Ennis lucky not to suffer permanent neck trauma
BULLDOGS hooker Michael Ennis has revealed his injured neck was a timebomb which could have left him with spinal cord damage and - worst-case scenario - paralysis.
Ennis's season is over after scans on his neck revealed his C6 disk has been pushing into his spinal cord. But the NSW representative admitted to relief that he is not playing on after being told by surgeons he risked serious damage by doing so.
The 27-year-old has been playing with a bulging disk for about two months, but only sought the advice of doctors after having scans on the lung trauma he suffered during State of Origin III, which left him coughing up blood.
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''One more knock in that [neck] area would have caused some dramas, from what the surgeons have said,'' Ennis told the Herald.
''I'm lucky in that regard. I'm grateful I got it checked out when I did. The minute I had the MRI and got the report, the surgeons basically said: 'You're not playing.'
''They actually said I'm lucky not to have any serious issues. It's pretty relieving to know that I got it checked when I did, but also a bit scary to think that I pushed it.''
Asked if that meant he could have ended up in a wheelchair, Ennis said: ''There's a lot of hypotheticals, but when you're talking neck and spinal cord, it's not something you want to be mucking around with, especially with three young kids at home.
''I'd never had any neck problems before, but then I spoke to a few people who had. I didn't really understand what nerves and disks really did, and [the] severity of that area. Now that I do have an understanding … I certainly would have had it checked out in the first instance.''
Ennis, who will have surgery next Thursday, said he began to have problems before State of Origin I, but played on even as the symptoms worsened.
''It was getting worse and I was losing a bit of strength,'' he said. ''I was getting pins and needles and getting a loss of feeling in the fingers. It got to the point where, whether I was going to bed or playing footy, I always had the pain through my neck, down my arms and into my hands …
''I knew there was a problem there, so I thought I'd better find out what this is. Is it my neck? Lucky I did to be honest.''
The surgery will mean Ennis cannot do contact training for three months, but he said he was unlikely to suffer any long-term problems, saying the damage was different to the career-threatening injuries suffered by Ben Ross and Anthony Minichiello.
''Career-wise, it shouldn't affect me at all,'' Ennis said. ''In a funny way I'm lucky in terms of where it is. They go in through the back - the big ones, like Benny Ross and Minichiello, they go in through the front and fuse the disks,'' he said.
''At this stage they're really confident that there'll be a six-week period of doing nothing and then after that I'll be back to running but no contact for three months.''