Well the Bell's Palsy is slowly going away. I can almost close my eye completly and most of my taste buds are back. A few other things have improved as well. The doctor believes it should all be cleared up in the next couple of weeks.

It has been an expensive thing to fight though. I did 6 acupncture treatments and they are not cheap. I did not have enough in my "personal hsa" so it went on my credit card. I have no regrets about doing the treatments as I could feel a difference from the first session (tinglinh where there was no feeling otherwise) but I have upped my savings amounts for the monthly deposits into the personal HSA.

On other news I passed the personal naratives I needed to pass for the dream job! I received word Wednesday morning. So the next step is a day long series of personal interviews/exams. I will begin studying and preparing for this process this weekend. I can schedule this day sometime in Febrary but the exam process won't happen for several months. I am very curiuos how many people passed to the third part of the process but I am just focusing on what I need to do.

In other news I have slowed down the debt payments I was making in order to save extra money into my emergency fund. With the problems California is having with GAS and the budget issues I think having a little more in there is necessary.

There are threats that state employees are going to be paid Federal minimum wage beginning July 1 if there is not a budget. Federal minimum wage equals about $1200 a month and my expenses run about $1700 a month if it is bare bones and about $2000 if not. So...it is just a waiting game now.

At some point after the budget is passed we would get the back pay but we are warned to expect a larger amount taken out for txes than usual because it is paid in one lump sum.

I have been busy with work and house sitting and not had a lot of time to blog. Bt yesterday I eneded up in the Emergency Room.

The problem began yesterday when I could not keep a contact in my right eye wth out it drying up. I thought it was a bad box and opened another one. Finally got one to stay and went to work.

At about 3 pm I realized that contact was not staying wet with rewetting drops and took the contact out. It was then that I realized my eye was not closing all the way when I blinked. Then I noticed my right side of my face was a bit numb and weak and could not move very well kind of like being paralyzed.

One trip to the doctors who then sent me to the emergency room then to another emergency room when the first had a 14 hour wait and 42 patients in the lobby I found out I have Bells Palsy. It is caused by an inflamed set of nerves that connect to the face. It usually happens after a patient is getting over a virus within 2 to 4 weeks. I was sick at Christmas so I fit the time table. It feels a little bit like how a stroke patient would feel. The doctor was hopeful it will not progress to much because I came in less than 12 hours after the symptoms began.

It has caused me to not be able to blink my eye fully and I have to wear a patch over my eye for the next 10 days, have numbing and tingling, can’t really speak very well and I will be re-evaluated soon. If you have ever had Novocain at the dentist then you know a little about how this feels but it is not quite that potent and does not wear off. I am on steroids for about a week and I also had an acupuncture session this am. Some of the tingling is less and the eyes feels a little better but I can’t be sure yet.
It is a little scary to think I could face this for a long time as some times it lasts3-6 months and can be permanent in about 10% of cases.

If anyone has faced this, please drop me a note and let me know if there was anything that really worked for you.

I am hopeful the recovery will happen soon.