Can someone give an update on what exactly was done with Yao's foot?

The surgeons (Clanton and crew I believe......God help us) reconstructed the bone structure of Yao's foot. They lowered the arch in the broken foot as well as repair the break in hopes that this kind of injury would never happen again. His foot is still organic, lol, just restructured.

I don't think anybody can definitively tell you the odds. Even though Big Z went through a similar procedure, everybody is different. There is no telling whether Yao will be what he was ( I doubt it) or if he'll be average to slightly above average (most likely). I don't think he'll have to retire after this injury

But I think if that same bone breaks in the foot again......its all over but the crying. He's already damaged goods, you can only have so many injuries before you can't do it anymore. i.e Tracy McGrady*








* Yea, Yea I know......Tracy is a diva who "dogged" his rehab and now he can't play. Yea, yea I know Yao is a hard worker and we all hate T-Mac. Yea, Yea Yao doesn't rely on athleticism. But at some point, no matter how hard you try to do something your body just WON'T let you do it. Period.

I think we can all attest to this fact, because we are watching the NBA on TV instead of playing in it. lol

 

no one can really predict the future. your opinion can be used on big z too. if going back to the year when big z had the last major injury, you could say exactly same thing on him. no one can deny your prediction by that time. he had a few injuries too until his foot got reshaped. after surgery and one year recover, gradually, he was able to play at level similar to his play level before injury.

yao doesn't have major problems on other parts of his body except his left foot. yao' situation is extremely similar to big z's. although the sample size is small, just one, it is still a positive sample. there has been no negative sample so far. relatively speaking, just based on this, the chance he will be back and play at his best is better than that he will get injury again or he will be a so so player.

frankly speaking, i have no clue what he will be. here is my thought, the chance he will be a dominant big man again is much bigger than that bosh plays for rox.

 

Is this it?

http://www.wheelessonline.com/ortho/tarsal_navicular
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/405872_4
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2003/0101/p85.html
http://www.jabfm.org/cgi/reprint/14/5/381.pdf
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/48517/causes_and_symptoms_of_accessory_tarsal.html?cat=5

I believe it usually starts with ankle pain and progress.

 

I can tell you this much.....

anyone on here that claims to KNOW what is going to happen is full of crap.
We have just as good a chance that Yao fully recovers as we have that he doesn't at this point. The surgery he had is very similar as what Illgauskas had done, except they know more about doing the procedure at this point in time since they have learned much since Illgauskas had his done.

 

completely agree. 50/50.

no one knows except yao, yao's doctor, yao's agent, and rox front office. if one of them is a member of this board, it would be great he/she can leak a little bit.

 

btw, i compared the chance he fully recovers and the chance rox is getting bosh. which one do you think that has better chance or just 50/50? i will bet on yao.

 

i think he meant no one knows, including yao, his agent, and the team. In other words, it's a wait and see surgery. The only thing we can know for sure is the break will be healed, but only time will tell how much he progresses from here on. He may end up having pain when running or jumping. Or maybe everything goes fine until season's end and the bone cracks again. There's many variations of these that can happen. Need to just wait and see.

Personally i think we'll be able to breathe a lot easier after he's been back for a season and a half, by then if everything is still fine then I think it means the surgery worked.

 

no. he means all posters here based on the sentence he wrote. i am pretty much sure. go back to check his sentence.

 

My pray goes to Yao. He had worked so hard to get where he is yet he is brought down to his knees every time things start to get better.

I could only hope that Yao had this surgery when he was still young. It is harder to recover from this kind of major surgery. But again, some parts of me still believe Yao can recover from this and have a successful career until his retirement.

 

Here's a documentary about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HofoK_QQxGc

 

Thank you Rockets2K for trying to get our members to view this with common sense. A very difficult thing to attempt!

 

But Yao is young he is only 29yrs of age........

 

RV6 nailed how I look at it.

I was referring at that moment to our members who like to state their opinion like fact that Yao will never come back. None of us know that, hell, I dont agree with you that Yao or his people really know.

NONE of us do.

Regardless of the conspiracy crap you may have heard here....the doctors that performed Yao's surgery are some of the best in that area....I dont honestly believe the Rockets would trust Yao's feet with anyone but the best they could get.

even knowing all that....it still must be treated as a wait and see. I personally will give him the benefit of the doubt till a new break proves otherwise. Knowing what medical science can do for people like me(brand new synthetic aorta), I'm quite sure someone with the money Yao\Rockets have can have wonders done.

 

i might have to rephrase my wording why i separated them from all of us. i am talking about confidence level instead what will exactly happen in the future. it's same as doctors give a recover schedule after they give diagnosis, treatment, and monitor. saying doctor knows as much as us is out of boundary. in yao's case, they definitely have some % #s. otherwise, what hell does yao pick this operation if doctors told him we know nothing like clutchfans members do. :grin:

 

You havent dealt with doctors lately have you?

One of the things they absolutely hate to do is make a solid statement of what *will* happen...they ALWAYS hedge their bets. They do this cause they know they cant control every factor, all they can do is do the best they can do, and try to make sure their patients do what they are supposed to do to rehab.

I never said that doctors know the same as us....that would be the most fallacious statement I could make. I'm just saying, they can't look into the future and tell us EXACTLY how well it will heal....they jsut cant.

 

i did. i had a fracture rib last year when playing soccer. after evaluating my x-ray, he told me most likely in a month, you should be ok. you can clearly see what kind of words they were using. of coz, my case is no comparison to yao's injury in the sense of complexity.

i understand what you mean exactly. well, doctors often tell their patients by using some kind of words related to probability. i call it a confidence level. you can't deny their confidence level won't tell us the chance yao will recover fully.

it's reason i would like to listen anything from them to either pump up or smash my hope to different level.

don't forget i rephrase my wording to clarify my thoughts.

 

They sent Yao to OCP and replaced his foot with one of these things: