It was a Sunday in October.
We were at our daughter's wedding rehearsal dinner. Twenty-two people at a long table. Wine. Laughter. Toasts.
Our daughter finished her toast. Then she looked at Karen and said "Mom, get over here."
Karen stood up. Took two steps toward our daughter.
And went down.
Her feet were so numb she didn't feel a purse strap on the floor. Her ankle rolled over it and she went down hard. On the restaurant floor. In front of twenty-two people.
Karen laughed. "Oh my God, I'm so clumsy."
She wasn't clumsy.
Our daughter was standing there with her arms still open for the hug she never got.
She'd had peripheral nerve pain for 12 years. It started as tingling in the toes. A little numbness after a long day. Something she thought would go away.
After the dinner, she sat in the passenger seat and cried.
Not about the pain. About the embarrassment.
"I ruined her rehearsal dinner, David."
She didn't. But try telling that to a woman who just fell on the restaurant floor while everyone watched.
That night, something inside me broke.
I'd spent 27 years handing people pills across a counter. Telling them "take with food." Telling them "give it two weeks."
And I'd never once asked the question that should have been obvious from day one:
Why do these pills almost never help nerve pain?