My Neck is STIFF!

Christian just got out of surgery, it's 8:50pm.  Dr. Peter Maughan and his partner Dr. Richard Tippets along with many other assistants, nurses and staff whom we have not had the pleasure to meet, performed the procedure and we are so grateful for their knowledge, professionalism and diligent hard work.  We wish all of them many blessings, success and happiness.

Everything went very well.  Vertebrae C1 through C3 were fused.  C2 was so unstable that they decided it was best to fuse all the way to C3, which gives C2, more than one strong connection point.  There are now 3 rods, 6 screws, and some wire holding C2 to the adjacent (above & below) vertebrae.  Some bone was also taken from his hip and grafted to the neck.  Eventually new bone will grow around the graft and further secure the added hardware.  The procedure did not take 5 hours, but actually started late, thus the relative belated finish.  We're told he will have some swelling in his face since he was lying face down for several hours during surgery.  We'll try to get another picture up so we can all see what Chris would look like after gaining 50 pounds or so :-).

The next step is to try to get him off the ventilator.  Please pray that this will go well and Christian will have the ability and strength to breathe on his own.  We know every prayer helps and we are eternally grateful for each and every one of them.  He seemed to be doing well breathing without the ventilator earlier today so we are hopeful.  A breathing trial will be conducted, possibly tomorrow which will tell us whether the tube can be removed or not.  If the test is unsuccessful, it's likely he will need a tracheotomy.  Although this scenario obviously isn't the first choice, it would at least allow for the ventilator tube to enter through the neck in lieu of the mouth and alleviate Chris's constant chewing and gagging on the tube.  We have our fingers crossed to say the least.

If the ventilator goes by the wayside, he will be moved to the 12th floor for physical therapy and further treatment sometime this week.  If the ventilator is still required, that will be a different freeway exit than we want and we'll re-enter some coordinates into life's navigation computer and establish the new destination and timeline.  The destination will likely still be the 12th floor, but the timeline may change.  We've learned a main key to keeping your sanity through this process is taking things one day at a time, so for now we're trying not to look too far into the extremely foggy future.

We thank God, family, friends, well wishers, the doctors, nurses, staff, and anyone else who has shown such wonderful support and/or worked so hard on Christian's behalf!  Love the Deputy and Reed families!

More to come tomorrow.