Thanks to everyone for the kind thoughts. I wasn't aware that Kathy had posted this, and between work, practice, doing web updates and spending time at the hospital, I had not had the chance to catch up on the forum until this evening.

Alex was in surgery for about seven hours on Tuesday. The surgeon felt that the surgery went well and is very optimistic about his recovery, although he warned us that it will take several months before he can expect to be pain-free. There were some problems with his epidural which caused a loss of feeling in his lower extremities and delayed his discharge from the hospital, but we expect that he'll be getting out tomorrow.