Ray Emery

Doctors were able to catch the disease early on before it spread, unlike the case of baseball and American football player Bo Jackson. As a result, in April, doctors announced an extremely successful surgery. Jackson spoke out about Emery, speculating that they were the only two athletes to come back after the disease. Jackson added, "I take my hat off him. I want him to know I am in his corner. It's a lot of hard work. To come back and play, it takes a very, very special and driven person. He's got a different makeup to want to do all the little things he needs to compete on a professional level." Unlike Jackson, who required numerous hip replacements, Emery had the benefit of advancements in modern medicine, undergoing a very specialized and complex procedure that involved removing 13-centimetres from his right fibula, and then grafting it to the femur to re-introduce a proper blood supply to the area. Holmgren said that while the surgery went better than expected, he did not know exactly how long Emery's recovery would take. Read Less