Hi everyone

Posting this as a last resort at 4am as I struggle with so many thoughts. My dad only found out a few weeks ago he had a malignant tumour on his bowel (picked up via the screening programme, he hasn't been ill so it was a huge shock). He had surgery on Wednesday (was expected to be a 4hr keyhole, ended up being in theatre for 10 hours due to the tumour being lower down than initially thought).

The day after surgery he looked and felt well, and was moved from high dependency to a general ward. But yesterday (2 days post-op) his mood was lower than I've ever seen. I know this is to be expected as he had been taken off morphine & his adrenaline was probably wearing off. But it was so horrible to see him like that, he couldn't even pretend to smile and looked so vulnerable and undignified (understandable given the tubes and bags coming from everywhere) 

My question is:how to support him through this? And almost more importantly:how to support my mum who is trying so hard to be upbeat and keep him positive but who is clearly getting nowhere and feeling heartbroken about it? Does it get better?

I feel so much for both of them and can't stop worrying about how they are both going to deal with this over the recovery period. Any advice from anyone who has been through this would be much appreciated.

Love to you all.