Believe in the Flowers.

It's funny sometimes how much a mood can change in the space of just a few hours. I now find myself run down, exhausted, moody and grouchy. Tomorrow will be working in two separate places (but not two jobs, figure THAT out), bringing Colin home, then mowing the back yard and washing the dogs. Afterwards, I have to get my birth certificate (if I can find it) to Hy-Vee - then call it an early night to get up at 6 AM on Friday. I have no idea when Colin works on Friday, if he does at all, but after I work 7A - 1P on Friday, I have to make a character and have game (somewhere). I wanted sun glasses today - good ones since I can't squint my left eye - because it sucks to have the wind blowing and dust blowing in when I can't get and keep my eyes closed to keep said dust, sun, and wind out. But we had to take Bobb out to dinner at Golden Corral, which meant that $40 - and then some, because of the tip - of my first paycheck was basically blown. Add on another $30 for gas, and suddenly that $100 is basically gone. We don't even have enough to pay the last $30 for the phone bill that would otherwise make 12th street moderately livable, so it will have to wait until the 29th when I get the rest of my check. Or the 26th, when I think Colin may get paid again.

But yeah. Generally, I'm in a bad mood. All I want is a backrub and someone to listen to me cry and whine about my problems, but Colin's instead out with Jesse, Michelle, and Bobb working on characters so that on Friday, Col can run a 4th edition D&D campaign in lieu of playing Bobb's world, since Aaron won't be able to be there. I understand that this is how he deals with his problems and concerns - namely, he does something else so he doesn't have to think about said problems - but it still irritates me. I can't tell him that I don't want him to go, but I don't want to be alone, either... It bites. A lot.

Anyway, I need to make sure Colin has clean work clothes. Never mind that it's 11 PM and I want to go to bed. Mom reminded me, and he's my husband, so it's my responsibility. I just don't have to like it.

I have lost a lot of my appetite for various reasons. Stress, of course, is first and foremost, but it doesn't help any that it's difficult to eat and drink, and that I have lost some of my sense of taste - and what's left isn't quite the same as it used to be. I eat less, and eat less often, which in my case is a good thing (I think). I'm not trying to say that I don't eat at all, or that I barely eat, only that I don't eat as much. Who knew that Bell's palsy could act as a diet plan?

Yesterday we went to get a new bank account at Bank of America. They have those awesome photo ID check cards, but I had to get my picture taken for it - which was a whole new sensation of discomfort. It was also really the first time I had to talk to someone in public that wasn't a medical professional, and it was - as I had expected it would be - awkward. Not horribly so, although I did end up explaining why I was unhappy to have my picture taken, and the woman kindly informed me that once this is over and done with, I can always come in and have my picture re-taken, no charge. I thought that was nice of her.

I think at the moment, I'm really just getting tired of this. I'm taking the prednisone like clockwork and I have yet to miss a dose, but I know that when the ten days is up, I probably won't be much better, or if I am, it will be only slightly. At this point, I hope this only lasts a couple of weeks and not the three to six months (or even the year) that some sites and some affected people report. I don't want to wait that long feeling like I'm only half a person, even though I know that my case isn't as bad as some people's, and that it could be much, much worse. It could be my whole face, I could have lost all muscle function and be droopy on one side, I could have absolutely no function in the left side. I could have been even more stubborn and avoided going into the ER even longer, likely prolonging this case and probably leaving me with even worse symptoms. Things could have been worse, I know that, but it's never easy to acknowledge that when things are as bad as you know them to be.

Unpacking is going slowly still. We don't have much done, and we still have a coffee table and couch in our bedroom. The only room that's even close to being done is the living room, and that's only because the TV and both computer desks are set up in it, but nothing else. The place is a mess and I feel bad for it, because even though I know we haven't been mistreating it, I get the impression that the apartment isn't happy about being full but a total wreck. On the plus side, it still feels more friendly than 14th street ever did, and it certainly feels more like home. That's as much as we could ask for.

Hey, if anybody sees Colin's wallet, let us know, okay?

The morning of day two sees me, I think, in higher spirits. I'm not so focused on what's difficult or impossible for me right now, I just accept what I can and can't fully do and get on with my life. I am so thankful that I didn't have a stroke; I can't imagine living with only partial (or no) use of the left side of my body. It isn't my dominant side - my mother is a leftie but I'm a rightie - but it's still kind of helpful. Like, for typing long blog posts, or making breakfast for a toddler who is SO ready to eat. Although the improvement that I had begun to see last night and very early this morning is gone (I could open the left side of my mouth a little more when I grinned), it still gives me hope that recovery is near. As long as I'm careful, I don't think anyone will notice a change in my speech patterns, although I know that while I'm at work, people WILL notice - and that can't be helped. I think it's almost more frightening that I'm okay with that. Let them notice, even stare, or ask questions if they want. I adjusted to the staring - I WAS, after all, an overweight pregnant girl, and that always draws attention. I could be upset about it, but that won't change the fact that this is here to stay for a while, if not forever in one way or another, and why be upset, then?

I have a baby to retrieve; maybe more later, when things are calm again. Much love.

Bell's palsy.

The name alone is enough to strike fear into the hearts of those who don't know exactly what it is. It brings forth mental images of people stranded in motorized wheelchairs, unable to fully communicate or take care of themselves. That, of course, is cerebral palsy and is not what I'm talking about. That affects a lot more of the brain and thus a lot more of the body.

Let me walk you through my last few days:

Thursday night I went into the ER thinking I had an ear infection. I was told that I didn't, but instead had a Eustachian tube dysfunction and that there was little to nothing that could be done. I had to keep taking my allergy medicine and let it clear up on its own in about a week. Friday I finally got my ears to pop (which was recommended to me by the physician I saw) and almost immediately the left side of my tongue went numb. Saturday night, while working, I realized I was having some trouble smiling fully, that the left side of my mouth wasn't responding the same way the right side was. I figured I was being a hypochondriac.

This morning, when I got up, I could not fully smile. I had trouble eating, I wasn't blinking the same way I was last night, and the left side of my face feels oddly numb, as though a dentist's anesthesia is just barely starting to wear off.

Today, after a long ER visit and a CAT scan, I have learned that I have Bell's palsy.

So let me tell you what this means to YOU: It means that when you see me I will not fully close my left eye when I blink. I cannot fully smile, nor can I puff out my cheeks. I look like a total idiot when I laugh, trust me. I have difficulty eating and drinking (the only positive side-effect of THAT being that I will potentially eat less and slower, which I should have been doing in the first place) and yes, I am aware of it. I have rather painful earaches and headaches that you will probably see me react to. If you see me popping tiny pills, it's okay - I'm on prednisone. It's a steroid, so if you notice that my cheeks are getting puffy or that I'm gaining a little weight, yes, I know, and no, I'm not proud of it. The swelling - if any occurs - should go away after my ten-day dosage is gone. It's a little creepy watching myself smile or try to squeeze my eyes shut, and I can only imagine how it will look to you when you see me. Be warned.

What this means for ME: Bell's palsy, with early treatment, usually begins to clear up within several weeks after the symptoms are at their worst (and there's no telling if this is as bad as it will get or not; rarely, both sides of the face can be affected). There's some confusion within the medical community as to what causes it: a virus, a version of herpes (I am NOT trying to tell you that I have herpes so shut up right now), or something yet unknown. Bell's palsy is a catch-all diagnosis given when doctors can't figure out what else might be causing facial paralysis, but my CAT scan was all right and the numbness and unresponsiveness is confined to my face, so tumors and a stroke have been ruled out. To me, this means that an overweight girl with self-esteem issues has been given one more reason not to like herself. I could begin to recover while taking my medication, but more typically it takes between three and six months to begin to recover, and after that, most patients are almost completely better within a year after the original onset of symptoms. There are other potential problems/symptoms that can begin at any point in time, including memory problems and difficulty with balance/walking. Obviously, my speech is a little off. One of the biggest concerns is that when one eye won't fully close (like with mine), a lot of bad things can happen to that eye if it isn't kept properly lubricated and if the dust and dirt aren't kept out. I may need to wear an eye patch, at least at night. Residual effects are totally possible, and there's a chance that after recovering - however long THAT takes - I may have lingering facial nerve problems.

Bell's palsy is basically when, for whatever reason, a very crucial nerve in the face becomes inflamed (hence the prednisone to help reduce the swelling and, hopefully, the symptoms). The face's reaction is to shut down, because without the reaction of the nerve, it doesn't know what to do.

So that's that. I have Bell's palsy.

Here's hoping for recovery.

So as absolutely none of you know, I've spent the last few days (according to Colin it's more like five or so) struggling with an earache. I am notorious for ear problems: when I was younger I had many ear infections and suffered from ruptured eardrums (a problem that can and usually does lead to hearing problems and deafness) like nobody's business. Somewhere between the ages of three and five, I had tubes put in both ears. Ever since I have gotten an earache every couple of years, although last year I ended up with three consecutive and rather unpleasant middle ear infections although I only had one of them treated (the first I ignored, the second got treated, and the third was privy to having me use the same drops I was given for the second infection). This is because I am a stubborn bitch. I am aware of this. I freely admit this.

So today I finally got off of my rear and after Colin got off work we went to the ER, since I no longer have a doctor (thank you, Medicaid). And since everywhere else was closed, and I was tired of hurting. It was odd, in that whenever I burped or stretched, I would get a sharp, shooting pain in my ear. As of about two days ago, it had become an almost constant, dull pain that had spread into my neck, making me feel generally stiff and unhappy. So, yes, we went to the ER, and surprisingly enough we were in and out in about an hour and a half, tops, which was a very nice and unusual change. I'm not complaining. I think it helped that we went in at about 10:30 PM on a Thursday night - so be sure to plan your Quincy ER visits for about this time and you should be okay. Anyway, we go in, and the doctor - who, mind you, was very very polite and nice - informs me that, well, there isn't anything they can do (and if I come up with a cure, I should let him know, and I will probably end up very rich). Apparently I now suffer from Eustachian tube dysfunction, the type where the tube doesn't open as it should. The directions on my release forms read as follows: "Nasocort [which is a nasal steroid] 2 sprays twice day - cont with Zyrtec [one of my allergy medicines] chew gum as needed." YES THAT'S RIGHT. I have been instructed by a physician to chew gum. So, basically, this is "take your allergy medicine, get a nasal spray, chew some gum and pray to God that your ears pop and that it actually does some good sometime soon."

Kind of makes me want to cry.

So now I get to go take some Tylenol and some Zyrtec. Tomorrow I'll go to Walgreen's and procure the Nasocort, although I'm not a huge fan of snorting ANYTHING so we'll see how long that lasts. Also, my blood pressure was 130/73, which I think is kind of high. But I'm overweight, stressed, and high blood pressure runs in my family. As does heart disease. One would think that this combination of things would make me want to change something about how I live, but it turns out that I am a fat, lazy American, and therefore am probably entitled to die of a heart attack before I hit 50. I really kind of hope that doesn't happen, though - I've sworn to myself to make it to at least 100. That would be awesome.

In other news, I get to go to orientation at Hy-Vee at 10 AM on Saturday. To work in the kitchen. It's great, and I'm not nervous, because if something happens and they screw me over on, oh, anything, it's a second job so I can quit without feeling too guilty. And it means a new shirt. I am all about new shirts.

With the exception of a few bags still out on the porch, we have officially gathered everything from the Broadway apartment that we intend on taking out. It has been a long process that has lasted about a month - we're three days shy of hitting our one-month mark of getting the apartment at 12th street - but I think that in the long run, it has all been worth it. This has been rough, but we've managed, and now the moving's finished and the not-so-rough work of unpacking can begin. I expect this will be interesting in that a good portion of the stuff we have to unpack consists of either baby clothes that need to be washed and stored, or items that didn't get unpacked when we moved from Jefferson to Broadway and that haven't seen the light of day in two years. Our new place consists of a mess of boxes in the game/dining room, which you can barely walk through, and progressively fewer items as you continue through the house. Right now, our couch and several other misplaced things are in our bedroom, we have no bed, and I'm pretty sure that the only things that are in the right place are the TV and a large DVD/book shelf that we got from Best Buy. And there is no way in hell that behemoth is moving anywhere in the house, because at this point I don't know if it would be worth trying to move it.

The best part about the new apartment is that Gabe will have access to pretty much the entire thing, minus the bathroom and kitchen. The layout is perfect for him, in that all of the rooms are open and connected, so hopefully he won't feel so secluded. Now, when we go into the kitchen, there are no oddly-shaped corners for us to disappear around, which always seemed to be one of his biggest problems with the old place. Never mind the fact that now, thank God, there are no flights of stairs for him to fall down - if you ignore the basement steps, which have a door anyway - so the gate that Ellie got for us to use on the steps at Broadway can be put to better use elsewhere in the house. I'm not sure how, yet, but Colin seemed to have a few creative ideas that I've since forgotten.

I worry, though, as I am wont to do, that we've barged head-first into a bad idea. Thus far, things in life have pretty much hopped out at us, and we've taken them as Fate giving us a hand. When we needed a new place, the Broadway apartment jumped out and everything worked perfectly with it, but we did little other research and didn't really look for anywhere else. We took what we were given, and for two years it was satisfactory. When we had our accident and needed a new car, it just so happened that there was a financing option for first-time buyers on, of all things, a bright blue Chevy Cobalt (the Kobold), and it was the right size and price for us. When it came time to move again, another apartment jumped us, one that was a little bigger and had a better layout, and just so happened to be rented - at least partially - by the mother of someone I went to high school with and absolutely adored. It seems scary, in some ways, how everything has worked out for us. We've had to put up with a lot of bad, rough times, a lot of financial problems in the meantime, a lot of weeks without work or enough money to make ends meet, but then out of nowhere my job came along, and I wowed the hiring people enough that even after talking to another, more experienced candidate, they still chose me. We managed to get the LINK card back and could buy groceries again, and when we needed extra time to move, my mother let us stay at her house so we weren't dealing with moving AND a total lack of air conditioning. Things have worked in our favor, as long as we have been patient.

But I can't help but wonder if we've just been too flippant about everything. Thus far, we're the only people that have been totally impressed by our new apartment. Nobody thought our car was a good idea, even though at the time it was our only viable option for transportation. I'm positive, just from hearing the occasional commentary, that despite my best efforts at looking, everyone thought I was a slacker for not having a job yet. I wonder, now, if we've been settling for what is easy and mediocre when we could have been waiting to find the absolute best.

In other news, I've written a letter to an advice columnist that I don't expect to have answered. It is as follows:

"Dear Prudie,
My mother is an aging fifty-something who works full-time and lives at home alone with our family pets. I am 22, married, have a young son, and have not been living with my mother for several years now. She is self-sufficient, but not very careful with her money, and when I was still very young she filed for bankruptcy. The problem? My mother's house is now in a state of disrepair. It is otherwise immaculately and obsessively clean, but about a year ago the joint between an add-on and the main house began to leak when it rains. Now she has ceiling tiles in this add-on room that are falling in and dripping all over electrical outlets and light fixtures. There is mold of every color and size growing on the ceilings and dropping onto the carpets, which have suffered extreme water damage, and I am worried that this mold is affecting not only my mother, but our pets and my family when we come to visit her. Last night, while she was watching our son for us and laying in bed, the ceiling in her bedroom finally gave way and fell, barely missing my son. Now there is bare, drooping insulation in her room and a sizable portion of her ceiling is missing paint and even drywall. I can only imagine what has happened to what little attic space she has, and the contents of such. She has been insisting that she could not afford to pay for these repairs when the leaking began; now I am positive she is correct. Her solution thus far is to further dip into her retirement savings, because, as she has put it, no bank will be willing to accept her credit. This is assuming, of course, that she tries to get these problems fixed at all, which I feel may be the case since she has ignored them this long. I have tried being nice, begging, pleading, and even offering to do research with and for her as to solutions to these horrible problems - but thus far she has not responded. I am the only family my mother has, and I am worried if I threaten her with distancing my family from her in order to fix her house, she will do something drastic (she suffers from clinical depression and a menagerie of other psychological disorders that she does not take her medication for, nor does she see a therapist anymore, and was once hospitalized for self-mutilating at work). How on earth do I convince my mother that there are other options than pulling money out of her retirement - and for that matter, that these repairs MUST be done immediately?"

Who wants to play Prudie for me, assuming that the question will not actually get answered by the real Prudie? Anyone? Anyone?

Last night, Colin and I were out at the 14th street apartment with Jess and Shell, doing more moving work (we're really close to being done moving, by the way; tonight should be the last night of moving, and then it's all unpacking). We came back here around 11 PM, only to find my mother up with Gabe in her chair in the front room, which I thought was a little odd, because usually by then - especially if she has to be to work at 6 the next day, which she did - she would be in bed. I came in and asked her why she was still up, thinking something was wrong, and her immediate response was to ask if I had gotten her voicemail message; that she had called about half an hour prior and I hadn't picked up, so she had left a message begging me to come home immediately. It turned out that a portion of her ceiling had caved in, in her bedroom, and the drywall and paint had narrowly missed Gabe, who had been sleeping in her bed at the time. I came about this close to losing my shit when I heard that, and as I helped her clean up the mess, I lectured her on how this really should have been dealt with before this happened. Her responses were lame at best; all of this bullshit about how she had no idea it would fall in, how no bank would accept her credit and thus she wasn't able to fix it before this, etc. Excuses, really, when it comes down to it. She filed for bankruptcy years and years ago - longer than seven - and has been steadily working on her credit ever since.

So now we're back to trying to book it out of here. I'm hoping nothing else bad happens, because at this point I don't know what I would do or say. Apparently about half an hour after she got to work this morning, Mom got sick and was sent home because apparently a hospital pharmacy is not the place to be throwing up. At this point, I don't know what to do or say, and I need to go shower so I can go hang out in Staples for an hour and a half. At least I get paid for it. I also need to go get gas and tampons. YES, THAT SOUNDS LIKE FUN.