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Vonetta Flowers wants a medal, needs a miracle
KAREN ROSEN // January 8, 2006

Verona, Italy --- The morning of her son Jorden's brain surgery, Vonetta Flowers carried the 3-year-old from his hospital room as his bed was rolled out.

Jorden's twin brother, Jaden, "was attached to the end of the bed, thinking he was driving a bobsled," said their dad, Johnny.

Bobsledding has been a way of life for the Flowers family of Hoover, Ala., ever since Vonetta pushed and pulled her way to becoming the first African-American to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics.

The sport takes her on the road for at least five months a year, and her family is along for the ride.

Four days before the surgery, Vonetta competed in the World Cup in nearby Cortina d'Ampezzo to help her qualify for the 2006 Olympics next month in Turin. While Jaden could hear the rumble of the bobsleds and cheers at the start, Jorden could not. He was born deaf.

Italy, as it turned out, was the only place he could be freed from his world of silence.

Tourists travel to Verona because it's the home of Romeo and Juliet, but more importantly for Jorden, it's the home of professor Vittorio Colletti, the only surgeon in the world operating on children who need auditory brainstem implants.

"This is the place where Dr. Colletti is, and he performed the miracle surgery to restore hearing to my son," said Vonetta, 32.

If this procedure works --- and the family will not know until later this month --- Jorden will someday be able to experience Shakespeare's play as more than just words on a page.

With her trailblazing gold medal at Salt Lake City in 2002, Vonetta was a pioneer. Now her son, the first American child under age 12 to undergo ABI surgery (and only the 18th child worldwide), is a pioneer, too.

"His story will help other kids," Vonetta said. "That's the reason why we're sharing it. We're hoping to help whoever we can."

Dec. 14: Bobsled practice

As Vonetta and her bobsled driver, Jean Prahm, warm up on hard-packed snow and ice before taking their practice runs in Cortina, a black BMW station wagon pulls up near the start. The rest of Team Flowers has arrived. Jaden and Jorden pop out of the back seat and Johnny swings into action. He puts on their matching parkas, gloves and ski caps. Johnny keeps them out of harm's way as trucks carrying bobsleds thunder past. He calls out to Jaden or simply grabs Jorden.

They walk to the top of the track where the boys lean over the wooden rail by the ice to see bobsledders pushing their sleds and loading in for the ride down. "Watch Mommy," Johnny tells Jaden. He gives Jorden the sign for "look," then the one for "Mommy," an open hand with the thumb on his chin. Jorden knows 50 to 60 signs, including one adapted from "sleigh" to mean "bobsled."

"Mommy's so fast," Jaden says.

"I just want them to know that I see them," Vonetta says later. "I can see their eyes light up and they wave, so it's great."

When the boys tire or get bored, they watch movies on a DVD player in the car. "Cool Runnings," the Jamaican bobsled movie, is a new favorite. The twins, no strangers to sharing, split a banana, fighting over the last piece. Like most 3-year-olds, they amuse themselves by trading punches in the back seat.

After the first practice run, Vonetta visits with her family, talks start times with Johnny and snuggles with the boys. When she gets out of the car, she places the palm of her hand on the window and Jorden, still inside, matches his fingers to hers.

Then it's back to the bobsled.

As a brakewoman, Vonetta has no control once she jumps in the sled. Just as she relies on her driver, she and Johnny now place their trust in Dr. Colletti.

"In the end, even with Jean, I feel like God's in control," Vonetta says. "We did a lot of research, talked to people and they led us to Dr. Colletti. It's not a coincidence that we have a race here in Italy and we're only two hours away. So we feel like God is in control and this is the way he wanted everything to be mapped out and it's all falling into order."

And babies make four

Shortly after causing a sensation in 2002, Vonetta became pregnant. Twins run in both families and after praying for a set, they were thrilled with the news.

At an ESPN awards show, when she was five months pregnant, she couldn't wait to meet actor Samuel L. Jackson. "I introduced myself to him and he was like, 'I watched you!' It felt really, really good to know that he watched me, and he rubbed my belly and said, 'Tell the kids I'm Uncle Sam.' "

At the end of her fifth month Vonetta went into preterm labor, but the ultrasound showed no signs of trouble. In efforts to stop labor, Vonetta was given drugs through a catheter in her thigh. After two weeks in the hospital, and just 30 weeks into her pregnancy, she gave birth to the boys on Aug. 30, 2002. Jaden, born 2 1/2 minutes before his brother, weighed 3 pounds, 8 ounces; Jorden only 2 pounds, 9 ounces. Vonetta saved their nursery wristbands, which fit on her finger.

"Jaden was tiny; they brought him over and I had a chance to kiss him and they took him off," Vonetta said, "and then Jorden, I didn't see him at all. They just rushed him straight to NICU and Johnny said that the doctors had their masks on and all he could see was, all their eyes got big. He thought something must be wrong."

A doctor told Johnny and Vonetta that Jorden's ears were underdeveloped, a condition known as bilateral atresia, but they were relieved to see him the next day and find his ears "were just little," Vonetta said.

After six weeks they took Jaden home, but his fraternal twin stayed in the hospital another week. Jorden failed a hearing test, but doctors still didn't know the extent of his disability.

Back in the sled

Even before the twins were born, Vonetta knew she wanted to compete again. That meant many months away from home, and she couldn't leave her family behind.

The twins were just 5 months old when they got passports, their parents holding them up for the camera, and they hit the road.

"Vonetta needs [her] family here," said Bill Tavares, one of the U.S. women's coaches. "I think it'd be more of a distraction if she didn't have them here because she'd be worried about them all the time."
"A lot of athletes here are homesick because we're away for months at a time," said Vonetta. "I think we have the ideal life."

Yet she understands the sacrifice everyone makes for her to be a champion.
"It's a joint effort to get where I am. He's [Johnny] a motivator and a great, great husband and a great guy," said Vonetta.

She said her relationship with Johnny, with whom she'll celebrate a seventh wedding anniversary in September, "has gotten closer just because we're together all the time and we travel and we're able to spend time with our kids."

The boys are well-behaved, but when the Flowers family joined the World Cup tour, the twins would cry in the middle of the night, "so they moved our room on one side of the hotel and the team would be on the other side," Vonetta said.

She is careful to strike the right balance. She doesn't miss team meetings and eats scheduled meals with the other athletes. Prahm said her brakewoman makes sure having the kids never interferes with their training.

"If I can tell she's got some little bags under her eyes, I know she's had a rough night," Prahm said, "but she never complains. She's just very thankful to have the kids and have them here."

In early 2003 Vonetta became the brakewoman for Prahm, known as Jean Racine before her recent marriage. They finished sixth in the World Championships their first year. Prahm, vilified as
"Mean Jean" after she dumped her best friend/brakewoman before the 2002 Olympics, is now part of a bona fide Olympic feel-good story.

"Sometimes they'll call me over to play with the kids," Prahm said, "to wrestle with them and wear them out."

The U.S. bobsledders consider the boys part of their extended family too.

"When you hear pounding down the hallway, there's one of the twins just taking off running," said Brian Shimer, a five-time Olympian who is one of the men's coaches.

Tavares said it takes a "very strong-willed person" to do what Vonetta's doing. And, he added, "She is one of the genuine nice people around. When you talk about nice people, there are nice people that pretend to be nice, and then there's Vonetta."

Dec. 14: In training

After practice, Johnny returns with the kids to the Hotel Cristallino, where breakfast is still laid out. "Eggies!" says Jaden. "I love eggies!" Jorden is happy cutting everything on his plate. The boys like the idea of hot chocolate more than they enjoy drinking it, and their cups spill all over the table. "This is why we eat in the room," says Johnny.

The family brings noodles, rice and oatmeal on the road. They also bring toys, including cars, balls and a little basketball goal. "They find anything to play with, and they've got each other," Johnny says. "It's not a big concern to have to go out and make sure that they're totally entertained 24 hours a day."

He often works with them on writing their numbers, and thankfully, they still take naps.

2003 Olympic Women’s Bobsled team Vonetta Flowers & Jill Bakken

After lunch, Johnny switches jobs. He's now the physical trainer for Vonetta and Prahm. Along with Prahm's husband, Ryan, who is visiting this week, they search for a deserted street without a lot of ice so they can train. They eventually settle on a place next to three recycling bins and a bus stop.

"We realize that the most important thing right now is for Vonetta to do well this weekend," Johnny says, "then after that we shift gears and get ready for Jorden's surgery. There's no nervousness about it. We're at peace about it. We know that everything's going to be fine. That's kind of how we approach life."

They do resistance training and speed drills. The kids run, too, when they're not playing in the snow. As the child of a bobsledder, Jaden doesn't say, "I fell down." He announces, "I crashed."

Each week as the bobsled tour travels to the playgrounds of the rich, such as Cortina and St. Moritz, Johnny simply looks for playgrounds. The boys recently got a sled.

"Jorden likes it better than Jaden does," Johnny says. "When you get one that wants to go halfway up the hill and one that wants to go to the top, it's pretty obvious."

"There's no fear in Jorden," Vonetta says. He's the more stubborn of the two, also. Who does he get that from? She giggles. "Probably me."

Jaden, who weighs 45 pounds, has Vonetta's dimples and the smile that made her one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2002. Jorden, at 37 pounds, is more serious, his dark eyes intense. He smiles without showing his teeth.

Jorden likes cars; Jaden, pushing things.
"Jaden loves to push everything around. If he's pushing a chair, he'll try to load into the chair. Then he'll pat me on the back or whoever's beside him and go, 'Good race!' "

If they were bobsledders, Vonetta says, "Jaden would definitely be the driver." And Jorden? "He'd hang out back. He's sort of laid-back like me."
Jorden likes it when he and his brother wear the same clothes, though his are a size smaller.

But Jaden understands the boys are very different.
"If we want [Jorden] to come here," Johnny says, "Jaden will go over and touch him, because he knows."

Hope for hearing

In Birmingham, doctors thought Jorden had some ability to hear. He was a few months old when he was fitted with a bone conduction hearing aid that would send vibrations. "This went on for four or five months before they really realized he couldn't hear at all," Johnny says. "Vonetta thought he was turning and responding, but I never thought he could hear."

Johnny's cousin Juandolyn Fleming, an audiologist, referred them to Dr. Sanjay Bhansali and pediatric audiologist Maureen Riski in Atlanta, where MRIs and CAT scans determined Jorden did not have the cochlear nerve essential for hearing. The family consulted the House Ear Clinic in Los Angeles, where Dr. Derald Brackmann told them an auditory brainstem implant, in which 21 electrodes are placed in the brain, was Jorden's only hope.

However, the FDA does not approve the procedure for children under age 12 in the United States, so the family's insurance would not cover the estimated cost of $65,000.

Last winter, in conjunction with Vonetta's World Cup in Cortina, the family met Colletti, a 62-year-old who is the only surgeon in the world performing the ABI procedure on children.

Colletti, who has a way of stroking Jorden's face to connect with him, said Jorden was born with an unusual malformation. "It's very rare that you have the outer ear that is missing, and the cochlear nerve and the cochlea are missing," he said.

"Because the three parts of the ear embryologically evolve with different time frames, it's really unique that you have this very complex and combined abnormality."

Colletti explained that before he could perform the surgery, Jorden would require an operation to remove one of his ribs. The rib would be used to form Jorden's right ear, where the microphone would hang that connects to the speech processor.

"Dr. Colletti said the sooner the better to have this surgery," Vonetta said. "If we would have known about it two years ago --- he's done it in kids who were [14 months old] --- we would have had it. We feel like we're three years behind."

Jorden's struggle to communicate has made her cry.

"Jorden will see us on the phone and he'll want to talk on the phone," she said. "It's just hard to see him. He knows we're moving our mouths, so he'll get on the phone and . . . he'll just mumble something because he knows something's on this phone. We know that he'll be hearing soon and he'll be able to talk. But I cry sometimes when he does that.

"Or another time, Jaden will say something and I'll go, 'But baby, he can't hear you. You have to do the sign.' Then I sit down and I think about it, and it just gets tough at times."

Dec. 16: Race day
Vonetta wears gloves with Jaden's name on one hand, Jorden's on the other. They cover scars on her wrists from surgery when the twins were about 9 months old.

"I'd hold one, the other would cry out, so I'd just hold them both --- I got to the point where I couldn't move my thumbs," she says, comparing her problem to carpal tunnel syndrome. She was back to normal in a week, happily carrying both boys, one on each hip.

Under her race suit, Vonetta wears a white tank top she got for her birthday with pictures of the boys in Home Depot orange aprons. Jaden's picture on the front is beneath the words, "You can do it," and Jorden's on the back under "He can help."

"Double meaning, God can help you and Jorden can help you," she says. "They're my little good luck charms, my boys."

Vonetta and Prahm are in the second sled to go down, usually a prime position, but today isn't especially good.

"I wasn't in the flow today," Prahm says. "On top of that, the first run, we got down to the bottom and two of our runners were just ruined by something in the track, like rocks."

The duo place seventh, while driver Jill Bakken, Vonetta's gold medal teammate in 2002, finishes sixth and Shauna Rohbock wins the bronze medal.

Only two U.S. sleds go to the Olympics, and Vonetta and Prahm hold a commanding 50-point lead over Bakken heading into the Jan. 13 World Cup event in Konigssee, Germany, the final race to earn qualification points.

"I'm excited about our starts; they've gotten better every week," Vonetta says. "Jean just didn't drive great, but we're still in the running to make the Olympic team and that's the ultimate goal."

So is now the time to shift gears and think about the surgery? "It's not like I wasn't thinking about it," Vonetta says. "I'm always thinking about it."

Mixed emotions

Verona, with its cobblestone streets and a Roman amphitheater second in size only to Rome's Colosseum, has old-world charm that matters little to the Flowers family. Johnny's prime destination in the city center has been McDonald's.
One building that exudes little charm but lots of hope is the Policlinico Giobattista Rossi. It is situated on the outskirts of the city and is part of the Borgo Roma Hospital, built in the 1970s. Jorden's life-changing surgery will take place here.

Vonetta and Johnny were initially told it would be two months before the device could be turned on that would allow Jorden to hear. With the boys expected to return to the United States with Johnny at the end of January, they didn't know if they would come back to Italy or have it activated in California. But during Jorden's pre-admittance checkup, Colletti told them it could be done in a month if Jorden heals well. "That's probably the best news that we've gotten since we've been here," Johnny said.

The Flowerses had been stunned, however, when they learned a few days earlier that they were expected to pay Jorden's entire medical bill before he could be discharged.

They told ABC's "Good Morning America" their story, hoping the show could help them raise money for the procedure. The family has been living off savings as well as money from Vonetta's sponsors, including McDonald's, Speedo, Home Depot, Coca-Cola, DHL and Kleenex.

Another struggle was trying to explain to Jorden what was going to happen.

"Most objects we sign to him, he can see them," Johnny said. "We can't show him an operation, so we do the sign for doctor and tap on the wrist."

Jorden enjoyed McDonald's chicken nuggets as his last meal before the operation. He also spent quality time with Mom, who shared the hospital bed with her son that night.

"It's like a day we've been praying for, for a long time," she said. "To finally be here . . . I had mixed feelings. I was sort of relieved for the day finally to come, and then we're scared because of course this is brain surgery."

Dec. 20: The surgery

"These are going to be the longest three hours," Vonetta says of the surgery. She's used to quickness. She pushes for 5 seconds for a bobsled ride that lasts about 50.

The family accompanies Jorden as long as possible, but only Vonetta is allowed to stay to meet with the anesthesiologist. For about 20 minutes Jorden runs up and down a hallway and throws stuffed animals he's been given. When it's time for the surgery, "He cried because of all of these strange faces and Mommy couldn't take him back," Vonetta says. "So that was tough, just to see him cry like that."

Vonetta, Johnny and Jaden sit in Jorden's room, a bleak peach-colored room with no television and no telephone. They keep juices and Johnny's Fanta orange drink on the outside windowsill to keep them cold.

Time passes slowly. They watch movies on the DVD player and play with Jaden. Occasionally a nurse will come in to say that Jorden's doing fine.

Jaden keeps asking, "Where's Jorden? I want to see Jorden," and Vonetta reassures him, "He's coming back. He's with the doctor."

Then Colletti comes in. "The smile on his face was like a relief," says Vonetta.
The doctor tells them the surgery didn't last as long as he anticipated and that 20 of the 21 electrodes are working. "The more electrodes that are on, the better it's going to be, generally speaking, but for hearing you only need six to eight electrodes," Colletti says later.

Vonetta isn't allowed to stay with Jorden in the ICU after surgery, so the family goes to its hotel. While they're spreading the good news, the hospital calls. "They said, 'Come back because he's crying for Mommy,' " Vonetta says.

She sleeps curled at the foot of Jorden's bed to stay clear of the tubes. "He just needed to feel me," Vonetta says. "Because of the sharp pains he's getting, it scares him. But they only last for five seconds, and then the pain just goes away."

The family has a tough moment when Johnny has to take Jaden back to the hotel. "He cries a little bit, and we end up bribing him with the helmet at the hotel."

Jaden loves to play with Vonetta's helmet, pretending to pull down the visor, then pushing something and saying, "Good race!"

"Out of every athlete I know, Jaden loves bobsled more than all the bobsledders who are here," Vonetta says. "He wakes up talking about bobsled."

But he'll wake up the next day without his mother or his brother. "It's tough because he wants to stay here with me and he wants to stay with Jorden," Vonetta says. "He's used to us all being together."

Dec. 21-22: Recovery

Santa Claus comes to Jorden's room to bring toys to both boys the day after the surgery. The hospital is a sickroom for Jorden but a playroom for Jaden, who wears a "USA Future Olympian" T-shirt. For now, at least, no matter how loud Jaden is, he can't disturb his brother.

Jaden loves his Italian Etch-a-Sketch and practices his numbers. "Mommy! I did a 7!" he says. "Good job!" she replies. But the medication to dull Jorden's pain makes him sleep most of the time. "When he wakes up, Jaden will come over to him and he'll wave. 'Jorden!' He'll try to give him toys to play with. He knows that Jorden's head hurts. He's been saying prayers for Jorden's head."

Jorden's head is swathed in gauze and bandages. Vonetta strokes his arm as she sits on the edge of the bed and tries to keep him still because it hurts his head when he moves. "I know he's in the worst headache you can ever have. Just imagine how much pain he's in just because they had to cut through his skull to get to his brain. I wish I could have the pain for him. He's so little. But he's so tough . . . so tough.

"He'll just moan a little bit. He's really not crying that much. He'll point and do the sign for hurt."
Vonetta and Johnny try to decorate the room by hanging the DVD boxes on the wall. Vonetta received only a plastic reclining chair to sleep in the night Jorden returned to his room, but she got her own hospital bed the next night. The Flowerses bought an Italian dictionary to communicate with the staff. "Well, you only get a few people here that speak English," Vonetta says, "And when you tell them you don't understand, they'll keep talking."

Santa comes again two days after the operation, this time in the form of a hospital administrator. She brings a translator who tells them their bill was 31,000 euros, roughly $38,000, and that they can pay in installments.

"Is this a good thing?" asks the translator. "Yes," Vonetta says, "it's very good."

"That solves every problem that we have," Johnny says. "We thought we had to have the money before we leave, and they wanted this huge amount of money, and now the number's gone down quite a bit."
Colletti has donated his services, something he has done for all of his ABI patients whose insurance did not cover the procedure. He tried to get the company that makes the $25,000 ABI to donate it as well, but was unsuccessful.

New world of experiences

After Jorden was discharged on Dec. 29, the Flowers family remained for several days in Verona before rejoining the U.S. team in Konigssee, Germany. They plan to return to Verona on Monday for Jorden's stitches to be removed and to start the stimulation of the auditory brainstem implants. The procedure will take place in the intensive care unit because it is very delicate.

"It's not like a radio that you switch on," said Lilli Avesani, the speech pathologist at the hospital.

One of the 20 working electrodes will be given low-intensity electrical stimulation, looking for a reaction. An electrophysiologist will determine which and how many of the electrodes to stimulate, and will also have to make sure the stimulation doesn't make another body part twitch.

"In the beginning, we have to be very, very soft because we don't want to excite him," Colletti said, "or have a bad reaction. We don't want him to be scared about something that he has never experienced before. What we need is to involve him in hearing in a very small way."

Avesani said it might take three to six months for Jorden to begin figuring out what the sounds mean. It might take more than a year to learn to talk, and he'll have to work with speech therapists in Birmingham. His parents will also learn how to teach Jorden.

"He's very, very smart," Avesani said. "And quick, too. He has also very good communication skills, even if he doesn't speak. He's very quick to understand you, how you are feeling and your behavior."

Being a twin will help Jorden learn, too, as he watches and imitates his brother.

Vonetta likes to say that in her first ride in a bobsled, "it felt like I'd been placed in a trash can and thrown down a hill. I was scared out of my mind."

She knows her son might have a similar reaction to hearing for the first time.

"Of course it's going to be scary, because now all these noises are from everywhere," she said. "But it's going to be exciting as well. It's going to take a little while to realize, 'OK, this is normal now.' Every sound's going to be new."

Although it pains Vonetta to even talk about it, the boys won't go to the Olympics. It's too expensive to find a room and it's not as informal as a World Cup like Cortina, which didn't even charge admission. The boys will stay with their grandmother in Gainesville, Fla.

"It's going to be tough leaving them --- that's a long time," Vonetta said. "They didn't spend the night away at Grandma's house until they were like a year and a half. And Grandma lives 10 minutes down the road. That's how attached I am to those boys."

Vonetta wants two more children, preferably twins, and hopefully at least one girl. They've talked to a geneticist and don't anticipate a problem with her next pregnancy. The names will have to start with "J," which is a tradition in Johnny's family.

But first there's the 2006 Winter Olympics. Vonetta had dreamed of going to the Olympics since she was 9, but thought she'd compete as a sprinter or long jumper. After failing to qualify at the 2000 Olympic Trials, she was recruited for bobsled, and as a relative rookie in the sport, she won the first women's bobsled event at the Winter Games. Tears streamed down her face on the victory podium and Vonetta and Bakken were chosen to carry the U.S. flag at the Closing Ceremony. She wrote a book, "Running on Ice: The Overcoming Faith of Vonetta Flowers."

Some people believe that winning another gold medal couldn't possibly match that experience.
"I think it can, because I'll be able to share it with my kids," Vonetta said. "It definitely won't just be my medal. It'll be my two boys and my husband who have been there the whole time."

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