Andrew Acomb

Today my mother had orthopaedic surgery on some of her cervical vertebrae. We saw her shortly after the surgery in the Intensive Care Unit where she will be for the rest of the night. She was a little loopy because of the medications, but still full of personality! Since she is doing so well, she will probably leave the unit in the morning.

The procedure took over 4 hours! I originally thought that they enter from the back of the neck to do the surgery. Actually, they enter from the front. So in order to get to the particular vertebrae, they have to hold the esophagus out of the way. Whoa!

Thanks to John C. Herzog from the Orthopaedic Associates of Saratoga for making it a successful surgery!

Yesterday, I was leaving my house for an appointment and on the way I wanted to finish listening to the latest episode of Diggnation. I started heading down my driveway and at the same time I was trying to get the episode started on my iPod. It took just a couple of seconds, and I was in a ditch that runs along the edge of the driveway. I was completely stuck! Later that day, my father-in-law Ray came by and pulled me out. Luckily, the Jeep was okay. I definitely learned my lesson: it’s not safe to multitask while driving. It could have been a lot worse.

This picture was taken at my mother’s place over the weekend. Saturday evening we played a little board game called Gardenopoly. It’s just like Monopoly except it has a garden theme: all the properties are named after plants, instead of “Go” it’s “Grow”, you put “Greenhouses” on your properties instead of hotels, and all the game pieces are types of garden equipment. I don’t think any of us saw it coming. My mother systematically eliminated all players, but me. She ended up owning the entire board except the two sets of properties I had. I think the only reason I lasted as long as I did was my shady techniques in trying to survive. I don’t think anyone really caught on until the very end! It didn’t help very much though. I was also quickly defeated.