Okay, so after spending the weekend thinking about this, I have some final thoughts on all of this. I apologize in advance if these seem randon:
1) I'm getting the impression from the
icenetwork article that Joshua is still going to be able to make a full recovery. I'm thinking about from him saying that the doctors didn't recommend he quit skating; they just told him about risks.
2) I believe that even when you fully recover from a concussion, it's easier to keep getting them and the side effects could get worse and worse. I think Joshua made the right choice here. I can't imagine him trying to train the way his would need to with the risk every time he fell on a jump - and these skaters fall every day - a lot. There are a lot of G forces on your body when you do a double, much less a triple jump. Quad jumps are insane.
3) As sad as I am about his, I am relieved. Please don't think I am crazy, but I rarely have skaters in my dreams, but about two months ago I had a nightmare about Joshua in one. He was competing and went to do a 4T and fell hard.....and I woke up. Since then, I thought if there were serious enough risks, he should cut his losses and retire now.
4) I hope Damon Allen and someone else like Ben Agosto (who I believe just started about the World Ice Arena) or Jeffrey Buttle become good mentors to Joshua as he moves forward. That would help him a lot.
5) Completely shallow - I really likes how he looks in glasses. Maybe he just got his hair cut a bit short, but I liked a bit better when it is thicker on top.
6) @karne - we don't what skating he was able to do at that time. And he may have thought he still had a chance to be able to train without the risks.
7) I've been watching the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Rio. There's diver named Steele Johnson who made the 10m platform and syncho teams
who talks of a horrific accident he had when he was 12 years old. He basically clipped his head on the 10m platform and when he hit the water split his scalp. It's a miracle it didn't kill him. He says he has to have his diving meets recorded because he sometimes can't remember them. I've wondered how much of that is his initial injury or that he is continuing to dive with G forces from 10m. And you know he still misses dives from that height sometimes. Imagine the impact on your entire body (including head) when that happens.
Steele is part of the "Gold Medal Families" documentary series on Lifetime network. Can't find a video clip of it on YouTube yet, but his parents had him continue diving because it would be better to him to potentially die doing something he loves than to live not having the chance to fullfill his dreams. Sorry, but I disagree in this case.
8) I have really enjoyed interacting with other fans of skaters on goldenskate. I think these fan threads are better than the randomness it is in the "Trash Can" part of FSUniverse (I post on there as ilovepaydays, BTW). I hope that whatever updates we get on Joshua's career we can still discuss them here. I see that many retired skaters have fan threads that are really popular.
And now he's going onto a different team. I mean Caps fans knew about this since Monday, but still....such an emotional week and I had a few meltdowns. Though I found out I did see him play in ONE game. But I regret stuff. 
