A New Beginning

The is the best picture I have of my "new" look. This is two weeks in. The Bell's Palsy set in on December Friday 18th. So, it's been 10 days. Although, this picture was taken 5 days ago, it is still pretty representative of the way I look.

I went to a ENT and had an ENOG test. The facial nerve is unresponisve. It has a real flat curve, while the right side is more wavy as they increasingly stimulate you. The Dr. said to check back in 3 months. Now it's a waiting game. I need to get my camera so I can take new pictures.

Half of my face is paralyzed. It's like looking at an other person. I hope my eye looks better. I've been using Refresh Celluvisc, 30 Sterile Single-Use Containers. It comes in little droplet bottles of 4ml. each. I squeeze one in my eye every couple of hours or so. It takes about 5 minutes to do it right. I lie down and drop in the corners and in the middle. Then I roll my eye around for a while, looking up and down to spread the lubricant around. Then there's a couple of minutes of lying there with my eye closed while things settle in/down. Then I have to mop up the excess oil.

At nite I use an ointment. It's .5% mineral oil. It comes out of a squeeze tube and is a little hard to apply. Sometimes I just use the drops. Why I have to do this is because my left eye doesn't blink. Francie and I had a whole conversation about the default position of eyelids. I came to the conclusion that it's cyclical. During the day, your eyes stay open. You don't really have to do anything to keep them open. At night the oppisite is true: your eyes stay closed, you don't really have to concentrate on keeping them closed. I just have to close my left eye manually and it stays closed all night.

There are other issues: eating, laughing, smiling, talking. But, I'll leave them for an other time. Now I have to go look for my camera.