“don’t fall off roofs.”

that’s what my brother told me at about 10:30 last night in the icu at holland hospital.  he was pretty doped up, but it’s still good advice.

so my brother matt (yes, i have an older brother.  where do you think all these nieces and nephews have been coming from?) was putting a roof on a building in holland on monday when one of the panels he was standing on slipped, spilling him 25 feet through the building and onto the compacted dirt foundation.  on the way down, he broke a two by four with his t12 vertebrae, shattering it into a bunch of razor-sharp pieces. according to the surgeons who worked on him for about 6 hours yesterday, a diffrence of about 1mm and he would have been paralyzed. right now it looks like he dodged a bullet.

surgery went better than anyone expected.  they had to go in through his side to avoid damage to the spine, which is kinda gross cause they had a special surgeon just to move all his organs out of the way.  then the thoracic surgeon went in to take out all the bone shards, put in a metal cylinder, and took a piece of his rib to rebuild the t12.  all of that is also kinda gross.  he’s in a lot of pain, which is a good sign that all his nerves seem to be intact.  and he’ll have to wear a back brace for 3 months or so, but it looks like there won’t be any long-term, permanent damage.  the wry dailey “humor in the face of extreme situations” also seems to be uninjured.

“thanks for not dying and stuff.” -me

“yeah, i just threw that one in for free, no charge.” -matt

-srd

ps- if both of my siblings could stop ending up in emergency rooms for a while, that would be awesome.  i only have so much pto to spare.