Rachel's Bell's Palsy Journal

It's been almost a month since I last posted. The healing seems to be slowing down significantly. I'm still making progress, but slowly. I was trying to take pictures every week at the beginning, but because progress had slowed and life got real busy, there's been a month passed now since the last mug shots...with only slight improvements. I'm close though! I think I've reached the final frontiers of the nerve recovery process, so maybe these last fine details are just going to be the most difficult...or I've just reached a stand-still right before the finish line and it's just not going to get any better. These pictures only show very slight asymmetry, hardly noticeable, but when I'm making fine automatic expressions with my eyes, the right eye thinks it's following along, but its not. It does regular subconscious blinking with the other eye, and I can manually tell it to close, but other automated things like squinting in the sun don't work e...

Oh My! What a week! I'm so thankful that none of this has landed me in the hospital here, because I just got to see what those are like, and what they are lacking! One of our artists almost had a heart attack and I had to take her to the emergency clinic and spent the next couple long days with her there, trying to advocate for her. I'm exhausted, needless to say, and thankfully she was stabilized and able to return home to better care. While I was at the hospital, my neurologist came by to check on our artist, and he recognized me and asked how I was doing. When I told him how exhausted I've been, with super low energy, he said that was because I stopped the Prednisone too quickly and so my adrenal glands were struggling to function! But he had specifically told me NOT to taper them, that there was no need, and he didn't prescribe a dose that included tapering! AGH!! Sure enough, I checked my notes here, and the dates (so thankful I had this record!) and right when ...

More improvements in my face. I can finally hold air in my mouth with my lips shut this week. You can see the comparison to last week in the full grid of pictures . Still super tired and 8 new artists in residence arrived at our studio this week. It's shaping up to be full of surprises and extra work, which we had expected. I've just cut out everything but work so that I can go right home and rest!

Steady progress! The virus symptoms are mostly gone...I only blow my nose about one or two times a day and cough only occasionally, usually if I'm talking a lot. Now that those symptoms mostly gone, I can feel the energy drain and fatigue more singularly, so it seems that my adrenals took a blow with this, OR that they are still being drained by trying to heal the nerve and so I don't have much energy for regular activities. I worked my regular hours at the studio this week, but didn't do anything else, just came home and crashed...one day I came home starving, but had to rest for an hour or two before I had enough energy to make dinner. Thankful for the weekend. I slept 12 hours Friday night! We have 8 artists arriving on Thursday to our art residency, so I'm a little nervous about how this month is going to play out if my energy doesn't return, or if I'm going to cause more damage to my adrenals by not being able to rest enough...I will need to be vigilant to ...

[ Correction to my last post: my doctor corrected my thinking about this - most viruses only last 5-7 days, but the aftermath and damage they do to our bodies can stay for weeks. Our bodies shift vital energy to our immune systems and healing systems, leaving not enough energy to carry out daily activity.  I don't continue to have an infection that's still causing damage...it's just the lingering aftermath. My body considers healing this facial nerve to be more important than allocating resources elsewhere, and that's why I'm feeling so drained. And all the symptoms I still have - my body is just dealing with the aftermath of the infection still and that's taking longer to work its way out. ] So, each day I've been feeling a little better, and though I tire easily and am not fully recovered, I'm definitely on the mend! Glad the weekend is here and I can rest! I took my weekly mug shots a few days ago and finally had a chance to put them toge...

Great encouragements on the Defrosting Of My Face Front, with more control and movement each day. I even have a few wrinkles returning on my forehead and the corner of my eye - something I never thought I'd be so happy about! Vision and hearing still impaired, but I'm hopeful that will return. On the Virus Front, I'm still feeling quite lousy and I've had this thing for THREE WEEKS now! It's a nasty virus, but aside from feeling annoyed and rotten and ready for it to move along, I'm not too concerned, since it seems to be following the same slow course for me as it has for those I caught it from (except for my additional complications of paralysis!). I spent the past three days in bed - taking naps and sleeping 12 hours at night - very thankful it was finally the weekend. I'd felt like doing that all last week, but had to go to work. Today I was able to stay home and work from bed on the computer all day (one of the occasionally possible perks of being a...