It’s 5am here in Beaver Creek. Jag called out to me around 4:20 from his sofa bed in the living room of our room at The Westin as he was cold. I called him into my room where Ty was fast asleep next to me. Now they’re both wrapped up in down comforters in the Heavenly Bed (Westin’s signature bed).
After running a few errands yesterday morning in Vail, we checked Lori in right on time. She had four doctors of which I knew three. After talking with everyone and getting her all set, it was time to get the show moving. The boys and I took off to run a couple of errands as the surgery was scheduled for three hours. Dr Strahan who was the specialist who would make the initial incision to avoid all nerves, called me an hour and a half later saying his part was all done and everything went great and looked good. He did say he stuck around long enough to see Don (Dr Corenman) pull apart the vertebrae and the disc just fell apart. This is good and bad, the good is they didn’t have to dig it out and the bad means she literally had no cushion or disc in between her bones. No wonder the poor girl was in such pain.
The boys and I went to buy Mom a stuffed bear from Ty and a scarf, from Jag (to pretty up her collar)and headed back to the hospital to drop off a few bottles of wine to Dr Strahan. He was very appreciative. We then decided to go to the hotel as we had two hours to go. As soon as we arrived at the hotel, Dr. Don called and said, “we’re all done”! This was a surprise to me as it was an hour ahead of schedule. Apparently not having to dig the disc out saved time. When I asked about the disc, he said, Â “as far as discs go, this is about the worst one I’ve ever seen”. He went on to tell me though that he was 99% sure this had to be the cause of her pain as her bones were out of alignment and the facets (where the nerves travel) were all pinched and blocked. He realigned them so now she has a nice pretty curve like we’ve all seen on skeletons or pictures. I asked about the others discs and he said he didn’t know as they don’t look at them but as long as they aren’t causing pain, we’ll leave them alone.
So we jumped in the car and headed back to the hospital. When we arrived I went to the wing where her room was but she was still in recovery. The nurses were very nice and showed us to her suite (nice name for a hospital room but it was really nice) where I parked the boys while I went up a floor to recovery. I walked in and there she was, all done up in her neck collar, wires going everywhere and still a little drugged but a half an inch taller, which made her happy. Her pain was down she thought but it was hard to tell as her neck and throat were sore plus her hip, where they took a bone for her neck, was killing her. They warned us the hip might hurt worse than the neck! Apparently they take a small bone from the hip and then replace it with sea corral.
20 minutes later we moved her down a floor to her suite, The Peppi Granshammer Suite, named after famous residents of Vail. The boys were all over her wanting to make sure she was ok while the nurses were hooking up all her monitors. We stayed for a few hours and then decided to get some dinner. Dr Don did come by again and said she did great and we should be going home tomorrow. I could tell she was having a hard time swallowing but she did eat some ice cream and we brought her a creme brûlée back from dinner around 8pm. After visiting for another 30 minutes or so, I took the boys and headed back to the hotel. I made sure the nurses had my cell number in case they needed to call me. I haven’t heard from them so everything should be fine.
I’ll let the boys sleep until 7 or so and then probably let them swim and get some breakfast before we head over to see Lori. The doctors will stop by this morning to check on her and then if all’s ok, we’ll head home. I don’t imagine well be out of there before noon, if we go. Rachael, her friend, is making us dinner tonight which is nice and a few other friends have also reached out asking what they can do to help. My phone blew up yesterday with people from all over the country checking on the misses. I left her with her phone but it has to have run out of battery by now if any one of you tried to call. I called Grandma Dixie and my Mom and asked them to call all of you so hopefully everyone knows the good news.
So that’s it, modern medicine is pretty amazing. Of course the big variable is who your doctor is. I’ve had people give me a hard time for coming to Vail for my knee or her neck but I wouldn’t consider going anywhere else except where the best docs are. Thankfully they’re here as if they were in New York, I’d be writing from there right now.
I’ll call everyone when or if we’re headed home today. It snowed last night and was beautiful with all the Christmas lights on the trees all around town up here. The misses won’t be driving or doing much for weeks, maybe months. The docs were adamant about her taking it easy and letting her bones and titanium plate fuse together. I’ll tie her up if I have to, won’t be the first time, just kidding!
Take care, keep praying and God Bless.