Health Scare

(By Aubree)

Don't worry the baby's fine. But I had a weird thing happen this last week. It all started last week some time when I found that I had lost the use of some of my taste buds. There was an odd sensation where it felt a little tingly and cool like I had just brushed my tongue with toothpaste. I didn't know what to think because I had gone to the orthodontist to have my retainer removed from my bottom teeth because it had become detatched from some of my teeth, and he scraped off the cement and they did an impression for a new retainer. They didn't inject me with anything, but I thought either something got on my tongue, or my toothpaste had something in it that I was reacting to, so I changed my toothpaste.

Then on Wednesday night for some reason I couldn't make a puckering face. The right side of my lips were droopy, kind of like when you get numb at the dentist, but I didn't feel numb. When I had thought about it, the night before I realized that my lips felt a little weird, but didn't put much thought into it. Then I put my warm hand on the right side of my face and I could tell that it was a little warm, but then I put my hand on the left side and it felt a lot warmer. So my right side of my face was losing sensation a little bit.

Okay, who wouldn't freak out just a little bit? Of course I started to think that I had had a stroke or something had happened with my brain. Nevertheless I slept that night and called my Doctors nurse in the morning and she wanted me to come in to see my doctor. I was trying my best to stay calm, but still was freaking out. I called the pharmacist I was working with that day and told him I had to get into the doctor and when I explained what was going on, he said that it sounded like a type of herpes virus that attacks the nerves in your face. Okay, that sounds kind of horrible, but it sounds a lot better than a stroke or something. It's so great to constantly get free medical advise from the smart people that I work with!

I went in to see my doctor and explained everything. I showed him my puckering face, and he had me do other exercises like squint my eyes. When I did this my right eye didn't close as much as my left eye. He had me raise my eyebrows, but that looked fine. He had come to the same conclusion that my pharmacist had. It was a virus attacking the nerves in my face. The good news is in minor cases, such as mine, the damage isn't permanant. I am now on Prednisone which is a steroidal anti-inflammatory that will decrease the inflammation which will hopefully resolve this whole thing. The bad thing about taking this is my pharmacist said it could make my baby big. The good thing is that it's what they inject unborn babies with when doctors want to deliver the baby early due to health problems with the mom to develop the babies lungs.

Later at work my pharmacist and I came to the conclusion that it was brought on by stress like other herpes virus' such as shingles and cold sores. It has been beyond stressful at work, and I couldn't do anything after work because I was so tired. Then of course my housework got neglected so I would stress out more. When Jeff would cook or clean it would stress me out even more because I know he has stressful, long days at work too and I would feel guilty. And on top of all of that, my baby is coming in 2 months and I don't have the nursery even started, and we have a bunch of stuff we still need to get!! Ahhhhhh!! I cut back on my hours a little bit this week and finally had a day off after working for 8 straight days, so this week has improved a little bit. It's still a little stressful at work, because we have mostly new people who I have to train, but I only have about five more weeks of work before I quit!! yay!!