Update

I don't know about the hotties that work with Dr. Eyke, but I can this about him: he's a spitty nerd. You ever see people that let the spit just kinda build up in their mouth? Yeah, he does that. It's gross. That's what I noticed. What Chris noticed is that he doesn't shake. Not at all. Like when he was holding his hand up to mark the MRI, his pencil didn't waver a bit. Chris felt a lot better about everything when he saw that.

Ok, update! We saw the spinal surgeon, Dr Eyke, on Friday at one o'clock and spent the rest of the afternoon getting fitted for the cervical collar and getting all his pre-surgical testing done. He will be going into surgery on Wednesday morning. It is rather amazing considering all the little details and scheduling availabilities that needed to line up to make this happen! Somehow though, the staff at Orthopedic Associates of Muskegon called in some favors and got everyone on board and making accomodations for Chris. It was faintly miraculous, actually.

The best best best news of all is that this surgery, if successful, will reduce Chris's pain by 50-80%, something that got Chris and I very excited! You have no idea the improvement in the quality of his life by just reducing the amount of pain he has to deal with everyday. Ooops. I forgot about something. Chris doesn't like everyone to know he's in pain so when you see him, just pretend like you don't know about his pain. But anyway, the other thing I am super excited about is that he is going to quit smoking. Dr. Eyke and Dr. Moulton told him outright that the surgery will fail if he continues to smoke. And Chris said in that head-on, deadly sincere way of his, "Whatever it takes, man, I'll do it because right now I've got nothing. Nothing." What he means is that he feels like he is not living up to what he feels he needs to be and do for the kids and I. And it is really making him crazy with frustration. I could tell him a hundred times that I'm not a materialistic person and it doesn't matter to me that he isn't making all kinds of money like he used to, but in his eyes, he just isn't a man. So, let's hope that the surgery not only restores his neck to working capacity, but also gives him a little better outlook on his life!

Anyway, everyone, we spent a wonderful weekend together and really enjoyed just being together with the knowledge lurking in the back of our minds that he isn't going to be able to do much in the way of fun stuff for a while. I want to thank all of you for your good thoughts and prayers. It means a lot! I will continue to update everyone as things progress! In the meantime, however, I'd better get my pictures posted here. I won't have a lot of freetime in the next two weeks or so!