THE NEXT TIME I SAW Ross, in Baltimore in the spring of 2007, he seemed more like his old self, profane but friendly. He was in town for another operation—a limb–lengthening procedure on his upper arms. The dreaded spine overhaul had been postponed. Tracey wanted to shop for a new doctor.

I was sitting in a hotel lobby when Ross came in ahead of his parents, swallowed up by a Matt Leinart NFL jersey. He walked over and said, "Hey," and I could tell from his tone that he was in a better mood. The arm surgery would be cake compared with the legs. Michael had bought season tickets for the Yankees, so Ross would have a great spring and summer.

Monday was all about waiting rooms and pre–op consultations at Sinai Hospital, command central for East Coast limb lengthening. We met two women from Maryland who were there with a 13–year–old girl who was scheduled for her first surgery—legs—the next day. They were nervous and seemed eager to hear good things about Ross's case history. Tracey asked him to "stand up and take a bow," which he did. He seemed justifiably proud of his hard–won inches.

"That's a miracle," one of the women said.

Ross stayed cool that day and the next, when we had to show up predawn in advance of his surgery. I'd made arrangements to watch—I'd dragged Ross into my world; I wanted to see his. Inside the OR, my friend was barely visible beneath a pup tent of blue, bloodstained surgical drapes. I could see his right upper arm dangling out, already spiked with five bolts. There was a surgeon on each side, and I watched on an X–ray monitor as one of them struck the hammer blow on Ross's right humerus.

I left feeling woozy. I also left with a new feeling about Ross. He'd walked into all that without whimpering, so he didn't need the outdoors, me, or anything else to help him become a man. He was already there.