A WOMAN who waited almost 50 years for the operation she should have undergone as a child can now walk at last.

Anastasia Williams was born with a series of disabilities including a club foot and dislocated hip.

The 51-year-old from Greenock was told by medics that surgery to correct her foot should have been carried out before she turned two.

Instead she had to wait until last year for the procedure to be carried out.

She says the successful surgery has changed her life.

Anastasia said: "It's changed my life and I can see a massive difference.

"It's like a normal foot now, although I still struggle with stairs.

"Mobility-wise I can feel a huge difference.

"Obviously if it had been done way back then, it would have helped me in my younger days."

Anastasia said the medical expertise she needed was missing in the 1960s and the best doctors could do was to turn her foot, so that it faced sideways.

She said: "My toes where my ankle should be and the doctors moved the toes to the side.

"My whole foot was restructured, it is called a triple arthrodesis.

"They sliced my foot open on both sides, at the back of the heel and under the heel.

"Basically they broke the whole foot and rebuilt it."

The five and a half hour operation took place at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital last year.

She said: "It should have only taken half that time but there were complications with nerve damage and ligament damage.

"They had to make an ankle bone and align the foot by putting in a screw diagonally in the middle of the arch.

"They broke three bones on the arch and put in three plates and fused my foot together."

Anastasia, who has worked as a photographer and raised thousands of pounds for various charities, was in hospital for a few days to recover and then got home.

She said: "The hardest part was being in a stookie for 13 weeks - I prefer to be up and away and doing things."

Anastasia did all her own physiotherapy and can walk now where before she had to use a wheelchair.

She said: "I've waited 50 years for this.

"In November my surgeon Mr Moir said to me that he didn't think it would work.

"Normally they put in two screws going up the middle of the foot and because my foot was more complex, they didn't think it would last."

But this is not the first time Anastasia has proved the experts wrong - Anastasia underwent complex knee surgery in 2014 and was told if it went wrong it could result in amputation.

She said: "My parents were told that I would never talk or walk or reach beyond the age of five.

"I think my sheer stubbornness has got me through - along with the support of my family and pals.

"Without my gran, mum and dad I wouldn't be here.

"In school I was limited but me being me, I pushed the boundaries.

"I proved the doctors wrong."