pomfelo

My Dad has been suffering from a chronic nerve condition that causes him a lot of pain. It was in remission for years, but it began to affect him again.

He hasn't been able to speak or eat anything solid for the last week. He's lost about 24 pounds in the last four weeks. I work for my Dad, so I've spent much of the last month with him, interpreting for him.

My Dad is a strong man. He's been able to hide a lot of the pain he's been feeling, but not all of it. I looked up his condition online. People have written testimonials including phrases like, "I just wanted to kill myself to stop the pain."

Added to this that my Uncle had a heart attack and had to have a pacemaker put in this week, and you can guess how much stress we have all been under. (He's fine, now, btw.)

My dad opted to go with a capping operation which would block all the pain transmitted through that nerve. It was a two hour operation. We took him to the hospital at 10 am, and the doctor didn't take him in until after 5 pm. (I can't complain. We saw the family of the guy who the doc pulled a tumor out of. His time was well spent.)

It was me and about a dozen family/well wishers. We were pretty on edge throughout most of it. So yeah.

I said there was a happy ending, didn't I? They capped the nerve, and he doesn't feel the pain anymore.

He's still in pain from the surgery (the surgeon had to move a muscle to get to the nerve) and he'll be in the hospital for a few more days.

But he's talking for the first time without pain in more than a week. I heard. By the time I saw him, he was all hopped up on morphine. *insert obligatory give me some joke here*

It's all good. Okay, I kinda made this about me. My Dad was the one in pain, and my family has been dealing with this as much as I have. Blah.

I'm just so happy the pain is past.