O'Hara frustrated by winding road to recovery
New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning celebrates with center Shaun O'Hara after throwing a touchdown against the Atlanta Falcons in the fourth quarter. (Nov. 22, 2009) Credit: AP
Shaun O’Hara has had injuries in the past, but the recovery from those have been relatively straight line affairs. You get hurt, you get treatment, you progress, you return.
This ankle injury showed up on the first day of training camp and has evolved into Achilles tendinosis, though, is a bit different. O’Hara said it’s not any more concerning, but it is frustrating.
“At one point it would feel like it was getting better and then it would take a different turn without really knowing exactly why,” O’Hara said today after practicing for the first time since his lower leg was put in a cast over almost two weeks ago. “It’s been frustrating not being able to practice. Going into my 11th year now, I’ve never really gone through anything like this. It was tough every day not knowing how it was going to respond.”
Tendinosis, which is different from tendonitis, can come from overtraining, O’Hara said. He said the idea is just to keep the tendon from getting inflamed.
“Sounds easy to do, but that’s pretty much it,” O’Hara said. “Just a lot of ice and try to keep it calm.”
It probably won’t be something that goes away either. O'Hara worked today and plans on working Wednesday, but there will be times when he'll be unable to practice during the week. He joked about Tom Coughlin not tolerating that, but it’s been known to happen. Ahmad Bradshaw played last year without hardly ever practicing. Plaxico Burress did it in the Super Bowl year.
“We’re just going to have to monitor it,” O’Hara said. “It’s definitely going to be one of those things that if it does act up, what will we do during the week to try to take care of it. It’s not going to be something that’s miraculously going to be gone and I’m sure playing in the game … it will really be interesting to see how it responds after the game. But if that’s what we have to do, I think I know the offense pretty well, and if I have to rest it a little bit on a Wednesday I think we’re comfortable doing that. In my mind I want to take every rep and I don’t want to miss out on anything during the week.”
Having him not miss anything on Sundays may be slightly more important.
