If Parent were to retire, he disappears from the cap and stops collecting his salary. Thats why Mike Rathje still hasn’t filed his retirement papers. Parent and Rathje suffer from the same issue, Parent is just in an earlier stage of the degeneration.

He goes RFA at the end of this season. He’ll be very smart to get himself a contract large enough to set him up for life.

I’ve had many DDD (degenerative disc disease) clients in my practice, so I need to know a lot about it, and do.

Here’s a normal lumbar spine:

The gaps you see in that picture are where discs actually are. Now, here’s a drawing showing what happens when you start having various problems with discs.

Once you start to have a spinal problem, the discs are thrown out of whack. I can’t find a good image, so let me try to explain what happens:

Once one disc starts to go, more parts of the spine begin to have unbalanced support. Imagine a bunch of donuts stacked up. Then eat half of one of the donuts. The ones above begin to lean in the direction of where you removed part of the donut.

The more movement required of the spine, the more rubbing and inbalancing, etc. of the spine, which causes more damage. That’s why its a degenerative disease. And it doesn’t heal.

Ultimately, what happens, is a Lumbar Fusion. Using metal rods and screws, doctors literally fuse the spine into place so it can no longer rub against itself. The result, obviously, is an incredible restriction of movement.

After a fusion, surgery of the cervical spine (which is in the neck), for instance, most of my clients were physically incapable of checking their blind spot when driving. Not from pain, mind you. The fusion literally prevents the neck from turning in order to keep the spine from further damage.

From what I understand from the very brief statements, Parent has at least a part of his lumbar spine which has fragmented causing a bone chip. That bone chip is rubbing against one of the many nerves in the spine, causing the pain. They’re going to remove that chip and relieve the pain and cause no more harm.

But the fact that that part of the spine is broken off means the rest of his lumbar region is out of balance and is going to continue to get worse. I can’t say how long he’ll play for, its not like he has to retire yet. But he’s going to have a really shitty life, basically. Like, walking with a cane before he’s 50 years old; unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time; really shitty.