Bone scan a critical step in Spencer's recovery

Bone scan a critical step in Spencer’s recoveryDane Spencer’s hopes of returning to the U.S. Ski Team and resuming his World Cup racing career could be dashed or buoyed later this month when the 28-year-old undergoes his latest round of medical tests.

Spencer, an 11-year veteran of the team and a 2002 Olympian, emerged from a near-fatal crash in a February NorAm downhill in Montana with a fractured neck, shattered
pelvis and a hole in one of his lungs. He endured multiple surgeries — the most serious involved fusing the C2 and C3 vertebrae in Spencer’s neck during an eight-hour procedure in his hometown of Boise, Idaho.

That fusion area will be the focus of a CAT scan Spencer will soon undergo in Boise, the results of which will help him chart a path either toward retirement or back to the World Cup giant slalom course.

Spencer’s optimistic that his neck is healing and strengthening properly, and although ski racing was the farthest thing from his mind during the weeks and months following the accident — when he depended on family members to prepare his every meal and walking to the bathroom was next to impossible — the lure of the race course is reeling Spencer back in.

“The more normal I feel and the more my day-to-day activities feel like they did before, yeah I definitely think about it more and more because … I haven’t skied for a long time,” Spencer said last week from his Boise home. “I definitely think about it more and more. And that’s another reason it’ll be challenging for me to play this whole thing smart, just because the drive to get out there will be so great. But I’m older now and hopefully a little wiser.”

It will likely take years for Spencer to feel like he did before the accident — as his painful pelvic muscles and stiff neck attest nearly every morning. But that hasn’t slowed his recovery efforts, which have included long hikes in the nearby mountains, trips to the park for rudimentary leg workouts and basic conditioning drills.

“I haven’t necessarily been going to the gym every day in the last four months, but I haven’t sat on my couch for one second since I could walk again,” Spencer said.

Spencer added that he knows the next few months are critical if he has any hope of returning to the hill this season — and even he admits that’s a long shot. But he plans on intensifying his workouts in Boise in September, then his plans call for a move to Park City, Utah, where Spencer will utilize the ski team’s strength and conditioning center and trainers to ramp up his recovery.

“I can probably push it pretty hard now, really start pushing those boundaries,” Spencer said. “The more agile-type movements or athletic-type movements will, I think, still be challenging for a while painwise. … Hopefully I’ll have this month to use as a building block, then once I get to Park City moving into more dynamic stuff.”

Spencer recently was nominated to his 12th season on the U.S. Ski Team, a move he said he expected but nevertheless felt reassuring.

“I was given by my coaches the nod that as long as it takes to get back, I have that time,” he said. “Obviously it’s within reason, but if it takes one year, two years, whatever time it takes [my coaches said] the door will remain open for me.”