With all due respect guys and not in anyway am I looking for attention or sympathy, I'm just wishing to share my own experiences, I had a spinal fusion way back in 1994 as a 14 year old. When I say way back, I mean technology has changed so rapidly in this area that 13 years is a very long time (I lived in Canberra at the time and had to travel to Sydney to get an MRI as it was unavailable!!!!). I also had bone grafted from my hip - I had visited numerous orthopaedic surgeons and only one was utilising this new technique. The difference with Stevens and myself was I had it on the L5/SI (Lumbar/Sacrum) which is in the lowerback and far more debilitating - and similarly if left untreated would end in me being in a wheelchair. I was told I was to never play contact sports again, an around-about turn from the initial prognosis before surgery - flowering surgeon! Now in '94 I was supposed to get assitance from Occupational Therapists, Physio's etc to aid in the process of recovery...but due to the shit state of our health system, all I got was staff infection!!!!
I have lost some mobility as a result of the operation, and every year that goes by small problems arise that give me grief. Yet against medical advise I started going to the gym a few years back, even doing powerlifting for a year before the "pain outweighed the gain" from lifting massive weights for a person with my injury. This year, only 6 weeks ago, I've started back on a completely different program that I found myself through doing research, and I've made a concerted effort to get mobility back in my hips and lower back - contributing to problems all over the body, and I can tell you I'm feeling fantastic. If I was on 300K (probably 100K in a Carlton guernsey!) there's no way I wouldn't be out on the field getting involved.
There's obviously a risk, but as an athlete on big money, most are willing to take it - and luckily for Steveo he's more of an outside midfielder so this is somewhat nullified. He has far greater technology then what was available to me, and the resources at his disposal for his recovery would be amazing. I have heard numerous people tell me he will never play again and not to get my hopes up. But based on my own experiences, and the new technology in relation to the surgery itself, coupled with the new and refined methods of rehabilitation for a now far more common procedure, I really think we have little to worry about. Steven's main problems will arise in the future when the extra stress placed on the other discs compensating for the lack of movement where the fusion is, start to bulge and cause him some pain and "deadening." But again, there are more procedures available to help this, and also exercises developed more recently to minimise this. So I chose to remain positive...
Jimmae the graft he's had can easily be looked at by a simple x-ray. If it doesn't fuse to the bone properly it will look somewhat like a break. An MRI on the otherhand, now has advanced so rapidly that it can show far more detail then when I had mine - even then the detail on the image showing the cross sections of the spine was amazing. They can now also read these better and draw more conclusions to certain aspects of the image.
So I think we should all remember that we live in the technology-age where survival of the fittest is a term being redifined. People are living longer, and in most cases free of the pain and hardship so apparent in previous generations. I wish Steveo all the best and look forward to the coming season. Fingers crossed.
I also hope the club is leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of ensuring Judd's prognosis is based on the best available research the world over. I also hope they are spending countless dollars on developing a unique training strategy for Adam Hartlett to ensure his hamstrings withstand the rigours of AFL football. I know nothing about it, but I'd take a stab at it being hip/lower-back related.
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