- December 15, 2025
Like many people, Hammock resident Susan Reinertsen, 56, had heard all about shoulder and hip replacement surgeries. But she hadn’t ever heard of an ankle replacement until Dr. Ryan Pereira, at Anastasia Medical Group, in St. Augustine, suggested it last year.
It all started on election night in 2008.
“I was walking through my bedroom, and I must have misstepped,” she said. “I fell, and my ankle completely shattered. The bones were sticking out everywhere. My husband said, ‘You look really bad.’”
Reinertsen was driven to her doctor, and she had pins and plates inserted to fix her ankle. Two years later, though, she was still in pain and unable to walk without limping.
“It never really recovered,” she said.
And that complicated one of the most important aspects of her life: She cared for her toddler grandchildren on a regular basis and was no longer able to play with them or even keep up with them.
She said, “My grandchildren used to say, ‘It’s Nana’s boo-boo foot.’ Then they called my cane, 'Nana’s boo-boo stick.’ They were so used to me having a problem with my ankle."
Before she met Pereira, all the doctors only seemed to offer one solution: “Everybody else wanted to fuse my ankle,” she said. But that would have meant a permanent loss of mobility, and that wasn’t appealing to her.
Still in search of a solution (she is one of 50,000 in the U.S. who consider similar ankle surgeries annually), Reinertsen found a business card from Pereira and learned of a potential specialty surgery. She said that through his consultation, she decided on an INBONE Total Ankle Replacement.
According to Pereira's communications firm, "the prosthesis consists of two main pieces: a tibial (shin bone) component and a talar (ankle bone) component. The tibial component features a polyethylene (plastic) piece secured within a titanium (metal) holder. A long titanium stem securely anchors this half of the implant within the tibia. The talar component is an anatomically shaped, highly polished cobalt chrome metal piece which also features a stem. The talar stem is inserted into the talus (ankle bone) to securely anchor this half of the implant. Once installed, the smooth plastic surface of the tibial component is designed to rotate on the highly polished metal surface of the talar component, allowing for smooth, fluid movement."
Since recovering from the surgery, Reinertsen said she has been as good as new. “Now I can run with the best of them,” she said. “I love playing with my grandchildren. I’m not just a babysitter, I’m a playmate. We do everything together.”
Ths is not the end of the road for Reinertsen. She has osteonecrosis, a condition in which bones can die because of poor blood supply. It is most common in hips and shoulders, and she will likely need a hip and a shoulder replaced eventually.
But in the meantime, she is happy with her ankle.
“Whether you’re 56 or 76, I would recommend it,” she said.
