But John McClain from the Houston Chronicle is thinking there may be more to it than that. He went into more detail on the surgery in explaining that the herniated/ruptured disc had to be removed and a bone graft was placed in the resulting space (as a spacer), so that the peripheral nerves coming out of this space are no longer compressed. Yes, a four to six month resting period is required for proper healing.
But that is just part of it.
After the healing period, numbness, pain and weakness, due to nerve damage from the previous nerve compression, may take months and months, easily a year or more in some cases, to resolve. And sometimes they don't resolve at all. The prognosis for nerve regeneration is directly related to the length of time the nerve is allowed to be significantly traumatized before a decompression procedure is performed. The greater the length of time, the greater the risk of irreversible nerve damage. And Slaton is rumored to have played most of the 2009 season with this injury.
http://www.battleredblog.com/
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There's a lot more uncertainty to this injury, the surgery, & rehab and recovery than we know about or that Kubiak/Texans are telling us.