"You suffered and overcame a career-ending condition where your femur bone had fused into your hip. Can you describe your injury and what you did to recover?
I was doing a halfcab kickflip underflip, going at a good speed and I landed badly, ending up in the splits and tearing something in my hip. The scar tissue that developed as a result locked it down – I was cinched in. The bone would pull into my hip and grind, bone on bone, until eventually, calcification occurred, welding them together. I couldn’t walk for any distance and skating seemed to be over.
After much deliberation, with doctors doubtful of my recovery, I engaged in medieval ways to break apart the bone fusion – hammering the end of screwdrivers into my flesh, climbing into the wheel well of my car to apply leverage while pulling on the car’s frame. After thousands of hours, over years of doing this, I began breaking those dried-gum-like strands of fascia. I would often become overwhelmed, screaming violently in pain, panic-stricken that I was doing more damage than good and I would never be able to skate again. Until one night, hanging from my car, I heard a thump. And when I got up, I realized that I had broken the calcification and my hip joint was mobile again. That was the beginning of what was to come."
I had no idea Rodney went through this. Unbelievable.