Anthony R. Miller

Ever had one of those weeks where everything went wrong? I’m having one of those weeks. Slowly becoming one of those months.

…you wake up in pain. Either I’ve stretched/pulled a muscle in my back or I have a kidney stone coming through. The pain is about the same either way and in the same location. I’ll know which if they pain moves during the morning.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! I hope today finds you doing well and happy.

Today I am thankful for my wife. She has been doing everything she can to help me through this latest adventure in my life and I really appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving baby, I love you.

The pain set in this afternoon. It started on the back of my neck on the left side, went up behind me ear and then exploded forward on the left side of my face. It was a deep rooted pain. Felt more like bone ache than muscle ache.

I cried for the first time about all of this today as well. It was just couple of minutes and my wife was here for me. I really wish I could just bawl and get it out of my system. Guess I’m just not wired that way.

I’m trying to keep two things in mind to help me keep perspective.
1 – A friend has MRSA and may need to have a leg bone scraped because of it.
2 – The daughter of another friend has sickle cell anemia.

I have a non-life threatening condition. The people above have life threatening conditions. Kind of puts things in perspective for me.

Today is my wife’s birthday.

Happy Birthday Christine! I love you!

Day 2 with Bell’s Palsy is done. I have lost more feeling and muscle control on the left side of my face today. My web research says the worst usually happens with the first 48 hours of being affected. Only a few hours left in that window! Because of the loss of feeling and control I experienced today it’s really hard to drink without using a straw, I can’t spit and I still can’t close my left eye.

I stopped at Wal-Mart this morning and swapped the empty eye patch box for one that actually has an eye patch in it. I wore it tonight for dinner, TV time with the wife, etc.. Now my wife has been kind enough to gauze and tape the eye for me before bed. I don’t know I could keep the patch on all night and not go nuts.

Tomorrow I’m taking the day off, sort of. Because I’m on call I’ll still receive calls that go to the Blackberry because the other guys are all on the phones or off working on a problem. I’m just hoping the offshore contractors don’t wake me up every hour between the time I lay down. I want to use tomorrow to do what I didn’t do yesterday or today, relax.

I didn’t wear the eye patch at work because I was embarrassed. I wish I had because I rubbed some of the skin around my eye raw from rubbing at the irritation and trying to push the lids together.

I couldn’t even eat the damn sandwich my wife made me for lunch because I couldn’t get the left side of my mouth open wide enough. I haven’t broken down and cried about this. Not sure if I will or not. Got a lot of stuff bottled up and don’t want to let it all come streaming out.

My mother came by today and dropped off a gift bag for my wife, her birthday is Friday, and an eye care kit for me. The kit has a tote bag, eye patch, paper tape, eye drops and sunglasses with full coverage. The sunglasses remind me of the ones worn by the visitors in the original V mini-series. My brother has been sending me texts trying to keep my spirits up.

I have lost more feeling and muscle control on the left side of my face today. My web research says the worst usually happens with the first 48 hours of being affected. Only a few hours left in that window! I’m still damn depressed about it all. Sometimes life just sucks.

Today my wife made an appointment with the neurologist for me. We now have the same primary care doctor, dentist and neurologist. At least we can keep our appointments at about the same time.

I’ve gotten a lot of positive comments on my facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/AnthonyRMiller, and lots of “I had it and recovered, you will too.” That has helped but I’m still damn depressed about it all.

Thanks for the positive comments and support I have received I really appreciate it.

I’m actually surprised I haven’t been angry at people. I understand that when we are confronted with something we don’t understand it’s easy to joke about it so it’s not so scary. I’ve had a couple of people make jokes about my condition when they found out. The common joke is a reference to Rocky and “Adrian!” Those that started with a defensive joke have wanted to know more though. At least I’ve been able to educate people.

The short description I’ve been giving people is “All the symptoms of a stroke without actually having a stroke.“

I am on call this week. That means I was up at 0230 this morning talking with a contractor from India. I was in the middle of asking him to speak slowly so I could understand him when I realized the left side of my face felt odd. I wrote it off to just being up at 0230.

As the morning went on and the calls came in I felt worse. My first thought was “Oh shit! I had a stroke!” but then I realized I didn’t have any real stroke symptoms beyond the left side of my face going numb.

By 0600 I knew I had a Bell’s Palsy attack. I normally leave for work just before 0700 so it was a matter of keeping my wife from knowing something was wrong so I could get out and go to the ER. I love my wife dearly but there was no sense in having her go and just sit there during whatever happened. To her it was just another day of her husband heading to work.

I called my boss once I was a couple of blocks from the house and en route to the ER. I simply told him where I was going and that I could not feel the left side of my face.

When I got to the ER and explained what had happened to the triage nurse she said “You have Bell’s Palsy. I can see it.”

When I finally saw the doctor I told him what it was and what I had done to test the conditions. The internet is your friend. Look up symptoms.

A CT scan revealed nothing unusual. I received a referral to my wife’s neurologist (how cool is that?) and was given a prescription for an anti-viral medication, a steroid and eye drops.

Because I cannot fully close my left eye without reaching up and pushing the lids together I have to put drops in it during the day and tape it shut at night.

I stopped at Wal-Mart on my way home to buy sterile gauze and an eye patch thinking that might make things easier. When my wife opened the eye patch box to get it out for me after my shower she discovered that some ass hat had taken the patch out and put the box back on the shelf. Frak me.

I never thought a time would come in my life where I couldn’t do something as simple as blinking.

This morning I was upbeat. I knew what it was. I knew there was a good chance I would recover. I knew I did the right thing by going to the ER instead of taking a wait and see approach.

Tonight I’m incredibly depressed. The numbness and loss of muscle control has gotten worse as the day has gone on.

How could I have known what it was? I’m a fan of Jim Ross! When he came down with this years ago I didn’t understand it so I started researching. That paid off today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell’s_palsy