Good News!

We were still waiting for the appointed hour of 5:00 to find out when Dad would get out of surgery -- they thought by 5:00 they would know roughly when the surgery would be over --, when the neurosurgeon called my cell phone. I had been washing dishes, and rushed to put everything down and answer the phone. They had anticipated that surgery would take 4-5 hours, but it only took 2.5 hours. I took notes as the surgeon talked; here's what I wrote down:

• He put three sets of two small screws into Dad's spine to stabilize him and prevent further injury. This was necessary because there was both bone and ligament damage. Bone damage would have healed on its own with just the stabilizing collar, but ligament damage never really heals, so it was necessary to use hardware to stabilize him.
• One of the vertebra was badly rotated, accounting for the neck pain Dad felt immediately after the accident. The surgeon was able to rotate it back into place, and this will reduce the pain he will feel from here on forward -- he will wake up more comfortable than he's yet been.
• Dad's spine is now in good, healthy alignment.
• During the surgery, they explored his nervous system, and everything responded positively, even the right side we had observed not moving. He has good, sound neurophysiology. THERE IS NO PARALYSIS!
  
• They may perform a tracheostomy tomorrow, so that they can remove the intubation from his throat. Everyone says that the tube is terribly uncomfortable, and the tracheostomy will help him feel more comfortable. But he won't be able to speak for a while.
• The tracheostomy is elective, though, so they will assess in about 12 hours whether to undertake that.
• Next up: they will wean him from the ventilator, then wean him from the sedation and pain medications, then try to get him up and around. I'm not sure how long this next phase will last. At some point in the not too distant future, they will transfer him out of the ICU into the main hospital ward, and at that point flowers and visitors will be possible. I'll keep you posted about that here on the blog.
  
• He's completely asleep right now, so we are going to wait until morning to go see him, rather than venture out in the gathering heavy rain storm.
  

THIS IS THE BEST POSSIBLE NEWS from a very bad beginning.

There's probably a lot more to learn. The surgeon has a limited point of view -- his concern is to repair the injury, and it's someone else's responsibility to manage Dad's recovery. Tomorrow we'll be able to talk to the ICU nurses, and maybe even talk to Dad.

I'm going to call some people now. If you want to leave a comment, just click on the word "Comment" right below this post. Everyone wants to hear from everyone.