This is the X-ray of the newly installed plate. The madness of all this science baffles me. How you study medicine and think to yourself “I am going to specialise in one of the most intricate and complexly important areas of the body” is remarkable to me. I mean, I could totally do that, with my eyes closed.
But whatever I will let the surgeon have this one.

We had a rough day as he is pretty uncomfortable and isolated in the ICU. He is not able to move or talk at the moment, but what he really needs is to rest and let the bones heal, fuse and get strong. Being still is not one of my dad’s fortes. I am sending him gluey, healing, cement bonding type thoughts.
We want that plate and bone to become one and the same. Strong, stronger, strongest.

He is so far stable in ICU, he still has a tube in his throat so he is not able to speak just yet. We are working with some elaborate eye blinking and eyebrow signals for responses, which are entertaining at best. I have gotten a few smiles as well, to help defrost my heart. I told him that I knew he would not die yesterday as sadly Nelson Mandela had passed away and I knew he would certainly not want to share the limelight. He liked that.
He has moved and can feel (so far) his right hand. He also shrugged his shoulders for me which he seemed quite pleased with himself for. Early days yet for that and the ICU doc seems quite hopeful. Pray, hope, pray.

He is very calm so far and seems to be getting some sleep which is magnificent. Again…pray, hope, pray that he can remain calm and endure the tedium of this next stage.

Each of us is dealing so differently with our stress responses;
My super power apparently, is to alternate between being calmly supportive and crying. But mostly i seem to be best at good old fashioned ugly crying. Should anyone here require any tears, I am your gal. I have all of them.

Trudy is excellent at getting it done. Doing the mountains of required paperwork, making arrangements, calls, planning. She is a rock of practicality and function. Waiting around is the worst for her I think and in true spirit of always needing to do something, she manages to immediately need to use the washroom once the stress creeps in through the barricade of love, prayers and blanketed hope we are all trying to hide under.

I cry and she toilets.

Kareen responds to each new element of this saga by being strong, practical and using her nursing background to compartmentalize and deal with each new hurdle. She is also still able to be a total mom, trying to have me sit on her lap when I stopped holding it together in the emergency waiting room. I am a 35 year old woman, currently sporting a rather frizzy humidity induced afro and permanent cry face. Its pretty much the scene for a Hallmark card.

The prayers, support and love are certainly felt. All we can do now is wait.

“Sleeping” on the brown leather reclining couch in our room. Yesterday was likely the second longest day of my life and the green glowing numbers on the digital clock on the shelf have been taunting me since about 3:14am. What a useless time 3am is when all you can do is wonder about things that you have no control over. Like “I hope he is he ok” “Will this recovery be better than the last?” and “How many people have sat their bums on this couch?”

I keep thinking about him in his ICU bed and hoping he is not lonely. They have him very well monitored and someone is with him always, it’s just not us. I went to see him just before stupid 4am but he was sleeping. (Yet another pointless early morning hour. ) Mum is going to go in to talk to him while they do his vitals at 5 so I am sure he will like that.

She can explain to him, as only she can, that the tube in his throat is temporary and his movement will come back once his spine has had more time to heal.

Everything happens for a reason and obviously there was some reason that he needed to have a bigger plate. Perhaps cannon firing requires something that could stand a bit more torque, so this is for the best overall.

One more day.

He is in the ICU now and will likely be for the next 4-5 days.
They were able to go in and remove the smaller, plate and install the new larger one. His spine was compressed by the dislodged bone which was causing paralysis elbows down this afternoon. The new plate is held in with 8 screws and covers C4 to T3, which is apparently significantly larger than the last one, his bones are very brittle, due to his pre existing condition, and the Dr did say there are no guarantees that the screws will not dislodge again in the future. But the larger plate with the extra screws and a much more sedated healing stretch should allow for the bones to fuse and help with the overall strengthening. It’s going to be a long road and he is going to have to take it EASY!

Again, he has pulled through another unimaginable set of circumstances. Unreal. Right now he is stable and being very well cared for in the ICU.

Too exhausted right now, but will update more tomorrow.