Oh the nerve of some people

 June 16, 2025

At 5:45 this morning I was sitting in the surgical waiting room as they prepped my mom for surgery on her facial nerves. 1 out of 5 stars, do not recommend. 

 She has a condition called Trigeminal neuralgia. Most people with a face don't know what this is. The trigeminal nerve, when it's not being a very very naughty nerve indeed, has the job of transmitting sensation like temperature and touch from the face to the brain but it also controls the  muscles used for chewing. Who knew right? The caress of a lovers hand against of your cheek, the satisfying crunch of a potato chip, the chew of a good steak, the summer wind as you ride with the car window open, the wide mouth laugh of joy what a lovely nerve to have. All is well and good until you replace the word "nerve" with "neuralgia". Well as awful as you imagine that sounds, here is how the pain is described by the Mayo Clinic: 

• Episodes of intense shooting or jabbing pain that may feel like an electric shock.
• Sudden episodes of pain or pain triggered by touching the face, chewing, speaking or brushing your teeth.
• Episodes of pain lasting from a few seconds to several minutes.
• Pain that occurs with facial spasms.
• Episodes of pain lasting days, weeks, months or longer...
• Episodes of pain that become more frequent and intense over time.

Another source, The Arizona Pain Specialists says:

     "Of all of the pain conditions that chronic pain patients experience,         there are arguably none worse than the pain of trigeminal neuralgia.     Often called the “suicide disease” because of the intense pain, higher     rates of suicidal ideation in patients with severe migraines, and links     to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders" 

This handy little condition is what my Mom has been dealing with for probably 7 years... I'm guessing here. It's been a long time. I have seen my mother, the most stoic German midwestern farm girl ever, start a sentence and crumple into a crying rag doll in a diner booth from the pain. My mother who walked home with a severely sprained ankle and didn't even cuss about it. Who broke her wrist out on the trail, refused an ambulance or a help walked back to her car alone and drove herself to the hospital. She had 3 pins and a plate put in. 

Diagnosis took a while, but then they medicated it, and she said it was "pretty well under control". Um hmm, see crying rag-doll incident.  Anyway forward in time and she developed some other issues, interactions or whatnot that interfered with the "relief" she was getting from the drugs.  This resulted, don't ask me how, but in her having to give herself these turkey baster sized syringes of medication into her stomach 2x a day. I swear you could set this old lady on fire and she'd ask for a sip of your water... if it wasn't any trouble.  She had put up with this nonsense for another year or so, but finally the "doctors" just had it and decided there might be something else that could be done.  Three months ago she went through a procedure called a Stereotactic Radiosurgery or the "Gamma knife". (Effective only on Gamma's but not Grampies?) in which they made a 3D printed mask of her face to hold her head perfectly still and then shot radiation into her face to try and kill parts of the nerve. It didn't work, but she can now function as her own nightlight.

Today, they knocked her out and performed a Percutaneous Rhizotomy. Which to me sounds to me the name of a side character in a humorous Victorian Era styled novel, maybe the latest by Lemony Snickett. For this surgery they stick a needle sized tube in her cheek  and leave an inflated surgical balloon behind to press against the nerve hopefully causing nerve damage that prevents it from firing unbearable shocks of pain to your brain. I'm pretty sure that fucking trigeminal nerve is going to do bad clown party tricks with that thing... She'll sneeze one day and out will come a tiny blue balloon poodle in a shower of snot and high voltage electrical agony. 

My mother is 87 years old. I think she stopped wrestling cougar and black bear sometime last month... she's tough but she's getting up there. Spending this morning in the hospital waiting for her to come out from the anesthesia was a difficult time. I was deeply worried. It's people like this that you never expect to have complications, you never expect them to have actual weakness so of course in my anxious mind that makes it entirely essential that I brace myself for the unbelievable. You never want to be shocked by these things.  I had a mini panic attack last night. Having learned to talk kids off the ledge proved very helpful in that moment and I only sat and wept with my heart racing for about a half hour before finally managing to calm down. Later despite dosing myself with TWO sleep gummy and only 4 hours of sleep the night before, I slept for a total of 48 minutes, at about 3:12 to 4 am. 

But Mom, how was she? Quiet, calm and ready "to get this show on the road". She of course, because she's not really a human, but a mythic Amazon, arose from her gurney and asked for a little cup of Sprite and can I put "my darn clothes on now please". "This is Silly!" She says as they make her take a wheelchair down to the car. Despite the fact that she had a migraine and was seeing double. Not to mention the that they intubated her for the surgery and she can't stop coughing. "Would you like a hard candy or a throat lozenge?" "No I'm fine." I took her home and she lay down in the recliner and played an hour of solitaire on her phone, with one eye closed like Ann Bonny the pirate, listened to a book on tape, and finished up a unit of Duolingo. And I took a very long nap on her behalf.