[jss]

Ken,

Congratulations on making your dream of professional cycling! That's quite an accomplishment. And darn, too bad about not landing the ski jump. For someone in your excellent physical condition, you must have been waaaayyyyy up there to do so much damage on a botched landing. And congratulations on finally finding a doctor that identified your problem. I can only imagine how frustrating that must have been.

Is Yale suggesting two fusions and one ADR because that's what your insurance will cover? Or because you're not a candidate for multilevel ADR? If you are a candidate for multilevel ADR and want that, you'd better be prepared to pay out of pocket as it is very unusual for anyone to report that their carrier has covered that. I don't know of any studies on the effect of lumbar fusion on the adjacent segments when subjected to the kind of acute lumbar flexion experienced when perched on a TT bike; but I have to think that in that case that ADR would be more forgiving than fusion to those adjacent segments. Will the threat of fusion induced adjacent segment disease preclude you from returning to competitive cycling? That would be a great question for your doctor(s).

You will find many successful multilevel lumbar ADRs on this site. The poster that goes by davidj8121 had a four level ProDisc-L with Dr Zigler at Texas Back and reports to still be doing great (multiple years later). The posters that go the handles Dingie and Vimish are both multilevel M6-L recipients. Vimish is back to doing 100+ miles a week on the bike and both of them have resumed running. So there is at least hope that you will be able to resume doing what you love (provided that you keep the snowboard on the ground - where most other 40-somethings keep them).

Good luck, Jeff