And honestly there’s just a lot of variability with neurological injuries which makes it hard to really give some hard number, so who knows what he was even told in reality. I had severe nerve damage in my left arm and I was given some pretty vague odds and timelines, and not because my neurologist was shitty but just because it can be unpredictable.

I was basically told that 80% begin to regain “some” function within year one, and 90% within year two. Nobody said what “some” function meant, but just that it would mean I would begin to see some amount of movement. Now my issue was way more rare than what happened to Shazier, but either way it speaks to the fact that it just isn’t a standard musculoskeletal injury that responds in a predictable manner. I got incredibly lucky and had full movement in under a year and was back to lifting pretty heavy weight about 6 months after that, but who knows exactly why my recovery went so well. My own hard work helped me get as strong as I did, but really I was just plain lucky to be able to do so on that timeline.