Yesterday

While Dad is in surgery, I'll add one more "background" post to bring everyone up to date.

Yesterday Rick and I visited Dad in the hospital again in the morning. There was no change -- we couldn't tell if he knew we were there. After a short visit, we drove down to his house in Fullerton. At the same time, Uncle Bob and his wife Diane, who have both been angels through this ordeal, drove up from the San Diego area. They stopped at Flabob airport, and discovered that Dad's fellow pilot friends there had found his car and pulled it into the hangar. The car keys were in it, so while Diane continued on to Fullerton in their van, Bob drove Dad's car, and together they came over to Fullerton. The Flabob crew volunteered (thank you, guys!!!!) to get the plane from the impound area back to the hangar. This may take a couple of days, since they need to wait out the big storm now passing through Southern California. So that was two big items we could cross off the list: find the car, and find the plane, and secure them both.

Rick and I started going through Dad's house to make sure everything was ok. We found and fed the cats, and the next door neighbor agreed to make sure the cats are fed daily. We had considered trying to catch the cats and send them back with Bob and Diane, but the cats are skittish and difficult to catch, and it seemed better to let them stay at home with someone checking in on them. We did eventually see both cats, though one stayed hidden for a long time. We put out fresh food we had brought from my house. We found all the important items: his bills and such, so that we can make sure everything is covered. Bob called the L.A. Times and had the newspaper cancelled for a while, and we stopped at the post office to forward his mail to my house. We found house keys, and made duplicates for the neighbor, for Bob, Rick and me. We logged onto his computer and found some e-mail addresses there, and started notifying people about what had happened.

We took a break to have a nice lunch in Fullerton with Bob and Diane, at a place where Bob meets weekly with his old friends. It was nice to just sit and breathe for a while.

After lunch we went back to the house and loaded up anything we thought shouldn't be left lying around an empty house -- important papers, his guitars, etc. My brother arranged with the next door neighbor to trade contact information. We left, with Bob and Diane headed in one direction, and me and Rick in another.

We drove up to Hollywood to see Dad one more time, and he finally seemed to recognized us. He squeezed our hands -- unmistakable! It was the first moment of joy and relief. The nurse had let us know that morning that the neurosurgeon thought there was no underlying neurological damage. He has two fractures, one in the C2 vertebra, and another in the T3. But he can move his arms and legs, though his right arm seems to stay still. We decided that Dad probably doesn't really know what happened and where he is, so we sat down and told him the story, or as much of it as we know: that there had been an accident, that he was in the Kaiser facility in Hollywood, that the doctor thinks he can patch him up, that his house, plane, car and cats are safe in friendly hands. I hope he heard us. I think he did.

At the end of the day, my brother and I decided to go to my regular Thursday night yoga class, to take an hour to calm our minds and attend to our own health. We're trying to eat well during this ordeal, so the stress will take a minimum toll. My dear friend and "health coach" Vanessa tailored the class to our needs, and we left with lighter spirits and a more positive outlook.

Late last night the neurosurgeon called me and explained the prognosis, and said that in addition to repairing the broken vertebra they will also do some testing during surgery -- things they can't do when a patient is awake because it would be too painful -- to further interrogate the integrity of Dad's nervous system.

So there you have it. He's in surgery now, and we're waiting.