Sunday

Early on the morning of Monday, January 26, our guy Mickey will enter Beth Israel Medical Center for spinal fusion surgery, to end pain that has worsened exponentially in recent months, and which he has borne all along with characteristic cheerfulness and grace. It’s no walk in the park—in a single procedure a team of three surgeons will open him from the front and insert the steel rods that will correct the spinal degeneration and allow the fusion to occur, then close him and reopen him from the back, where the neurosurgeon will remove a benign growth around his spinal nerves that is not causing a problem now, but which will be inaccessible once the fusion takes place. The orthopedic surgeon will remove some herniated and burst discs, remove some bone spurs, deconstruct and reconstruct three vertebrae, and then bone graft them all together (that’s the fusion part). Hours of fun!

Originally it was scheduled as two surgeries, separated by a three-day hospital rest. After conferring, the surgeons decided that, since Mickey is young and healthy, it would in fact be easier on him to do everything all at once. However it’s possible that once the surgery is underway, the doctors may decide to revert to the original two-surgery plan. (Cross your fingers they stay with the one-day option.) The procedure will take a long time, and we assume he won’t be in recovery until late in the day; after that he will be in step-down care, and we’re guessing perhaps not in his regular room until Wednesday.

Mickey has asked me to tell you he has bought lots of fashionable loungewear for his hospital stay. He has also announced plans to grow back his moustache.

I’ll try to post an update here at least once a day, probably in the evening.