and no his post doesn't answer the question. Please re-read the question. The question was not "what is the prognosis for recovery after this surgery?" It is "was he being a lazy wussy for not rehabbing and playing through the pain or was he unable to perform due to pain from the missing cartilage?"
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2008/mar/02/good-footing/ Good footing Rider graduate ‘the guy’ when it comes to feet By Nick Gholson Sunday, March 2, 2008 Tommy Clanton didn’t always want to be Dr. Thomas O. Clanton. In fact, as a young boy growing up in Wichita Falls, Clanton once aspired to be a missionary. “God sometimes has plans that take people in a direction they don’t plan on going,” Clanton said. So after graduating from Rider High School in 1968, Clanton went to the Air Force Academy with the hopes of becoming an astronaut. But back problems, which have bothered him all his life, caused him to make another change of plans. Air Force gave him two choices -- a back operation or a medical discharge. Clanton took the discharge. “When I was in high school, Rice University had recruited me to play football there, and one of my teammates, Michael Phillips, had gone there. So I transferred to Rice, but not expecting to play football,” Clanton said. Another change of plans. Some of the Rice players talked him into trying out for the team. He did and ended up playing three seasons for the Owls as a flanker, a running back and cornerback. His best buddy, Tommy Isbell, who replaced him as Rider’s starting quarterback, played football at the University of Texas. “I remember one game when Tommy was playing defensive back at Rice and I was a receiver at Texas. He was covering me. But it didn’t matter. All we did was hand the ball off to Roosevelt Leaks,” Isbell joked. At Rice, Clanton met Dr. Edward T. Smith, the Owls’ team doctor, who became his role model and was a major influence in his becoming a doctor and eventually getting into sports medicine. Today, Dr. Thomas O. Clanton operates on ballerinas and sheikhs and some of the top professional athletes in the world. “Of all Wichita Falls’ lists of success stories, he would have to be at the top,” Isbell said of his former teammate and best friend. Clanton, who moved to Wichita Falls in 1958 as the only child in an Air Force family, was in the news a lot this past week. As the team doctor for the NBA Houston Rockets, Clanton found the stress fracture in Yao Ming’s left foot. He recommended the 7-6 center have surgery to place screws in the cracked bone but also suggested he contact other specialists to consider that and other treatment options. Isbell believes Yao won’t get a better opinion than Clanton’s. “When it comes to feet, he is ‘the guy’ in that profession,” he said. “He helped a ballerina with the New York Ballet with her foot problems. They flew him over to the United Arab Emirates to work on a Sheikh. He’s the team doctor for Rice University, the Rockets and the Houston Texans.” Clanton works out of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and out of the Roger Clemens Institute for Sports Medicine and Human Performance. But before all that, he was just a really bright kid trying to win a few football games In 1967 Clanton was the starting tailback in Coach Joe Bob Tyler’s Single Wing offense at Rider. The Raiders were only a mediocre 5-5 team that year, but Clanton played in what some call the greatest Coyote-Rider football game ever played. The Rider senior — who had already thrown a touchdown pass to Phillips earlier in the game — broke off left tackle and ran 70 yards untouched for a TD that put the Raiders on top of the Coyotes 27-26 with 5:42 to play. But a 101-yard punt return by Randy Townsend with just more than a minute gave the Coyotes a 32-27 win and spoiled the party for Clanton and his friends. The 160-pound Clanton, a tri-captain for the Raiders his senior year, won first-team all-district, honorable mention all-state and all-state academic first team awards. “He was just a first-class kid,” Tyler said. “You couldn’t have wished for a better person on your team than him.” Clanton said listing all of the people in Wichita Falls who had an influence on his life would “fill up your whole article” But his short list included Rider coaches Joe Bob Tyler, Marhsall Gearhart and Jack Robertson; Sandra Marvel, his fifth grade teacher at Jefferson Elementary and Heb Marvel, his summer track coach. Roger Deerinwater, the pastor at First Baptist Church in Archer City, remembers Clanton as an “excellent athlete who was fast, shifty and tough,” but the main thing he remembers is his faith. “If there was a Christian on our team at Rider High School, it was Tommy Clanton,” said Deerinwater, who played football with him at Barwise and Rider and graduated with him from Rider in 1968. “When I became a Christian at 21, I looked back and saw how Tommy had been a real Christian, not just a church member. He lived his faith. He was consistent.” Deerinwater said that when took over as pastor in Archer City in 1988, Clanton and his wife sent him a $500 check “out of the blue” for his ministry. Clanton attributes his strong faith to his parents, Thomas R. and Frances Clanton. His dad was a pilot in World War II and the Korean War. His mother earned her degree from Midwestern State while Tommy was in high school and went on to teach business and typing at Booker T. Washington, Wichita Falls High School and Rider. With his dad suffering from Parkinson’s and his mother from Alzheimer’s, Clanton moved them to Houston in 1999. His dad died in 2000. His mom died in 2006. “I was very blessed,” Clanton said. In closing, he said “don’t give me any glory for anything I have done. “Give that glory to Jesus Christ, the one who did everything for me.”
unlike other symptoms, i.e. Fever, heart rate, etc. there is no device to measure pain. if a patient tells me they have pain I believe them.
