[Lisibug]

The pilot's name is Tim Battle. I spent about 3 hours talking to him prior to my surgery - the first being a two hour conversation, several subsquent shorter conversations and emails. He is a really nice guy and God pretty much did a miracle for him through Dr. Bertagnoli's team. If you go onto Dr. B's website: pro-spine.com and then look up the patient testimonies, you can read about him and email him if you want. Even though he was pain-free prior to surgery, he had a strange symptom and was checked out by MRI and it was found that he had about two weeks before he would become completely paralyzed because his spinal cord was so badly compressed. Long story short - he flew out to Dr. B who performed surgery immediately and he is now doing really well. In about February he said that he was even going to try water skiing or had tried it already (can't remember exactly). He is doing very well, particularly as his case was so severe. He was tremendously helpful to me prior to my surgery and is just a very nice person. I only had a 3 level ADR done, but add to that the single level fusion I'd already had done in between the ADR levels and I have a total of four surgically repaired levels in my neck, C3-7.