It's a fortnight since Carlton's No.1 midfielder Nick Stevens underwent surgery to repair a prolapsed disc in his neck, an injury that stopped his 2007 season in its tracks. In the first of a series of columns exclusive to carltonfc.com.au, Nick takes us through the dilemmas he faced, the surgical close call and his first steps towards recovery.

Firstly, I need to say a big thank you for all the cards and best wishes. It's been great to know I have so much support and I'm looking forward to repaying everyone's faith on the field in 2008.

I was obviously pretty disappointed when it all happened and it was a bit of a bummer because I'd had a good pre-season and got myself really fit. I'm just glad the operation has gone really well. Apparently it was the best result possible and now I'm into my second week of recovery and just starting to walk around and I can spend a bit of time out of the neck brace so it's all going well.

The hip is probably the sorest part of it. The neurosurgeon, Peter Dohrmann, took some bone from there to graft where the disc was removed. The neck's actually pulled up pretty well, but where they've removed the bone is still pretty tender and sore. I've just started to walk around a bit now, a little bit more each day to see how I go.

Initially it was important to get a range of opinions from several specialists to be able to weigh-up every alternative, every option. There were a couple of surgeons that told me I could have waited to see whether the disc would mend itself, but that was looking like it might take a year and there was still an 'if' about whether it would work.

It was a terrible choice, but once I got my head around the fact that my career would be put on hold no matter what, then treating the injury and providing the best means of a full recovery became the No.1 focus.

When they operated they found out that I had actually snapped the ligaments in my neck as well and they needed to be repaired. Once I came out of my operation the surgeon told me what had happened and I knew then that surgery had been the best option. Although it was going to take me a while to get back on track, we had gone the right way about it.

The discomfort leading up to the surgery was not just stopping me from playing football, it had a huge impact on my everyday life. In the last week I really went downhill pretty quickly. I was getting bad pins and needles and it was really uncomfortable and I was at the point in the last few days where I just couldn’t get comfortable no matter where I was.

Those symptoms have gone now. They told me after the operation that it could take a month before the symptoms go, even a couple of months, but I haven’t felt them at all since the operation.

Everyone's been telling me since the op that I was a pretty good patient. I was obviously a little bit nervous in the lead-up because, after all, it’s my spine that needed work and the procedure was serious, but the professionals who deal with these things every day made me feel comfortable about what needed to be done and I had every confidence that it would work out fine.

The first 24 hours I was pretty groggy and they were keen to reassure me that all went well and then Peter came to see me the next morning. He sat down and went through it all and explained that it had been a bit worse than we first thought. He went through the procedure in detail and left nothing to the imagination. He visited me every day that I was in hospital to keep me updated and see how I was going. I was in there for four days.

The disc had actually shattered and come off and torn the ligaments and I was lucky that it didn't affect my spinal cord. The disc was only squashing the spinal cord rather than something much more serious.

When I came out of hospital I had to wear a neck brace, a soft collar for a couple of weeks, but I'm just starting to move away from having to wear it all the time. I spent the first week at home with mum and dad and mum took the week off work and it was good to be back and home and getting pampered.

I was actually pretty easy to look after because I couldn’t eat much, I was struggling to keep food down and didn't have much of an appetite. That's because when they perform the operation they come in the front of your throat, on the right hand side and they move everything aside and do what they need to do. It's pretty amazing the way they do it.

It's not like an arthroscopy where there's a minimal incision. They need to open you right up and move all the bits and pieces aside to get to where they need to work and it was pretty sore afterwards, almost as much as the hip.

Now that I'm up and about and a bit more mobile, I'm looking forward to getting back to the club and helping out as soon as I can. I'm obviously pretty bored at the moment and I reckon I've watched every DVD that's ever been released!

I'm looking forward to working with some of the young midfielders, 'Murph' in particular because he's getting a lot of attention now. It's important that some of the young guys are able to come along a little bit faster than they otherwise would.

I've watched all the games. The boys have been playing some good footy and we’re probably a bit stiff with some of the injuries that we've had - 'Kouta', 'Fish' and myself. The boys have been thereabouts for three quarters over the past couple of weeks and hopefully they can get the job done this week against the Kangaroos.

I'm the worst watcher going around. To be honest, I would prefer to be overseas or anywhere the footy is not on because it just kills me to see the boys out there. I can't tell you how much I want to be out there with them, to do my bit and to help them out. It's hard to sit there and watch all the guys I've done the hard work with doing their best for the club knowing that I can’t share it.

Hopefully in two or three week's time I will be back at the club and ease into it and build up from there. The surgeon has stressed that I need to take it slow and steady. I've basically got all this year to get myself right for next year so we're definitely not going to rush into it. There's no point racing to peak in August or September when it's in December and January that I need to be cherry ripe.