OK, here is the latest.
I was in to see an Ortho/Spine doctor this morning. SC and I have both seen him before as patients. He is a skier and a rather well known doc in the ski world. Based on the info he requested from Utah he was already in touch with another very well respected doctor in the same group he works with here and earlier this morning I got an appointment with him (a surgeon) for this Friday.
I got a look at the results of the MRI /CT scans with him. There are 3 broken vertebrae in my neck. C1 has a small chip (think the size of a pencil eraser) to the far left side and well out of the way of being a problem. C3 has a small chip (same size) upper side / center of the vertebrae and out of the way of causing any problems. Odds are good that both will never cause a problem.
C2 is a bit of a different story. There is a small crack in the part of the vertebra that surrounds the spinal cord. The good news is that this should heal without complications.
The concern is the next few weeks. Any major fall or impact could possibly do further damage to the vertebrae and probably cause damage to the spinal chord. There are two possibilities, should that happen, that I'm sure you all can figure out. So for the moment I'm in a brace till the surgeon says otherwise (probably 5-6 more weeks) unless we operate.
The impression that both the doctor and I came away with today is that is it unlikely the surgeon will suggest surgery. There was some tissue damage and swelling (expected) but pretty minimal given my age and the nature of the fall.
The doc said someone had to be watching out for me on this. My first thought was "Yeah, my wife, a few remaining members of my family, and a hundred or so of my closest friends."
More Friday.