Even if she medals for the second straight Olympics, what U.S. bobsledder Vonetta Flowers found in nearby Verona, Italy, is far more precious than gold. Two months ago Flowers made a passionate plea to one of the world’s leading surgeons: Can you help my child? “I think so,” Dr. Vittorio Colletti said, “but this is a difficult surgery. There is a small chance he might die.” It was a chance she decided to take because 3-year-old son Jorden was trapped in a silent world. He had been born without the audio nerve that connects with the brain. So she decided to have Jorden undergo brain surgery. “I just feel all this was a plan mapped out for me by God,” Flowers said. “I would have a deaf kid, and I would take him to a doctor in Italy, which happened to be where the next Olympics were held. It’s too much of a coincidence.” After the surgery, Jorden looked at Colletti, then reached up and rubbed the doctor’s face. “Here was this little guy, with stitches and all the trauma I put him through, doing this to me,” Colletti said. “It was the best feedback I could imagine.” Flowers can imagine one better–Jorden holding a pair of gold medals, clanging them like cymbals and laughing at his new noisemaker.
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