had double hip replacement surgery in 2023 at the age of 48. Though the recovery has been long, McCloy has returned to skateboarding and music with a renewed appreciation for his health. We spoke with him to learn more about his arthritis diagnosis and how it impacted his life as an athlete and musician.
What did you know about arthritis before you were diagnosed?
Very little, my grandparents had arthritis. Some relatives have it in their fingers and hands, and my mom has it in her knees. No one in my immediate family had it show up this early, so I felt like I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it.
What have been some of your most surprising arthritis symptoms?
When a motorcycle goes by with a loud muffler, you don’t realize how loud those deeper vibrations are until you have arthritis. I would feel pain in my hips through sound. When playing music, I started to be able to feel sound because there was nothing to stop the vibrations through my body. I could feel myself talking in my hips. I couldn’t do shows anymore.
How did you decide to get double hip replacement surgery?
I saw one surgeon who said I was too young to have surgery and told me that it wasn’t possible for me to be in so much pain. So, I went to see a younger surgeon. I remember being in the waiting room, and the doctor looking at my X-rays. He kept confirming my name and age, thinking he had the wrong films. He was shocked at the X-rays, given my age, and didn’t know how I was still moving. The doctors said if I had waited longer for the surgery, there would have been nothing to screw the replacement into. The initial doctor was going to wait. I could have been stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life if I didn’t request a second opinion. Though the surgery was intense, and so was the recovery, it has been life-altering. For me, it made more sense to get the surgery and live life while I was still young.
When did you know you made the right decision about surgery?
After the surgery, the pain disappeared so quickly! I can now skateboard every few days. I remember being scared the first time I went skateboarding after my surgery. Fear is such a funny thing. I was on the other side of being so compromised, and I was scared about what my replacements could handle. The reality is that the replacements are stronger than my old joints. The first time I fell, I said, “I think I’m fine.” I got up, and it was liberating. I’m not sure too many people feel great after a skateboarding slam, but it broke the ice. It was the fall I needed to feel good about my surgery.
How did your arthritis impact you as a musician?
Playing music was impacted by the pain. I couldn’t practice, rehearse, stand properly or be in a room with noise. I recorded on my own, but wouldn’t show the songs to anyone. The whole social side, a huge aspect of why people get involved in music, was tainted by arthritis. It made me so much more aware of people with any disability.
How did arthritis affect your enjoyment of music and punk shows?
Things really changed for me when I started using canes to walk. So much of going to a show, playing music or engaging with art shouldn’t be about you, it should be about what you’re experiencing. I wanted to talk about the shows and the music, but everyone else wanted to talk about my disability. It pulled me out of the moment of enjoying the music and forced me to focus on something I was trying not to think about. Arthritis sucked the joy out of going to shows. This was really hard to come to terms with.
How has having arthritis changed you as a person?
Arthritis forced me to have empathy for people living with disabilities because I was experiencing it and seeing it personally. Arthritis is such a curious disease because it’s invisible, you don’t see it. Once someone is compromised by arthritis, they are forced to slow down because their body slows down. Everyone else continues to exist at a crazy, fast pace. Do you know when you are walking down the street and someone asks you for spare change, and you ignore and walk past them? With arthritis, you don’t have the ability to breeze past people. It used to take me 45 minutes to walk a few blocks. All the regular people kept walking. Suddenly, the people who I used to breeze past, were the ones who talked to me. And they didn’t want to talk about my problems. They just wanted to talk. Now that I’m on the other end of things, I’m trying to be more mindful of seeing people and being more aware of my world. Arthritis completely re-wrote the way I see people. When you are forced to focus on your pain, you have an insular view. You focus on “you” and it’s hard to see outside that box.
What advice would you give to young people diagnosed with arthritis?
You’re not dead until you’re dead. It’s so easy to get beaten by your head. I won’t lie and say surgery is a simple solution because it’s not. When you’re struggling, the last thing you need to hear is a positive message – especially from someone on the recovered side. I would never hold my own experience up against another person’s experience. However, I would suggest pushing and advocating for yourself when you talk to doctors. There are some flaws in the medical system. What the doctors did for me was brilliant, but I had to push for it, which wasn’t easy. If I didn’t push, I wouldn’t have gotten the surgery, wouldn’t be playing music and would be in a wheelchair waiting for surgery. If you have a type of arthritis that surgery can help and you’re younger, don’t let doctors tell you that you’re too young. You’re the one that has to live with the arthritis and the symptoms every day.
What do you most want people to know about arthritis?
The idea that arthritis is not a “front and centre disease” is shocking. Every time I see someone limping, I wonder if they have arthritis. Few people talk about how debilitating and life-altering arthritis can be – especially for individuals who are diagnosed at a younger age. It’s a disease that starts impacting you before you are old, but we don’t talk about that. This conversation needs to be pushed forward.
In Canada, about 500,000 youth hurt their knees every year while playing sports. Half of them go on to develop osteoarthritis within 10 years.
At Arthritis Research Canada, we’ve created a unique, online, exercise-based program to help boost recovery from a knee injury and reduce the risk for this life-changing disease.
