The first blog message 8/1/2011

Good morning,

Another day begins...Warren had a somewhat restless night.  The chest
tube is bothering him more than anything so we are hopeful that will
come out sooner rather than later.  He is still on schedule for the
second (minor) surgery on Friday.  They hope to get him out of ICU and
on a ward even before then.  72 hours is the first magic number.

There is some feeling in his legs when they are touched, nothing in his
feet.  Hopefully, as the trauma and swelling subside there will be more
feeling.  He is moving his legs ever so slightly but the motion is
really coming from the hips.  At this point we will take whatever we can
get.  The doctors are not giving us the prognosis we want to hear at
this point but they aren't adding in the "Warren Factor".  We will all
continue on the path of optimism and work toward the best outcome we can
possibly achieve.

To clear up some of the original information we were given.... The
accident occurred as Warren was landing in his Accuracy Jump.  It was
all very routine and a process he has achieved successfully many times.
At the last minute, in order to hit the target the diver flares to stop
quickly.  He did this and touched down then fell backwards.  This is not
unusual, either.  He flared his chute at about 5' off the ground - not a
great height.  No one thought anything of it until he did not jump back
up. When he fell back he landed on his pack at exactly the right angle
to cause his L1 vertebrate to shatter, shooting chards of bone into the
spinal chord canal.  Fortunately, two of his team mates are EMTs and
they were on the scene immediately to stabilize him until a rescue team
arrived.

Longmont Hospital is a fabulous facility located near the drop zone and
they had him in surgery within an hour of arriving at the ER.  The 7+
hour surgery entailed removing the bone fragments, removing a portion of
a rib to pulverize and  use as material to help fuse what remains of the
L1.  They then installed a metal disc"and cage to surround the spinal
chord and reinforce the area.  Above and below this section they have
put plates and screws to hold everything in place and stabilize the
area.  All of this work was accomplished by going in through his side
and working from that direction so there was lots of moving things
around in order to get to where they needed to be.  The procedure on
Friday will be quite simple by comparison.  They will secure the screws
from the back side to keep everything in place.  He has what they
affectionately call a shark (scar, I think) - the incision goes from
front to back on his left side - a conversation piece when things get
better........ Having said all this, any of you medical types are
welcome to clarify anything I have gotten confused.  Jerry and I are
listening very hard but don't count on us to keep everything straight in
our heads.  Please banter and we can ask questions.

W will have a very long road of recovery and rehab.  Now that the
weekend is over we hope to get more information on what to plan as we
move forward.

Random act of Kindness to share.... Warren's fellow competitors and
friends have been a wonderful support system over the weekend.  The
winners of the competition forfeited their winnings to a fund for their
buddy.  The drop zone owner doubled the donation.  Talk about taking
care of your own.  He has awesome friends with kind spirits.

We are blessed to be at an outstanding trauma hospital.  The people and
the care are top notch.  We are so blessed that we are using the term
para- and not quadra-  We are overjoyed that we have the essence of who
our son is still with us.  We feel encouraged that we have a very
stubborn, strong willed guy with an awesome sense of humor.  Some of the
traits of his young personality are now being seen as attributes - go
figure!

Thank you to everyone for your love, your support, and most importantly
your prayers.  At times like this that is the greatest power we have.  I
know they are working because we had a neurosurgeon with the steadiest
of hands, we are surrounded with the best professionals we could ask for
and we have family and friends who are enveloping our family with love
and support.

Thank you.
Love, Henley, Jerry and Warren

p.s.  I fear I have not included everybody.  For those of you who have
forwarded emails would you please forward this one, as well.  Thank you.