As promised from Thursday’s paper, here is some more information on what Tim Taylor is going to go through and what his hip is going to look like from the inside, courtesy of some information found on a Google search.

First, here is a picture of what a resurfaced hip looks like once the surgery is complete:
the difference here from a hip replacement is how much bone has to be removed from the femur and the insertion of a deep pin into the femur to attach the ball-and-socket joint together. It’s easy to see just from the picture how uphill of a climb Taylor has to get back to getting on the ice. But that’s not the point of this surgery; it’s about getting back to normal when it comes to everyday physical activities which this procedure will do.

In fact, as Taylor told me, he was advised at the end of the season that if he was having this surgery to play hockey then he shouldn’t have the procedure done.

“If you are doing it for everyday life, then I recommend it because it’s going to help you feel a lot better. So your condition has to be real bad to do it, not just where you think you can have it done and you’ll be better for hockey, it’s got to be for better every-day lifestyle.’ ,’’ what team doctor Ira Gutentag told Taylor heading into the summer. “So that’s where I left it at the start of the summer and wanted to see how I did and if it would get better. I was good for about three weeks to a month, and by the middle of June it got really bad. I had to stop running, and I used to run every day, I stopped biking and basically stopped doing all cardio work because I couldn’t do it. I got so sore. I couldn’t sleep, I would be on one side, I would be uncomfortable with my leg and would have to constantly move it. It just got progressively worse and worse and that’s when I knew.’‘

Taylor said he first started hearing about possible hip surgeries early in last season when he started to figure out something was wrong with the hip. By January, he knew he was going to have to undergo something to fix the problem. That’s when he started heavy into reading all kinds of literature on the subject matter.

“I went to [team trainer] Tommy [Mulligan] just after the start of training camp and told him that something just wasn’t right, it didn’t feel very good at all. We did an X-Ray about 10-15 games into the season and we had something going on with the hip. I started doing some research on it to see what was going on, then we got to January and I had to sit out a game because of it was not doing very good so I started going on the computer and researching it a little bit more.

When you start talking about hip surgery, you think about what [Ruslan Fedotenko] went through with the torn labrum, but I knew mine wasn’t that, I knew mine was more severe and not something that could be done with a quick arthroscopic surgery to get fixed, I knew I had to have a huge procedure done. And when you talk about that type of hip surgery, you think about somebody who is 55 or 60 years old and they don’t do anything after that, they are not allowed. So that’s what really worried me and that’s why I was on the computer a lot trying to figure out what was going to happen to me. That’s why, ultimately, in this case it’s not like any other kind of surgery where you get it done so you can come back; with this thing, that’s why I held off because I knew once it got done there was a chance I wouldn’t come back.’‘

As Taylor started to learn more, he understood more of what was going on. And he found comfort in a couple of conversations he had with some run-ins in his home town of Stratford, Ontario:

“A guy I played squash against all of a sudden wants to play me and the last time I played against him I killed him; this guy couldn’t even move. So him and I are talking after we play and he asks what’s wrong with my leg. I told him it’s my hip and it needs surgery. He asks what kind and I told him it’s a resurfacing, then he tells me that he had it done. He asked me, “You remember a couple years back I could barely walk? Well, that’s what I had done.’ And now he’s flying around the court and he said he felt great.’‘

“Then I talked to somebody in my neighborhood here [in Tampa] who got it done and said they feel so much better. So I feel good about that that I’m running into more and more people and that it’s a lot more common, but it’s a procedure that has only been going on for about the past seven to 10 years. Especially now, in the past three years, it’s very common.’‘

That’s not to say that Taylor will be making a comeback. As he stated in Thursday’s paper, he’s not focused on that and doesn’t want to give any odds on a return. He wants to get the surgery done, go through the rehab and see where he stands come February or so and then see where the team stands, as well.

So if he doesn’t come back, has he planned for life after hockey?

“I’ve talked to Jay and Torts at the end of last year about working with the team, but I’ll be living back home. They are registered back at school there. There is no definition of what I’ll do, but it’s there if I want it and I’m going to do that. I’m not going to be completely out of hockey, hopefully I’ll still be within this organization. But again, that’s something, especially with the new ownership, that we’ll have to sit down and talk about with them. I don’t foresee that as a huge problem.’‘

One of the reasons for that is Taylor’s past relationship with in-coming owner Doug MacLean, who was the coach of the Baltimore Skipjacks of the AHL when Taylor played in Baltimore.