Rachel's Bell's Palsy Journal

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 ...