Speaker 1: Keep up to date, everywhere. 820 WBAP.
Speaker 2: Right now at WBAP, 78 degrees. Dr. John Michels is back with us, former first round draft pick, Super Bowl champion with the Green Bay Packers, and of course a terrific doctor who can help us with some insight. Knowing what we know, obviously doc, we don’t have Tony Romo’s medical records in front of us, we do know there have been two previous back surgeries, a cyst was removed. We think there was a herniated disc in December of 2013, and then we see what happened last night. Should we be concerned as Cowboy fans?
Dr. Michels: Well this is the type of injury that Cowboy fans fear the most, is something happening to their quarterback. We saw what happened last season with Tony going out with the collarbone injury. And this hit last night that he took from Cliff Avrill was scary. It’s the type of injury, that compressive force on the spine, especially in a player who has a history of a back injury and back surgery, that really makes you fearful that … was this the Cowboys dodging a bullet, or is this something that’s going to play a factor later on in the season.
Speaker 2: Cowboys, it looked like made the right decision not putting him back in. At some point if he plays though, he’s going to have to face contact, and we talk about that. I mean, there’s no … you could pad that back, but you can’t necessarily protect it from an injury or a hit like that, right?
Dr. Michels: No, especially not a hit like that. It was kind of the perfect storm of him going into the slide and Cliff Avrill landing on top of him, compressing his spine forward. And that’s a scary type of injury. Tony talked about a warm sensation, a crunching sensation, and even some weakness associated with it, but he said all of that resolved, that he was ready to go back into the game. He said that after the game they didn’t feel like he needed to have any imaging done of his spine. So the Cowboys may have really dodged a bullet.
Speaker 2: You know, with Romo’s injuries, as a doctor and a former player, you look at him and you think … professionally, do you look at him and say, “He’s done.” He’s old for the sport, he needs to quit while he can still walk?
Dr. Michels: No, I think Tony’s shown in the preseason, in the limited time we’ve seen him out there, he’s played very efficiently, this is a good Cowboys offense, he leads it as well as anybody. The Cowboys have great success when he’s at the helm. This is a rough game, and it’s a physical football game, playing quarterback in the league, you know, I played with a guy, Brett Favre, who had an unbelievable streak. He was an anomaly. His ability to play game in and game out and avoid injury. Tony has been a tough player, he’s done really well, he’s had a couple freak injuries in the last couple of years, but I think as long as he stays healthy this team is going to go a long way.
Speaker 2: We always heard that your last resort should be to have your back operated on, back surgery should be the last resort. He’s had it happen twice now. I mean, is this something that’s going to be an issue forever?
Dr. Michels: You know, it shouldn’t be. He had the discectomy done in 2013, because he had a bulging disc, and typically patients resolve from this issues pretty quickly, and don’t have any residual issues. It’s when you start to look at spinal fusion that you start to see more residual problems, we saw that with Prince Fielder this year, having a spinal fusion 24 months ago, and then having an issue at the next level up.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Dr. Michels: So that’s where you get more concern, is when you start to fuse elements of the spine. Tony hasn’t had that done, I think he should be able to continue playing this game as long as he can stay healthy.
Speaker 2: Well listen, we’ll let you go, the last question is every time I turn to the right my back … no, I’m just teasing. Thank you doc, Dr. John Michels, former NFL player.
Dr. Michels: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was a terrific insight there into Tony Romo.
Speaker 4: Well I hope he’s right about Romo and his abilities and everything like that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I’m a huge Tony Romo fan.
Kristin Thrower: A broken bone in Tony Romo’s back could sideline the Dallas QB for months. Dr. John Michels is a spine and pain doctor here in Dallas, and a Super Bowl champ with Green Bay. He describes what ran through his mind when Romo went down on the field.
Dr. Michels: When Cliff Avrill hit him from behind and landed right on top of him, that body was in trouble. Hearing him use keywords like the crunching sensation that he had, burning, some weakness, a feeling like a stinger, and those are all keywords that make me feel like this could’ve been a more serious injury than they were letting on right after the game.
Kristin Thrower: Dr. Michels says if the injury isn’t allowed to heal, there could be permanent nerve damage. Kristin Thrower, WBAP News.
Speaker 2: Dr. John Michels is with us, he visited with us on Friday, kind of give us some perspective on Tony Romo’s injury. We learned more over the weekend, doc, we thought we’d revisit with you to see if things have, in your mind, changed at least. And [inaudible 00:04:37], of course, we’ve got to remember that doc played in the NFL with the Packers. And if you get into broken bones in the back, to me that’s a real … to me that’s an emergency situation, meaning this is something you can’t take lightly. Where is it?
Dr. Michels: So this is at the top of his lumbar spine. We have five lumbar vertebrae, they’ve said this is the L1 vertebral body, which is right in front of the spinal cord, below the rib cage. And when we saw Tony get bent over, when he went for the slide and Cliff Avrill came over the top and landed on top of him, he got bent forward in that accordion type fashion, and that leads to the compression fracture of this vertebral body. So this is a little more serious than those transverse processes, those accessory bones of the spine that he broke in 2014, where he only missed one game. This one, it’s going to have him out a good six to 10 weeks.
Speaker 2: Okay, because you hear Jason Garrett kind of hinting he may be there for the opener, he’s going to be in a back brace, we have to see how he responds. I mean, there’s no way to rush this recovery is there?
Dr. Michels: No, because this one can be a little bit more dangerous. Again, if this is just a minor compression fracture, it’s just going to take time for that bone to heal and then Tony will be able to go back and finish out the season. However, if this fracture progresses, if you get any instability of that vertebral body, and bone fragments slide backwards, that can lead to permanent nerve damage.
Speaker 2: So in six weeks, if that bone is pretty well healed up, as compared to completely healed up, what does the NFL say about playing like that?
Dr. Michels: Well, you know, as long as Tony can handle the pain and they don’t feel like there’s any further risk of this fracture progressing, he should be able to go out and play and perform, as long as he doesn’t take another freak hit, but that would be no different than any other quarterback in the league.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So if he was your patient and he looks pretty good … what am I trying to say here? It’s kind of healed, does it need to be healed 100% to play, that’s what it is, does it need to be 100% healed to play?
Dr. Michels: No, I don’t think there’s anybody playing in the National Football League who’s playing at 100%, everybody’s got some nagging injuries. This bone I think has some good integrity to it, it’s just going to heal and get strong as it goes along. And I think they’re looking at, you know, they have a bye week coming up, I believe it’s after the Cleveland Browns game. And they may be kind of eyeing that bye week as the time to really give him the push to finish out the rest of the season.
Dr. Michaels: So there’s a lot of speculation going on right now, most of us have not seen that MRI, but we believe that this is a six to 10 week healing process, and we’re likely not going to see Tony Romo as a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys until after that bye week.
Speaker 2: From a distance, you see these multiple injuries occurring for Tony. Many of them … well, most of them fractures. Could there be some underlying issue here as well for Tony?
Dr. Michels: The underlying issue is Tony Romo plays quarterback in the National Football League. He’s getting chased around by large human beings who are destined to try to destroy him, that’s their job. And so this is a physical, dangerous game, Tony plays at a competitive level, he tries to extend plays and make things happen to help his team win. And that’s a dangerous job to have. These injuries are all unrelated, Tony is not fragile. He is not a quote, unquote “China doll”, as I’ve seen people saying in the media. Tony plays a dangerous game, and he plays a position where you are going to take some violent and vicious hits. He’s just had a bad string of luck in the last several years.
Speaker 2: Good perspective there, Dr. John Michels.
Speaker 4: Well, that’s a guy that knows.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you very much for the time and the update, and we may call on you again if we get more information on this for Tony Romo-
Speaker 4: Or we might give you a call.
Speaker 2: What you heard is six to 10 weeks is what Dr. John Michels said there, six to 10 weeks on the recovery.
