North Carolina grandfather has ankle totally replaced so he can walk with his grandson
By Joshua Davis
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KERNERSVILLE, North Carolina (WXII) — A Triad grandfather has extra reason to celebrate this Father’s Day, after a broken ankle and two decades of pain severely impacted his ability to walk. He and his surgeon sat down with WXII about what it took to get him back on his feet.
For a long time, Chris Conner wasn’t happy. The 53-year-old Kernsville husband, father, and grandfather was gradually losing his ability to walk after he broke his ankle back in 1995 — and since then, missing out on important moments with his family.
“Unless I was walking on something that was a complete flat surface, I had to be extremely careful,” he said. “People have to wait on me to, because I would have to stop, or I couldn’t. I just couldn’t physically get where I was going as quickly as everybody else, because of the pain, the swelling.”
At one point, he had to consider a fusion of his foot and ankle:
“Which means the ankle foot and ankle wouldn’t move anymore, and I felt I was too young to go through something like that,” he said.
However, Novant Health orthopedic surgeon Dr. Snow Daws gave him a different option: a total ankle replacement.
“(It’s) for ankles that are affected by severe arthritis,” she said. “Arthritis is damage to the cartilage that lines our joints. What the surgery entails is we cut the ends of the bone off of both the tibia bone, which is the shin bone, and the talus bone, which is that lower bone and the ankle joint, and we replace the ends of those bones with metal caps, and then a piece of plastic goes in between, and that reconstructs the joint.”
On Sept. 26, 2025 — Conner went under the knife — and for the next two months took on physical therapy.
“I didn’t like being confined,” he said. “(It’s) my right foot, so I can’t drive, can’t walk, can’t, can’t shower without help, can’t do anything, and so I was very motivated to be able to do things, and then once once the boot came off and I started being able to walk normally, it was just the fact that I could do things and it didn’t hurt.”
Despite the frustration and hard work that went into recovery, he said the reward at the end made it all worth it.
“I was able to go to Disney with my grandson,” he said. “Me walking on my foot and ankle was not something we had to worry about. Now, you know, keeping up with a 4-year-old, that was something we had to worry about.”
It’s a heartwarming ending, and life back on track.
“I can take him to the field, or we can go places, and you know, kick a soccer ball, or we can climb on the playground stuff, or do whatever,” Conner said. “It’s a big difference between being happy and just living.”
Chris says he’s grateful to the team at Novant Health for helping him learn to stand on his own again. For Father’s Day, he plans to take his boat out on Belews Lake, grill and enjoy every moment with his grandson and family.
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