During a recent edition of his “What Happened When” podcast, AEW broadcaster Tony Schiavone reflected on his severe post-surgery complications in 1995, which temporarily paralyzed his left arm.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the surgery: “What happened was, I had neck surgery. And then I went home, stayed in the hospital a couple of days. I remember going to… they had me take the hard collar off. Took it off, did the x-ray, put it back on. The doctor was irate that they made me take the collar off. I don’t know if it had anything to do with this or not, but two days later I’m home… I get home, and my left arm died. I couldn’t raise my left arm. I couldn’t move it. I could still feel things, I just — in my shoulder, in my left shoulder, I could not raise my left shoulder up…
“Obviously I panicked. They brought me back into the hospital. Stayed in there a couple of days, and the doctor finally came back in. The surgeon said, ‘Well, Mr. Schiavone, sometimes it’ll happen.’ And this was a thing that normally happens they didn’t tell me about, that sometimes happens. I don’t want to bore anybody this medical talk, but they opened up my spinal column to relieve the pressure on my spine. Sometimes when they do that, your spine will tilt because of the space and will pinch a nerve, and result in nerve damage. So he said, ‘The only thing I can tell you to do is go to physical therapy and work. Sometimes you’ll get the feeling back, or you’ll get the movement back.’ And I did, and I worked very hard, but it took quite a while. Did physical therapy, did it at home, did everything, and it came back.”
On how he felt at the time: “Well, I was more scared than mad, I think… It was quite a scary time. And Eric [Bischoff] — after the show was over, I remember Eric telling me, he said, ‘I should have never had you do it, because you obviously were in pain.’ And I remember thinking, ‘No, I wasn’t. But if that’s what you think, that’s fine.’ But that’s the why I always am. When they say, ‘Can you do it?’ I’ll go, ‘Oh yeah, I can do it.’ And that’s the way it was. But that was a scary time for me, it really was. Because I’m just…, so 1995, I’m 38; not yet 38. And I’m thinking, ‘Geez, I can’t even lift this arm.’”
