Meet the real bionic woman - the mother who has had almost all her joints replaced
By the end of the month, the only major joint in Eileen Brown's body she can truly call her own is likely to be her elbow.
All the rest - shoulder, hip and knees and left elbow - will be replacement ones given to her in 20 years of operations.
That 49-year-old Mrs Brown, who has three grandchildren, can still stand up is a tribute to the bionic technology of the surgeons and her own indomitable spirit.
For much of her life, Mrs Brown has suffered from rheumatoid arthritis.
It has damaged her joints to such an extent that only her right elbow and left hip are her own - and the hip is due to go very soon.
A dozen operations and countless procedures meant Mrs Brown had so much metal inside her that she set off airport alarms on a visit to the U.S.
Mrs Brown, of Boldon Colliery, near Sunderland, said: 'I have to put up with horrendous pain, but you just have to get on with things. I have my good days and bad, but you've got to stay positive and never give up.'
Mrs Brown, who lives with her husband Brian, 52, has had all her operations on the NHS at the Sunderland Royal Hospital. 'I've been in hospital so many times they've all kind of merged into each other,' she said.
Most people don't start suffering from the disabling disease until they are in their 40s. But Mrs Brown first went to the doctors in pain in her late 20s.
Initially it was put down to 'growing pains'. She was then diagnosed with depression and put on anti-depressants, before the real cause was identified and the years of surgery began.
'The specialists at the hospital were really surprised I'd been put on tablets for depression - I've never been depressed in my life,' she said.
Mrs Brown has had at least a dozen major operations and countless surgical procedures over the last 20 years to have joints replaced in the shoulder, elbow, hip and knees. She can even tell friends when rain is due because damp weather makes her condition play up.
'I've spent a really long time in hospital and have to put up with horrendous pain, but you just have to get on with things, it's all you can do,' she says. 'I have my good days and bad, but you've got to stay positive and never give up.'
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