Hi All,
For those that don't know, Fred Meyer was in an accident Sunday and is
now in Stanford hospital, impatiently waiting for surgery which will
occur Friday morning. To crib from a message from Hao [with my
comments]
Shirley [Fred's mom] relayed the doctors' plans for surgery Friday.
Two teams will be operating on him. His [right] arm will have
plates and
screws put in and Shirley was told that he will not be going through
much physical therapy. With his neck, there's a break in his
vertebra
on the C4 segment. The doctors will be fusing the C4 to the C5
segment
which will result in a 17% loss in range of motion. He will
remain in
the hospital three days after surgery. Alan [another friend who was
visiting] had mentioned that both his brother and sister have had
this same procedure done, and that the loss of range means they
can't turn their head 90 degrees, and is not a great nuisance after
they've gotten used to it.
Fred was in fine form this afternoon, sure that riding his Norton
instead
of some german bike is what saved him, the Norton being
unapproachable :-)
On the down side he's bummed out about what the paramedics did to his
new 'stitch. Hao was the unlucky person who got to tell Fred
about the
condition of his 'stich on Tuesday. After looking at it today I was
able to give Fred a touch of good news... the paramedics managed to
miss
the small extension between suit top and suit bottom with their
scissors
so it's not a total loss [maybe a 98% loss :-] Shirely thinks the suit
did its job quite well.
Fred does not remember what happened. Last thing he remembers is
getting
gas in Pescadero. Dan, who was riding with Hao and Fred eastbound on
SR 84 reports:
Fred's Norton Commando went out of control at the section of sunken
road about one mile south of the red barn. You may know the bit of
road I am referring to. The pavement has sunk several feet and been
patched more than once this year. It is extremely bumpy, cracked and
populated with deep depressions.
That's all for now.
// marc