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Day 2: Something's Wrong With My Face!

I woke with a slight headache...not as bad as the day before. My eyes were burning, but I figured that must be from the virus I must be fighting.  When I pulled a muscle in my neck trying to chew one small bite of soft bread this morning, I thought "that's strange"...and then when I couldn't get my eyelid up to put mascara on, I thought maybe it was the fault of the new mascara brush which flexes (who ever thought flexible mascara brushes was a good idea?!)... but then when I couldn't rub my lips together after I put chap-stick on, I thought "Oh dear...something's wrong!" But I was late for a work meeting and didn't have time to think about it. At the meeting, a coworker who I'd been with the day before asked me if I was feeling over-tired lately because he'd noticed my right eye wasn't blinking, yesterday and today. I burst into tears and said "something's wrong with my face!" and then explained my symptoms:
I woke up today and I can't move my face! On the right side of my face, i can't smile, purse my lips, scrunch my nose, taste, lift my eyebrow, close my eye, or see clearly! And I had a headache focused on the right side. It's not completely paralyzed, because I can partially close my eye if I focus and try real hard, and I can slightly twitch my cheek. A friend of mine who's a nurse immediately thought it was Bell's Palsy, and as we looked up descriptions online, it was a near perfect match. She went with me to a clinic, which referred us to a neurologist, and that was his diagnosis too. I'm thankful there's a neurologist to go to here, but one of the first questions he asked me was if I had been in a room with two open windows and breeze (a typical Moroccan explanation for the cause of sickness!). I thought "Oh buddy, if you're going to lead with that, I don't know if I can trust you!" But then the rest of his diagnosis and advice was right on and matched what we had read online, and he seemed to know what he was doing. He said they don't know what causes it, but the facial nerve is inflamed, possibly because of a virus, causing the partial paralysis, and he prescribed a steroid - Prednisolone - to reduce the inflammation, and instructed me to tape my eye shut to protect it, since it couldn't protect itself. I asked about Lyme Disease (which they don't really have here, but I've recently been in France and California, where it's more common). He didn't think that could be the cause, because there weren't other symptoms like fatigue, fever and full body aches.

 I picked up the prescription and started taking the steroids, and worked from home this afternoon, instead of going in to the office. A long hot shower felt good on my head and face.

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