Bruschi starts the season?????
 

Not according to any medical sites I've seen.

Google "scaphoid bone" and tell me the site that says 4 weeks.

I believe 8-12 is the consensus and longer isn't out of the picture.

Not trying to be pessimistic, just prepared which is something I don't think we are at the position.

Tomase of the Herald is not a medical expert by the way, despite his frequent liposuction surgeries.

Re: Bruschi starts the season?????
 

First of all, that's obnoxious. Secondly, Tomase isn't giving HIS medical opinion, he's giving opinions of doctors who he has, ya know, INTERVIEWED. I'm glad your google search has told you what the real truth of Tedy's condition is, though. Congrats.

To be more on point, I don't know of many people who are suggesting Tedy "will open the season." But most of us are buying the 6-8 week window we've heard about. If it's longer than that, then so be it. But you're acting as though the information we're getting is based on layman conjecture and that's neither right nor fair of you to suggest.

Re: Bruschi starts the season?????
 

I don't know, none of us are doctors. The question isn't really when it will be fully healed but when can he reasonably play with it. Fully healed in 8-12 weeks . . . maybe it's healed enough to play after 6 weeks after the Bills, Jets warm up games. None of us really has a clue.

Re: Bruschi starts the season?????
 

Right, but does Dr. Morgan - who Thomase QUOTED in the article? This is what I'm saying.

Re: Bruschi starts the season?????
 

I know, and he said 6-8 right ? The lower side of that has him back for Week 3. But I also don't think he had much experience with NFL players and what level of healing could reasonably be played with.

Re: Bruschi starts the season?????
 

How do you know? Has he named any doctors?

If so I would love to get their take on this. Are they hand surgeons, sports orthopedics, the surgeons at Mass General?

I did look up the web sites of Doctor's who have those qualifications and could provide a number of links.

I don't think I should have to personally interview doctors in that field until Mr. Tomase gives me the name of the Doctors he's interviewed.

BTW, he opined that Bruschi would be out for the season with a calf "tear" last year.

I think he missed a game.:rolleyes:

Re: Bruschi starts the season?????
 

The real problem with wrist injuries is that they don't heal correctly like normal injuries because the blood flow to the wrist is very limited.

Any wrist injury of this nature is more serious than an arm injury like Vrabel had, or a broken finger or even leg, like Ted Washington had.

If Bruschi comes back too soon, it will not heal and he won't have any wrist strength or flexibility. Unless he really is SUPERHUMAN, and not just another tough, hard nose, throwback type football player.

Hope he heals ahead of schedule!

Re: Bruschi starts the season?????
 

Agreed. A wrist is pretty key for a LB. Unless you want them to tackle like Biesel and Chad Brown.

Re: Bruschi starts the season?????
 

If this is the article I can't find any 6-8 weeks.

He does say six to eight weeks minimum. I think this is considering a highly trained athlete with all the facilities at his disposal.

He also mentions horror story scenarios which we completely ignore of course.

Given that he doesn't mention 8 weeks, I think a prognosis for 8-12 weeks is probably realistic.

An absolute minimum of six possible, a much longer recovery period also possible, according to Dr. Morgan, though we certainly want to be optimistic.

“Scaphoid fractures can be very difficult to deal with,” Morgan said. “Usually, early on you suspect the injury but don’t know for sure. You can get fooled because it’s a little peanut-shaped bone in three dimensions and an X-ray is only two-dimensional. The better part of valor is treat it like a fracture and get a follow-up X-ray.”

Misdiagnosed or left untreated, the injury can be severe. Carolina Panthers linebacker Dusty Renfro broke the bone in training camp in 2001 and never played again, eventually winning a worker’s compensation suit. Reached at his office in Texas yesterday, Renfro declined comment, citing ongoing appeals.
In hockey, Montreal Canadiens defenseman Sheldon Souray missed the 2002-03 season with a scaphoid fracture that didn’t heal properly. He returned in 2004 and played well enough to be named an All-Star.


“I used to hate when people would second-guess with no idea of reality,” Morgan said. “For these fractures, you really have to be cautious. If it doesn’t heal properly, it can be a huge problem, even in Joe Blow, never mind a high-performance athlete.”

“You’re still talking six weeks to heal at best,” he said of that scenario. “You don’t just put a screw in and say, ‘Now I can go play.’ You still have to heal, rehab, regain range of motion and strength. It needs to be healed for the intensity needed to play.”
“The big problem is pain. You can’t extend your wrist,” Morgan said. “It becomes extremely difficult even for an athlete to do a push-up.”

Re: Bruschi starts the season?????
 

All of this is just generalized guestimating based on what orthopedists have seen as the statistical norm for mere mortals (who get sent to outpatient PT 3 x a week if they're lucky) recovering from this injury. Tedy is THE GUY who returned to the NFL after suffering a stroke. He is a highly motiviated professional athlete who will be doing some form of rehab during each of his waking hours between now and the day he returns. Kinda like that aging SS some said would be lucky if he walked without a limp again let alone returned to a playing field.

These guys also often leave no stone unturned. Maybe Tedy has planned to borrow TO's hyperbaric chamber, or do reiki, or his docs at MGH have some other expensive or labor intensive suggestions they have proposed to speed up the healing process which most of us are never offered because of the cost and committment required to undertake that kind of intensive rehab process. Tedy has the will and the means to do whatever it takes. World of difference between him and us mere mortals.