In an operation this week, surgeons fused Egan’s navicular bone to one of the cuneiform bones in his foot.
The 25-year-old will spend the next six weeks in plaster, followed by six weeks in a protective boot. Doctors will then assess his chances of returning to football.
Egan has not played since injuring his foot in round 22, 2007 and has a series of complications ever since.
He made a desperate attempt to return to the side for the 2007 grand final but could not recover in time. In March he was placed on the long-term injury list.
Egan’s future was clouded after a medical report last month revealed limited motion in his foot.
Geelong football manager Neil Balme said the Cats would do everything they could to help Egan resume his career but said it was more important that he could live a normal life.
“There’s a couple of elements to that; one is, will he be able to play footy again? Obviously that’s a long-term proposition,” Balme said.
“And the other one is to make sure that he’s sort of able to do normal stuff outside of footy, with the rest of his life, so they’re the two things that we’re looking at.”
Balme said the club maintained hope Egan would return to the Cats’ line-up despite the odds being against him.
“Obviously we’re still very hopeful that he’ll play again. But we don’t want to be kidding ourselves too much about that.”
