An Unwelcome Surprise

For anyone who has noticed that I have not been keeping up with my blog lately, this is to let you know that I really haven’t been doing much of anything. Shortly after my little stint with my sinus infection and COPD, my right ear started to hurt. This was about three weeks ago. In fact, I felt so crummy that I stayed home from church and just wanted to sleep. I decided to take a couple of Motrin and go back to bed about 8 o’clock that morning. When I woke up at 10:30, the entire right side of my face was paralyzed. I thought it was just a bad reaction to the Motrin (I’m usually more of an aspirin user), but when I went to the doctor the next day, I found out that I have Bell ’s palsy. I had never even heard of it, but apparently it’s a viral infection that gets into some nerve endings located just behind your ear (that explains the ear ache) and it can lay dormant for quite some time. Until it decides to wake up one day. Surprise!

I took my antiviral medication, but unfortunately I am told that it just takes time to recover. It’s funny that I had never heard of Bell’s palsy before, but now that I have it, just about everyone I know has a friend or relative who has had it. I have heard stories of recovery that took as little as two weeks, while others took almost six months to recover. I think I can live with the facial paralysis if my head will just stop “shorting out”. You know that sensation that you sometimes get when you are first falling asleep, and you feel like you are falling and you jerk real fast and wake yourself up? That’s what I feel like when I’m awake. Once about every 3-4 minutes. Even when I’m walking. It’s very disconcerting and makes it hard to get anything done. It also makes it hard to read more than a couple of paragraphs of anything at a time, and I LOVE reading. I am looking forward to having this part of this condition pass, and I know that it will. I just have to learn patience, and it’s probably a lesson that I could use. Robert’s sister just found out that she has cancer for the second time, and when I watch her, I am so inspired! It’s hard to feel sorry for myself when I know all that she is going to have to go through.

So there you go – this is what I have been up to and why I have been so lazy on the posting. I can’t wait until I’m able to show you pictures of the newly remodeled room. And of course, a day without pictures of Pod is like a day without sunshine…or water…or air! Hopefully, I’ll be up to speed soon, with lots of posts and lots of pictures.

Until then, I am grateful for friends and family who take the time to call me, and patiently listen as I try to talk like a normal person. I am grateful to my husband, who lies through his teeth and tells me he loves me just like I am (Really? Someone who looks like a comic book character? Well, aren’t you freaky?) . I’m especially thankful for my mother. I had wanted to have her live with us so that I could take care of her, but she has ended up taking care of me, instead. I know she feels bad, too, but she has been doing all of the cooking and cleaning and shopping. And she is doing it cheerfully! I am going to owe her so BIG for this one!