AUSTIN, Texas — Dancing is art in motion, and a dancer's body is a tool for their expression.
"Everything in dance starts with a plié and ends with a plié, everything," said Linda Holland.
Holland is a competitive dancer who owns her own dance studio, Dance Institute.
She found that in 2018, she was not able to use her tools correctly. That's when she had her first knee surgery, but she still felt something wasn't right.
"If you don't have knees you probably don't dance, that's very safe to say," she said. "I was probably looking at a possible or total knee at some point when I couldn't stand how my knee was functioning at that time."
Last year, she had a total knee replacement, a surgery done with the help of robotics.
"You know, if you're an athlete or have to be on your feet, this is the best way to have it done," she said.
"It is changing the way we are doing joint replacement surgeries," noted Dr. Joey Romero, Holland's doctor at St. David's Medical Center. He's an orthopedic surgeon at the St. David's Center for hip and knee replacement.
He used the Mako robot and says it can speed up recovery.
"Historically, the way hip and knee replacements were performed was sort of archaic in nature, and the accuracy and precision was not as good as it could be," he said. "What we do with a Mako robotic surgery, we go into the OR more prepared to give the patient an excellent surgical result."
This is how Holland is able to be back dancing and preparing to go back to competition in under a year.
"Linda, her knee replacement was going to require that she's able to pivot, spin, bend, extend and put stresses on her knee that normally we wouldn't think would be required for the average person getting a knee replacement," said Dr. Romero.
"I didn't realize how much pain I was in," said Holland. "But now I can tell you I was really having a lot of pain I wasn't paying attention to."
She is getting her tools back, so she can get back to creating moving art.
"I'm much happier now, and I owe that to my new knee as well," she added.
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