No pain but still a long way left

Tim Taylor, recovering from hip surgery, could skate soon. Playing is another matter, though.

By DAMIAN CRISTODERO, Times Staff Writer
Published January 7, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT Lightning captain Tim Taylor can't take contact until March 6.

Ask Tim Taylor about his recovery from hip surgery, and he'll tell you about sleeping through the night, running with his wife and getting on the floor to play with his kids - all without pain.

Ask wife Jodi, and she says, "It's just nice to watch him walk without him looking like a 90-year-old man."

It has been four months since the Lightning captain had surgery to correct dysplasia of his right hip. The center said he could get on skates for the first time since this week.

Taylor, who turns 39 on Feb. 6, knows finishing a 13-year career by taking a regular shift on the ice is a complicated and muddled long shot, and he said he is comfortable retiring without playing another game.

But if he did not have hope of again helping his teammates, "It would be," he said of his rehab, "like I'm just going through the motions."

Still, he admitted, "It will be two weeks doing my own thing before I decide if I have enough to even practice with the team."

Even then, he said, his rehab schedule doesn't permit him to take contact until March 6. Then it must be determined if Taylor can help the team or if there is any risk in returning.

"So it's not going to be a process like, 'Okay, I can play,'" he said. "Everything has to fall into place."

Whatever happens, Taylor said the process has restored his quality of life.

Taylor's dysplasia is hereditary. His hip socket was not deep enough to accommodate the head of the femur. Consequently, the femur rode the lip of the socket, causing a painful clash of bone and bone spurs.

The fix was a 75-minute procedure Sept. 6 by Tampa orthopedist Stephen Raterman, who shaved the top of the femur, capped it with cobalt chrome and fit it into the socket that also was sheathed in metal to ensure ease of movement.

Taylor said the recovery was so painful, he wondered at first if surgery was the right choice. But now that he leaps after balls while playing squash, runs 5 miles and sleeps on his right side without pain, he is sold.

Jodi said her husband is "working out like a madman."

"My quality of life is so much better," Taylor said. "I feel normal again. I'm doing all the things without a limp I haven't done in a couple of years. If someone asks me if I can do something, yeah, I can do it."

A perk was spending the holiday season with his family. And Taylor said being home allowed him and Jodi to push forward plans to build a house on 7 acres outside their hometown of Stratford, Ontario.

Taylor said he watches as many Lightning games as he can.

"I feel for what they're going through," he said of losing seven straight and 10 of 11, which has dropped the team to last in the Eastern Conference.

"But they're not even close to being out of it. You just have to string a couple of wins together and you're right back in the thick of things."

Taylor hopes to get back into the thick of things, too. For now, though, it's enough to get back on skates.

Damian Cristodero can be reached at cristodero@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 6, 2008, 20:38:04]