Justin

I've been avoiding writing a post about Justin, only because his whole situation is such a long and complicated one, that its hard to explain. But now I feel like I need to update his progress, or lack there of. He had the morphine pump put in on November 7, and of course the way my luck works, the hospital forgot to order the morphine!! But the doctor said he could do the surgery anyway, and just fill it with saline and Justni would just come back for the morphine a few days later. So he had the surgery, stayed overnight and came home the next morning. He was very sore, they had to make 2 incisions-one about 7 inches long in his abdomen, and one about 3 inches long in his back. The pump is actually under the skin in his abdomen and is the size of a hockey puck. You can see it sticking out some, but doesn't seem to bother him that much. They need to start him off at a very low dose of morphine so that it does not shock his system, so he is still taking his regular oral medication. Then every week, they will increase his pump dosage 1 milligram. They will start slowly weaning him off his oral medication, so that he doesn't have any withdrawal from it. The whole process will probably take about 3 months to complete. He might feel some pain relief before that time, but to fully complete the process it will take that long.

Now though-since his surgery he has had severe leg pain, like shocks of pain going down his left leg. Its to the point where he can barely walk. I don't know if that is just from them messing around in his back, and irritating the nerves, or something else. He is so discouraged from this, as am I. We just want this whole nightmare to be over!! WE have been dealing with this for 10 years and its just not fair to have to go through this, especially at such a young age. Money is so tight because he really can't work full time now, and the bills keep coming. I hate seeing him just laying in bed everyday in pain, but I also hate that I have to take on all the responsibilities that he would normally share with me. I pray every single day that his pain can go away and I can have my husband back. This has been the toughest year of my life and I feel like I am hanging on to a thread. This is his last hope for pain relief, there is nothing else that can be done-so there is a lot riding on this working. We'll see-until then-I will continue to pray!!