Flying is simple....

Flying is simple, you just throw yourself at the ground and miss.

But this time we didn't miss. There will a much longer follow up to this email in the near future, but for now, I would just like to thank all the people who have sent Mathieu and I messages and phone calls offering encouragement and support during what has proven to be the most difficult 5 days of our lives.

The landing in Mascouche didn't exactly go as planned, and we wound up in separate Montreal hospitals. Mathieu had compression fractures to his L1 vertebrae, and I had a cracked C4 and dislocated C5 C6 vertebrae, nearly severing my spinal cord.

We have both been successfully treated, and at this point I am the only one with lingering side effects (numbness and weakness in my left arm, which continues to improve). But now if it wasn't for the full torso clam shell brace worn by Mathieu and the neck support worn by me you wouldn't know we'd been through a near catastrophic plane crash. As the news reports said, we did extricate ourselves from the wreckage, but we were severely motivated by the fuel dumping out of the full wing tanks. We didn't get far before collapsing.

My friends, thank you. This was far and away the most brutal 5 days of my life. All the phone calls and emails, all the visits, especially from Michel Lemay and the Gan Sky Cows, were crucial in helping me make it through this.

We are both now convalescing at home.

I would especially like to thank my Mother and my sister for being there when I woke after surgery, to Diane for flying in to help me manage at home, and Mark Hugget, who cheerfully, and without any warning whatsoever, dropped everything to come tearing down to Montreal to fetch me when I was released.

Kim. It turns out you are one hell of a lot tougher than you look. I'm glad I wasn't one of the bureaucrats you declared war on.

I will be writing a scathing diatribe on the Quebec health care system later.