The brace didn’t work, the doctor explained gently. You’re going to need spinal fusion. You’ll never train seriously again. If you’re lucky, maybe you can go for a light jog.
Mat Fraser fought back tears. He had spent four months trapped in a smelly, sweaty, clear plastic corset that imprisoned him from hip to chest, and for what? Sprawled in a chair in the antiseptic office, he tried to pay attention as the orthopedist explained to him that the break in his back hadn’t healed, and wouldn’t heal unless doctors attached his fractured vertebra to the one above it.