Podolak's best medicine has arrived: Iowa football

(Video of Podolak addressing his health issues is at the bottom of this post)

IOWA CITY - Never has the University of Iowa press box radio booth looked as good to Ed Podolak as it will this morning.

This is Year 30 for Podolak being the analyst on radio broadcasts of Hawkeyes football games. He has had more tough times this offseason than in the previous 29 combined.

One terrible accident. Fifteen surgeries. A lot of physical rehabilitation. Way too much bed rest for a guy who had been on the go his whole life.

But with the use of a walker he will soon discard for a cane, Podolak will make his way to that Kinnick Stadium booth today to call the Tennessee Tech-Iowa game. It wouldn't be a Hawkeyes radiocast or season without him.

“I'm ready to see if my voice is working as well as my body,” he said.

The body is working as well as it has since Feb. 22, when Podolak was struck by a pizza-delivery car going 40 miles per hour in Scottsdale, Ariz., at 1:30 a.m. Podolak was jaywalking at the time. According to the police report, alcohol wasn't involved with either the driver or Podolak, and the driver wasn't charged.

Both of Podolak's lower legs had been shattered and ripped open. There were also rib and lung injuries. He had seven surgeries in the first nine days of his five-week stay at Osborn Medical Center in Scottsdale.

Then Podolak made a decision. For the first time since he was a senior running back for the Hawkeyes in the 1968-1969 school year, he would live in Iowa City-Coralville and get his treatment and rehabilitation at the UI Sports Medicine Center under the supervision of a friend, Dr. Ned Amendola.

Amendola said Podolak, who turned 64 on Thursday, suffered “a significant and likely very complex set of injuries to recover from for anybody. The older you are, the more likelihood in difficulty to recover. I think he's done extremely well and is going to heal completely from his injuries.”

“In conferring with the trauma doctors in Scottsdale,” Podolak said, “they didn't want me to go back home to (Aspen) Colorado because they didn't think the quality of medical treatment I might need was there. They wanted me to stay in Scottsdale. But to me the best treatment available was here at the University of Iowa. Knowing Dr. Amendola the way I do from traveling with him with the football team, he was a guy I wanted to take control of this.

“To me, it was an obvious decision. I have such great respect for the university's orthopaedic department. Little did I know I'd be involved in its infectious diseases department, which is an excellent department here at the university, too.”

There are capable surgeons there, too, and Podolak needed their skills.

“When my legs broke and had exposure to both outside air and street grime that was in the wound,” Podolak said, “there was a good chance I would need additional surgeries for infections,” Podolak said.

“I took about six weeks of treatment here in the form of antibiotics and hyperbaric treatment in hopes of eliminating that infection. After that treatment, in about 10 days the infection reestablished itself. That was in the middle of June.”

So, more surgeries. First, all the screws and plates that were inserted in his right leg were removed to dig out the infected and dead bone. The final surgery involved a bone graft, transferred from Podolak's hip to the leg. That was a little over two weeks ago.

The prognosis looks very good and the surgeries should be done. He is walking again, albeit it gingerly. The golfing that he loves is very much on the horizon. There were dark clouds earlier this summer, though.

“With that severity of injury, a compound and open injury, there's a very high incident of infection sometimes requiring the amputation of the leg,” Amendola said.

“It was difficult because I'd made good progress,” Podolak said. “I was appraised of an issue there could be a chance they couldn't save the lower leg because of the extent of the infection. That was a rough few days between that appraisal and when they did the surgery.

“I had great support during that time period, especially from (Iowa football defensive coordinator) Norm Parker, who had gone through it himself (and had his lower right leg amputated last fall), and of course, everybody in the medical department. But it still was a difficult time.

“I have nothing but the highest degree of respect and admiration for that medical staff who appears at this time to have solved this problem. I'm going to be able to win a dance contest or two down the road.”

Dolphin's broadcast partner, Gary Dolphin, has embarked on a serious medical fight of his own recently after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. But he claims what he is facing in the weeks ahead with radiation treatment pales to what Podolak has endured.

“He's been incredible,” Dolphin said. “For one human body to endure what Ed has endured, the accident aside, a lesser spirit would have given up. But he's living life the way he played the game, which is to never say can't, won't or don't.”

Amendola summarized it well for legions of Hawkeye fans: “It's a feel-good story.”

Maybe, Podolak jokes, he and Dolphin will shoulder the bad-health burden for the 2011 Hawkeyes.

“I hope Dolph and I have taken the brunt of the injury situation for this Hawkeye team,” he said. “Let's hope the injury bug passes the team by, because we've taken it head-on here.”