So I’m back.
It has been a long time since I have last updated the site. So many things happened. School finished up, helped out with the second year gallery, looked for other part time jobs, and that’s about it. Nothing out of the usual. OH WAIT! No, I also was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy.
Let me tell you how that happened. This happened about three weeks ago. Nicky was living with us because his landlord wouldn’t let him stay for two extra weeks without having to pay a full months rent. So, the first week went well. The second week, was starting off fine. Sunday night, the 9th of May, I made lasagna for dinner. All home made and nothing but delish! I couldn’t wait for the cheese to melt – it smelt SOO GOOD – that I had to try a hot steamy piece. Of course it was steaming hot out of the oven and the cheese burnt my tongue. The next day, I still had the fuzzy burnt tongue feeling and I thought nothing of it. Tuesday, I still had the fuzzy feeling, and I couldn’t taste the foods I was eating. Again, didn’t think much of it, I figured I burnt myself pretty bad. Wednesday – well, Wednesday, I was getting ready to run some errands, and I realized I couldn’t blink that well. I figured I might have poked my eye with the mascara brush while trying to put on makeup. But I couldn’t recall if I did or didn’t hit my eye with the mascara brush. So I’m at Winners, and I realize, I CANNOT blink AT ALL with my right eye. It was windy and something flew into my eye. Later that evening, the boys and I go to the bar across from campus for some chicken wings. Its then that I start to really panic. I can’t smile, I can’t open my mouth big enough to not get myself all dirty with wing sauce, I can’t wink, and worse of all, I can’t taste my food. AT ALL. I’d say I lost about 50-70% of my taste buds. I was seriously worried, but the boys continued to make fun of me. Nicky said maybe I had a mini-stroke and I didn’t know about it. Thanks Nicky. :/ I thought it was stress related, and decided that I’ll sleep about 12hrs and see if I’m better in the morning.
It’s now Thursday morning, and I nothing has changed. I can’t blink, I can’t smile - I lost all muscle in the right side of my face. So it felt. Speaking about feeling, I could feel things on my skin, so that was okay. So Shawn and I drive over to the walk in clinic and I get seated in a doctors room right away. The nurse asks for my symptoms as I’m trying not to over react and cry. The doctor came in, and he’s speaking English quickly in a thick Indian accent, so I’m only catching every other sentence through my tears (I’m also pretty sure my hearing was/is affected by Bell’s Palsy). We go through some basic reflex tests, and concussion tests (knee tests, follow my finger with your eyes, etc), then he asks me to smile big, blink, raise my eye brows, push and pull his hands with my hands, and the same thing with my feet/legs, just to make sure the paralyses was localized on one thing. He then quickly told me my diagnoses, and muttered a few other things which I caught, “You’ll be paralyzed in the rest of your body.” Or something of the sorts, and I broke down crying even more. He looked at me in confusion. What he said was, “It’s NOT like you’ll be paralyzed in the rest of your body.” I called Shawn into the room while the doctor stepped out and I told Shawn what happened. The doctor wrote on a prescription that I need an MRI and a CAT scan and told Shawn to rush down to the hospital with me to make sure its not internal to my brain.
So we get to the ER, and I check in, and wait. wait. wait.
By the time it’s my turn, I swear years have passed. I see countless nurses and each ask, poke, and prod me. Once I finally see an ER doctor, I’m hungry and tired and grumpy that it’s taken this long. The ER doctor and I do the same tests that I did earlier that day in the walk in clinic. She tells me my diagnoses again, and explains it in a calm manner, say that, I should have full recovery, but it’ll take time. She prescribes me steroids, and antibiotics, and rest. I drop by Shoppers to get them filled out and I get home where I tell Nicky about my day – who felt bad for making fun of me the night before hehe.
The ER doctor said that the sooner I started the treatment, the better my results would be. I did a TON of research on Bell’s Palsy, I’d have to say this site was the most helpful with all the facial exercises and treatments other than prescription medication; http://www.bellspalsy.ws/ . Check it out if you or someone you know has it. There’s a ton of research and information about it.
The ‘roids kept me up every night. It disturbed my sleeping pattern, made me moodier than ever before and dry mouthed. But I kept at it so I get full results. I also started taking vitamin B12 to help my body re-grow the damaged nerve. Once I finished the 7 days of medication, I noticed a few things; I can close my eye more, I can smile a bit more. But I kept on doing the facial exercises and using lubricating eye drops like no ones business.
Almost four weeks after my diagnosis, I can whistle again (but not as strongly as I used to), I can sleep without an eye patch because both my eyes close now (I still use an over night lubricating ointment to keep my eye moist), I can now individually close my right eye while keeping the left one open (but that requires a LOT of concentration on my part, and I can’t fully wink the right eye like I used to with out any problems). I think the thing that keeps me going is that I’m trying to do things I was able to do in the past with my face, So I’ll be sitting on the couch, making faces and either running towards the mirror to see if I got it right, or touching my face all over with my hands. It’s rather strange.
I have gotten better, it is NOT that noticeable, until I smile big and my face leans to the left. It has been a change to accept this, when I’m openly vain about my appearances, I did cry because symmetry is beauty, and if I’m not symmetrical, then I’m not beautiful (so I thought). It’s not life ending, thankfully, but it is annoying at times (especially when trying to eat or drink and things dribble out the side of your mouth). I’m hoping that in due time, like maybe another two months, I’ll be a-okay. It just really sucked that this happened on the eve of my 25th (which is June 8th), and me trying to get myself healthy and happy with my body and health overall. It really made me take a step back, analyze, and choose healthier and be healthier… and learning how to relax. WOW! Once work starts up in July, I’ll be sad for not having all the time in the world like I have now.
So I’m back to blogging, I’m back to shooting daily, I’m getting back to life and balance.
Cheers