Changes to our joints, bones and muscles are often attributed simply to ageing ‘wear and tear’, but is that true? From creaky joints to hip and knee replacements, physiotherapist Rod Grof takes us through the top musculoskeletal risks as we age, while Logie-winning actor John Wood shares his own health story, and how health impacts his life.

About the episode - brought to you by Australian Seniors. 

Join James Valentine as he explores the incredible stories of Aussie characters, from the adventurous to the love-struck. Across 30 inspirational episodes, Life’s Booming explores life, health, love, travel, and everything in between.

Our bodies surprise us in ways we never thought possible as we age, so in series five of the Life’s Booming podcast – Is This Normal? – we’re settling in for honest chats with famous guests and noted experts about the ways our bodies behave as they age, discussing the issues and awkward questions you may be too embarrassed to ask yourself.

Acting veteran John Wood is no stranger to treading the boards. From Rafferty’s Rules and Blue Heelers to comedy revue Senior Moments and Ensemble Theatre’s newest show, The Great Divide, John has been entertaining audiences for more than 40 years.

Rod Grof is a Melbourne-based physiotherapist and principal of Platinum Physio. Experienced in treating a range of musculoskeletal injuries and conditions in clients across the lifespan, Rod helps his older patients to live more active lives, with less pain.

If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note - lifesbooming@seniors.com.au.

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For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast.

Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience Agency

Transcript:

James Valentine: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming Series 5 of this most excellent and award winning podcast. I'm James Valentine and in this series we're going to ask the question, is this normal? I mean, as we age, stuff happens to us. Our bodies change, things fall off, we get crook, stuff doesn't work as well as it used to.

There's nothing we can do about it, we're getting older, we're ageing. But which bits are normal? Which bits do we have no control over? Which bits can we do something about? That's the kind of questions that we're going to be asking in this series, Is This Normal?, of Life's Booming. Now, of course, if you enjoy this series, leave us a review, tell all your families and friends about it.

And we want to hear from you as well. You can contribute to this. If you've got questions about things in particular that you want to know, perhaps there's some particular wear and tear happening to you. Let us know. We'd love to see if we can answer that question in the series. We're gonna look at things like menopause, gut health, mental health, lots of other burning questions.

So think about those areas and if there's something in there that's specific to you that you'd like us to cover, let us know.

From creaky joints to hip and knee replacements, let's find out the things that are really gonna affect our muscles and our bones, our musculoskeletal system. Someone who knows muscles a lot better than me is Melbourne based director of platinum physio, Rod Grof. Rod helps his older patients to live more active lives with less pain and he can share what commonly happens to our bodies as we age and also what we can do about it.

But before we bring on Rod, let me introduce someone who's very familiar to you. You're gonna know him. He's a great guy and a marvellous actor. You got to know and love him in Blue Heelers. He's currently in the ensemble theatres The Logie winning actor. Hello, John Wood. 

John Wood: Hello, James. How are you? 

James Valentine: Good. You're a bit crook. 

John Wood: Oh, I'm not that crook. I've had Rheumatoid arthritis for about the last 15 years and it sort of slows you down. 

James Valentine: What did you first notice? 

John Wood: Pains in the ankles, really. You know, quite severe pains in the ankles and difficulty getting around. And then I started to notice it in the hands, you know, like it was, you know, the knuckles were really swelling up and the hand was very difficult to move, but I also discovered I had Gout in, certainly in this hand, this hand I had an MRI done on and it was full of uric acid.

James Valentine: Yeah, right. And were they, what did they say at the time, was that compounding, were they separate things or compounding one another? 

John Wood: Well, they're separate and you take different medication for them both. I mean, you take allopurinol for the gout and methotrexate for the arthritis and I've started taking curcumin recently, which seems to settle things down a bit, and mersynofen. 

And this week, I've had, I don't know why it's happened, but I seem to have something like bursitis. There's no lump or swelling or anything, but the elbow has been giving me jib

James Valentine: It just happens. It's like, what do you do? It just happens, doesn't it? Everything starts to go a bit. How long a period, like from say the ankle pain to the joints, are we talking months, years? 

John Wood: Not very long. It was, it just seems that I've got Rheumatoid everywhere.

You know, like it's, apart from slowing me down a bit, it hasn't really affected my work, except for one occasion I auditioned for the Harry Potter musical and they had us marching up and down and across and sideways and doing all sorts of stuff and that was all fine, then this associate director from England said, now I want you all to fall down.

And I said, I can't even get on the ground to play choo-choo trains with my grandkids. So I said, it's a big mistake getting me to fall down. He said, nevermind fall down anyway. So I fell down and I had to be helped up by Julie Forsyth and a couple of other women.

James Valentine: And so it doesn't impede you that much, but it's painful.

John Wood: It's always very painful. Yeah. But at the moment, it's not too bad. I guess you get used to it as time goes on. And I've been lucky that the methotrexate has stopped any, you know, the stuff that says swelling. 

James Valentine: Yeah. It doesn't seem to be there. 

John Wood: No, no. And you know, I remember seeing old ladies when I was a kid, you know, whose fingers were really gnarled and bent. 

James Valentine: And sort of folded into a claw almost. 

John Wood: Yeah, yeah. 

James Valentine: It’s shocking. And so apart from the drugs, what else have you, what else have you tried? Exercise, diet? 

John Wood: Oh I'm trying, I'm staying at Kirribilli at the moment of course, and it's a bloody long walk up to the shops at Milsons Point. Just about, you know, like I'm getting fitter. 

James Valentine: Well let's bring in Rod. He's Director of Platinum Physio and he helps patients like you, you know, with, I suppose, the non chemical approach and trying to get that bloody long walk to maybe go a bit bloody further. 

Rod, thanks for joining us. What are you hearing and what John's telling us?

Rod Grof: I'm hearing a very common story. We have plenty of patients who come into our clinic with Rheumatoid arthritis. And you said John, 15 years ago was your onset of it. So often we hear that Rheumatoid arthritis’ onset is between the ages of 30 to 50 years of age. 

And you're currently taking methotrexate: just for our listeners, that’s actually a immunosuppressant, so it's going to slow down the immune response and in turn reduce, hopefully reduce the inflammatory response as well. And starting in the ankles, that's fairly common, but more so starting in the hands and the feet is probably the first point. And then it progresses to the knees, the ankles and as you've mentioned now, the elbows. 

James Valentine: You think the elbows are Rheumatoid? 

Rod Grof: There's a very good chance that it would be, yes. 

John Wood: Oh great, right. 

Rod Grof: But again, without a proper assessment, we can't categorically tell you that. But just interestingly that you mentioned that, you know, when James asked you about the exercise side of things, there's some really great non pharmacological interventions, John, that you could really get involved in. 

And one of them, which I could speak really highly about would be something called hydrotherapy, which is exercising in warm water at approximately 34 degrees Celsius, and just being able to really get a good workout and have a really targeted workout, which will address your muscles as well as your tendons and your ligaments that are ultimately affected by Rheumatoid arthritis to help improve things like your flexibility and we need to know, have you noticed that you've had changes in your flexibility, your mobility over the years? 

John Wood: I’ve never been all that flexible. I had, I was told when I was in my early teens, I had back trouble and the doctor discovered that I had two L5 vertebrae and I, you know, like most men, I used to use my spine like a crane and just, you know. 

James Valentine: And so is that like, so during the course of the rheumatoid arthritis, say the last 15 years, has anyone suggested exercise or anything apart from drugs?

John Wood: Well, I was doing my own exercise. I was walking in the RACV club pool at a place called Healesville in Victoria.

And it's really great exercise because it's 1. 2 meters deep. It's a heated pool. It's not heated to as warm as Rod suggested but, it's great. I mean, you know, walking through water and I used to do it.

James Valentine: That was sort of self prescribed, wasn't it? You just thought this is good.

John Wood: Yeah, yeah. I just thought this is, you know, like the water takes a bit of weight off the joints. 

James Valentine: But no one has said at any point, you know, when you go back to get it checked or, you know, no doctor or anybody else has said anything, just go and have a chat to the physio. 

John Wood:No. 

James Valentine: No. No. You hear that a lot, you know, a lot of people don't know what you can offer, Rod. 

Rod Grof: Yes, that is the case. And our physio association are really pushing forward the campaign just to give the general public to get a good understanding of the breadth of what we do.

And it's not just about musculoskeletal. We also treat patients neurologically. We also treat patients, you know, cardiothoracic wise as well. So there's a lot that patients don't know that physios can do except for massaging, you know, Chris Judd on the sidelines at an AFL game. 

James Valentine: Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, or actors who need a little bit of help.

Rod Grof: Yeah, absolutely. 

James Valentine: Can't get up off the Harry Potter stage at any point. So would you consider it now, John? Like, you know, like we can go in a little bit more about what it actually offers. Are you open to stuff, you know? 

John Wood: Yeah, yeah, of course I am. Yeah, yeah. I'd be very happy to talk to Rod. I believe you're in Melbourne, so. 

Rod Grof: Yes, I'm based in Melbourne.

John Wood: I’m just here, up here, working at the moment. 

James Valentine: So Rheumatoid arthritis, how common is that?

Rod Grof: Rheumatoid arthritis is fairly common. It's a condition which is an autoimmune disease, which basically means that your body essentially is attacking itself.

It's malfunctioning. And it's different to other forms of arthritis or the more popular or more well known type being osteoarthritis, which is more of your wear and tear type of arthritis. With Rheumatoid arthritis, that is when the body is actually attacking the lining of the joints, and that causes the redness, causes the swelling, and really a significant amount of pain and loss of function.

James Valentine: Then that would suggest to me it's kind of curable. You know, can we take something to fix it? 

Rod Grof: So sadly it actually isn't curable. However, it can be managed. So that's where I come into the picture. The non pharmacological side of things is you know, exercise, good sleep nutrition, stressing less, having a really good lifestyle and being active; yoga, meditation, mindfulness, all of these things are really important to help manage that condition from a non pharmacological perspective.

And when you go and see the quacks, see the docs, they're the ones that are going to feed you all the different pills. And I always say this, if there was a pill for exercise, every single doctor would be prescribing it. 

James Valentine: Yeah. But in some ways, it is the hardest one to do if you don't, if you haven't had a discipline of it in your life, it can be very hard to start. 

Rod Grof: Absolutely. You know, we have plenty of patients that come through our door that are across the lifespan and some of them have never walked into a gym in their life. An active gym is a real central feature of our physiotherapy clinics. 

James Valentine: So what’s going on in this gym? What are you doing? 

Rod Grof: So in the gym we're actually completing some physio supervised exercise. So we're actually taking the patient through a Physio tailored exercise regime, which addresses whatever their deficits are. 

James Valentine: We said, you know, if you haven't had exercise as part of your life, where you're not used to gyms, maybe that can be a bit forbidding. I mean, the other difficulty that can come with ageing is that you're not as limber as you once were, or you've got another injury or a knee problem or something that may interfere with you doing the exercise.

Rod Grof: Absolutely. So often as well, having other niggles is a massive deterrent. And again, we've had patients that come in all the time and say, look, I used to be a runner and you know, I unfortunately was climbing a ladder one day and doing some housework and I fell off the ladder and I landed on my knee and I had to go to surgery and I had to go to hospital and have surgery.

And unfortunately that moment in time has really prevented them from going on to do any form of exercise or rehabilitation. Whereas that's the time that should really be the impetus and really give you that motivation to start getting better because there's just so much that can be done. 

James Valentine: It's common at this point to start to have, I've got a bit of a creaky knee and a bit of a dicky hip and my elbow is a bit weird when, you know, the sun's at 45 degrees and I just played tennis three days ago.

You know, it can all feel a little bit ill defined or you've had a bit of a go at a couple of things and nothing much happened or changed. That's what it can feel like at this age. Hang on. I'm describing myself. You know like and you're not sure whether to seek treatment for every creaky bit that's that's going on. 

Rod Grof: Yes, so what you're describing is, you know, noisy knees is a great example. The reality is if it's not painful and not affecting your quality of life, just play on.

Don't worry about it. We become so obsessed and we hear so much about, you know, bone on bone and my joints are creaking and cracking. Well, there's plenty of evidence that suggests that people who are bone on bone actually don't have any pain. And there are those that have pristine looking joints, and can't get off a couch.

So based on that, there's really good evidence, really important lifestyle choices that you can still make. And based on that, we would encourage you, even if you're hearing all these interesting sounds in different parts of your body, work through it, and if it's progressively getting worse, that's when you do seek treatment.

James Valentine: Do you start with the physiotherapist? Do I go to a GP? Do I go to some other doctor and then get referred to you? 

Rod Grof:  It's a great question. Now, I believe when it comes to musculoskeletal related conditions, go straight to your physiotherapist. Here in Australia, you don't need a referral, so it's very, very accessible.

Often we'll have patients that will go to a GP and the GP says you need to go see a physiotherapist straight away. Also, there are some GPs though, that might go, Oh, okay. You've got a bit of a creaky shoulder. Maybe we need to go and do an X-ray or do some imaging. So I've seen people walk through my door with a wheelbarrow worth of scans.

I'm talking about scans, including X-rays, MRIs, CT scans, ultrasounds over the last 20 to 25 years in relation to whatever joint it is that's bothering them. Now, these people have done the ring around. They've gone doctor shopping and seeking answers and they come through our door because this one doctor in the last 20 years who they've seeked has said, why don't you go and see a physiotherapist?

So they come into our door and the first thing we ask them is, have you ever seen a physio? They say, no. Have you ever done any form of exercise? They say no. Okay. Well, great. Here's a starting point. And I try to soften it. I didn't say we've got a gym out here. Let's go and do some gym work because again, the idea of going into a gym can be quite terrifying for people because they think of macho men with their tops off and flexing their muscles in the mirror.

So just to sweeten it up a bit, it's more of a rehabilitation center and that just kind of takes the edge off it a bit. And that way we at least get that buy in and introduce them into that gym setting. Let's talk a little 

James Valentine: bit more about the difference between Rheumatoid and Osteoarthritis, because I think we've spent a fair bit on Rheumatoid.

Osteo comes on when in your life, what's it caused by, what is it? 

Rod Grof: Absolutely, so Osteoarthritis occurs, you know, pretty much over the age of 40 years of age. There's different degrees of it, different stages of it. It is a Progressive condition and you know, it's, it's part of the, unfortunately it's part of the ageing process.

Like we get gray hair, like we get wrinkles, that's all age related changes. These things are common with arthritis where ultimately, or osteoarthritis, where the cartilage that lines the joint changes. 

And that can be as a result of different mechanical stresses that you put through your joints and more commonly, wear and tear and genetics, you know, unfortunately we can't really fight genetics. 

So one of the biggest, I guess, risk factors that you can't change for arthritis is your age, your sex, and also your genes. When I say sex, it's more common in females than it is in males. Now arthritis, unlike Rheumatoid arthritis affects more of your major weight bearing joints, i.e. predominantly your hips and your knees. 

Okay. And again, you might get sensations of what you described before, which was the noisy sounds. We call that crepitus. That's the medical term for it. Specifically, you might get some bony enlargement as well around the particular joint that you're working with.

And unfortunately there are factors as well. The other risk factors that are actually modifiable are things like improving your muscle strength. Improving your level of physical activity and also again, just ensuring that you're living a healthy lifestyle. 

James Valentine: Yeah. So when this first occurs, can you slow it down? Can you end up, can you get rid of it? 

Rod Grof: So again, you can, it's not that you can get rid of osteoarthritis. However you can slow it down and you can by doing all of those modifiable, implementing most of those modifiable factors, as I said, particularly exercise, weight loss is a really big one as well.

And by the way, this is quite an interesting fact, which I'm sure your audience will find very interesting. For every 10 percent of body weight that we lose, there is a 50 percent reduction in the amount of loads going through our knee joints. 

James Valentine: Yeah. Well, that's amazing. So I lose 10 kilos. It's like 50 kilos less through my knee. Is that what that means? 

Rod Grof: So it's 50 percent less load going through the knee. So as a great example, I had a gentleman who I saw last week and I've been seeing him for the last few months. He came in initially with significant knee pain referred by an orthopedic surgeon for physio prior to having a knee joint replacement.

And we had our discussion about what are the first line of interventions and treatments that we can do to assist you and hopefully potentially slow down the process or delay the operation. But again, he was on a wait list. So in his mind, it was happening. I go to him, do me a favor. Let's try and lose 10 kilograms.

Go consult with a dietitian and let's get you onto an exercise program which consisted of twice weekly exercise under physio supervision as well. And this patient now came in last week. He weighs 90 kilograms. He couldn't walk. He couldn't get off his chair without pain. He couldn't walk around the block. He couldn't go to his letterbox. 

And now this guy is walking and getting up and picking up his grandchildren off the floor completely unrestricted. It's quite astonishing. And he's a really great example of what, you know, physical activity and looking after yourself and being motivated can do. So he's actually now completely called off that joint replacement.

James Valentine: Now for many, it will end up in surgery. Is there an ideal age? Is there a right age for this sort of thing? What are the conditions in which you would go well, okay, yes, you're going to have to replace the hip. You're saying that it's hips and knees that get most affected by osteoarthritis. So that's the things we tend to replace, isn't it?

Rod Grof: Absolutely. So the most common areas of the most common joints that get replaced are our hips and our knees. So at what point would you get the operation? Again, everybody's different. Typically these operations have around a 15 to 20 year lifespan as well before you have to go in again and get it revised.

And that can be quite a big procedure and one that, you know, surgeons are happy to do, but if you can delay it, the better. So ideally, 65 to 75 year olds are the most common age bracket that will end up having a joint replacement. Any earlier would suggest that your arthritis has progressed quite significantly and it needs to really affect your quality of life because at the end of the day, it's not a magical bullet.

It's the last resort. As in terms of the triage of what needs to be done, education, exercise, weight loss is number one. The next phase is looking at things like injection therapy, taking pain relief, taking anti-inflammatory medication. And again, if that's still not giving you the quality of life that you're after, that's when you look at having joint replacements.  

James Valentine: Rod, let's just think about other general wear and tear things that happen at this age. We've, we've talked about hips and knees. We've talked about the two main arthritis things. What are the other main sort of physical wear and tear we're going to expect?

Rod Grof: Sure. So our tendons, which connect our muscle to our bones, different bodily structures that with time, they go through that wear and tear process as well. And again, the solution to ensure that you don't have any issues like what we call the medical term for a previously was known as tendinitis.

Now it's actually been changed to a tendinopathy because we know there's not really inflammation per se in the tendon. But the issue is the actual genetic or the makeup of the tendon as we get older, the collagen fibers become a bit more frayed and disorganized, and that is part of the aging process.

So again, what's the solution for it?

James Valentine: Can I guess, can I have a shot at this? Let me see. Might it be exercise? Might it be some resistance? Could diet be a factor here? 

Rod Grof: All of the above. Fantastic. So it's pretty simple. 

James Valentine: I've been listening so far. 

Rod Grof: It's a very simple solution. And again, I can't emphasize, and you can hear my passion about what I,  this is why I do what I do.

My motto is to keep people active and healthy, to live the life they love. And by doing so, We're able to ensure that they can pick up their grandchildren, go for a walk with their friends singing Taylor Swift around the park, and really have a really great quality of life and enjoy the last 30, 40, 50 years because here's no reason that we should let age get in the way.

James Valentine: Let's bring John back in. John, is it, you know, anything in particular that you want to, you've been listening to the kind of conversation we've been having, anything you want to ask Rod?

John Wood:  How does one go about visiting you? I mean, I would be very happy to come and have a chat at some point. 

Rod Grof: So if you want to come directly to the clinic or directly to any physiotherapy clinic.

I would ask a few questions cause some clinics don't necessarily offer management of Rheumatoid arthritis. It might be slightly out of their scope. 

James Valentine: And there's simple sort of exercises you'd start with. What would be, if he signs up, what would be some of the first things he might be doing?

Rod Grof: So look, mainly the exercise that we'll focus on initially would be in relation to just improving your overall mobility and giving you a structured walking program as well and just gradually.

Increasing the distance, the time over a period, because we know going too hard too soon can actually have worse outcomes as well. Especially in over 65s, balance is a really big issue. We know that one in three people over the age of 65 fall. 

John Wood: Well, you know, I have noticed that I'm more prone to falling over, not being able to get my underwear on, stuff like that. 

James Valentine: All right, well, you know, on to more pleasant things really, John. You're in a show. You're acting in one. 

John Wood: I am working, yes. 

James Valentine: You are working, which is excellent. It's a new David Williamson play. It is. Now from memory, David Williamson, I think he's retired more times than Melba, hasn't he? 

John Wood: Well not yet, but the last play I did of David's was his last play. 

James Valentine: Right. 

John Wood: Yes, I did that in 2020. We were closed down in our last couple of weeks by COVID. 

James Valentine: Ah, right, right. 

John Wood: And then, I got on a plane and went home with a whole lot of people. Gladys had let off the… 

James Valentine: Oh, the ruby princess! 

John Wood: The ruby princess. 

James Valentine: Oh so you probably brought it into Melbourne. You're probably patient zero for Melbourne. 

John Wood: Well, I could well be.

James Valentine: So, some, you know, two, what now, four years later, three or four years later, he's back with another play. I mean, I don't want him to stop, but he keeps telling us he is. And so, it's a new play called The Great Divide. 

John Wood: Yes, and it's an interesting piece and it's getting better and better all the time. The best writing in it, for my money, is the scenes between the younger women, who's a mid thirties mum and a seventeen year old daughter. And the writing for those scenes, it’s terrific, you know, like the relationship's wonderful and the girls are terrific. 

James Valentine: Tell me a little bit about that rehearsal process. It's interesting you say it's getting better. I suppose in most of our minds we think, you know, David Williamson's there at the desk, he completes the script and then, there you go fellas, just say what I just wrote. 

And I think this is another thing to realize with Australian plays, isn't it, is that we often see them very fresh. Whereas the thing from overseas, we might have, it might have been through a lot of rehearsal, a lot of different productions. 

So, you know, this, you'll have a chance to see something here that's absolutely brand new. 

John Wood: Yeah, we had a session yesterday afternoon at four o'clock where a group of people from the ensemble audience that pay money to come and watch the director at work.

And so we've already, yesterday, been in front of a small audience of about 20. And we had a quick Q& A afterwards. And you know, it certainly worked for them. But there was one lady there who wanted to ask me about a line that I'd done in Crunch Time. 

James Valentine: Right. 

John Wood: And, you know, I spend the whole play trying to get one of my family to give me the lethal injection.

James Valentine: Right. 

John Wood: And I had forgotten all about this, but I have a line which says, Oh, if you want anything done, you've got to do it yourself. And this woman had picked up on that and she had a copy of the text and it wasn't in the text. And I have no recollection of myself and Mark Kilmurray discussing putting, putting that line in.

James Valentine: Right. It must have popped in there, at some point. How physically, how do you find it when it's, you know, six shows a week, eight shows a week, you know, we'd been talking about your arthritis and these sort of things. That’s a big physical demand; you'll be in the season soon enough, and you're a veteran of doing this. Physically, how do you find it now? 

John Wood: I don't think I have any major problems with it. You know, the arthritis is mainly under control, unless this elbow thing that Rod told us is probably arthritis. 

James Valentine: Yeah, sorry about that. 

John Wood: But I don't, you know, like I've been managing to stay working for most of the time, you know, when Blue Heelers came to an end, I was massively disappointed, you know, because it had been 12 years of just having to drive into the city and do the show and be on a pretty good wage and… 

James Valentine: That's enough of that, young fella.

John Wood: Yeah, ‘Doyle, my office’. And you know, like to suddenly lose that income was shocking. But I've been working in the theatre pretty much all my career. You know, when I was doing Blue Heelers, I was also doing Williamson's play, The Club, all over the country. 

James Valentine: Great play. 

John Wood: And, yeah, it's the funniest play ever written in Australia, in my view. It is just hysterically funny. 

James Valentine: But that's good if you don't find the season taxing.

John Wood: I can't imagine what I would do if I stopped acting. 

James Valentine: Well, that's, I think you're a great advertisement for, you love it. So why stop doing it? You know. 

John Wood: Well yeah, I can't, I can't imagine what I would do. It'd be nice if there was more financial reward involved in the industry, but I mean, we were left high and dry by ScoMo and his government during COVID, you know, like, shocking. I mean, you know, like his attitude to the arts and music I think was appalling. 

James Valentine: John, you know, you said that you did, it started in your ankles, perhaps 15 years ago. If you think back to sort of you know, in your 30s to your 50s, perhaps when you're doing Blue Heelers, no signs of anything, anything that you perhaps should have dealt with.

John Wood: I was going to a chiropractor. I, you know, I went to chiropractors for years, and I have since had a partial discectomy, you know, where they just cut a little, slipped down your spine and cut off the excess disc and that was fine, and I'm very careful with the way I use my back now.

I've stopped using it as a crane, and, so that was the first year of Blue Heelers, so that was 1994, and the worst thing about that was I was supposed to go to the UK with Lisa to do publicity and I went into hospital to have the operation. And I kept looking out the window thinking, not very far away from here the crew and the cast are having a wrap party, and I'm missing it. 

James Valentine: Well, it's fabulous to get some time with you, and I know we're going to see you on stages and screen, you know, for many years to come. 

I hope so. 

Despite everything spreading to your elbows and everywhere else. Um, but, Rod, thanks so much for everything you've offered. Absolutely fantastic. 

Rod Grof: My pleasure. It's been fun. 

James Valentine: We'll see you again. 

Rod Grof: Thank you very much. 

James Valentine: John. Thanks so much for being on the program. Great to catch up with you. And as we say, be talking about it's in the great divide by David Williamson. It's on at the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney until the 27th of April.

I'd like to say, you know, break a leg, but I don't think that's probably good advice at this point. 

John Wood: Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks, James. It's lovely to see you.

James Valentine: Thanks so much to Rod Grof as well from Platinum Physio in Melbourne. You've been listening to Season 5 of Life's Booming. Is This Normal?

Brought to you by Australian Seniors.