The Craziness Continues

Hello, all my bloggy friends! It's been another wild and crazy time for me. A birthday party, finally, for Sam. Everyone was well and happy and Sam enjoyed his party time very much. This little fella loves Minnie Mouse so Abby themed the party around Mickey and Minnie. He played with everyone and was just a bundle of love.

The cake was a pound cake with a Mickey Mouse shape in the center. Very good cake! I was curious as to how Abby got it inside the cake. When she explained, it made total sense. My daughter loves Pinterest and gets some really great ideas from there.

Health wise, I've been doing okay. I've been really tired and sleepy for a while but I think I've just gotten run down dealing with allergies and such. My sister and her family came to visit on Sunday, 5/20 and I was able to give Emalee her graduation card and see all of them before they left on their Paris trip. I am horribly afraid of flying so I'll never see Paris, but I can visit through their photos and through the Tour de France in July.

While they were here, I was having trouble with my jaw and left eye. I had a swollen place on my upper left gum and thought that was what was going on. Luckily, I had a dental appointment on Tuesday. But I noticed Sunday afternoon that my eyelid and mouth on the left was drooping. I can tell you that was a scare but I realized that I didn't show any signs of a stroke other than the drooping. I still thought it was the swelling on my gum and that there was probably infection there.

I saw the dentist on Tuesday and the first thing he said when he looked at me was, "Bell's Palsy". He examined the swelling on my gum and took exrays and just my luck, I have a wisdom tooth trying to push it's way in. 67 and cutting a wisdom tooth!!! Anyway, he advised me to go to my primary doctor and he even called the office and demanded that they see me right away. I have a long history with this man. I've know him since he was in high school and was dating my boss's daughter and working summers at the food distribution company where I worked.

I saw my primary about 2 hours later and she confirmed his diagnosis and put me on an antibiotic, an anti viral and a steriod for 7 days. She also said to be sure to use artificial tears often during the day because the affected eye could not blink, or close for that matter. I stood in front of the mirror on Wednesday and tried to smile, totally lopsided, raise my eyebrows, nope, blink my eye, nope. It was weird. But since I'm a lot on the crazy side, I found the humor and laughed at myself. I had a lot of trouble using my mouthwash since the left side of my mouth wouldn't co-operate and sprayed everything on the counter. I learned quickly to lean over and swish, as best I could, so any spray went directly into the sink. Drinking was an adventure. I couldn't drink out of a glass without a straw which had to be in the far right corner of my mouth or nothing happened. I could drink out of a water bottle and a soda bottle, carefully. I have given myself several baths this week.

As of today, I am pretty much back to normal or as normal as I can be. All the effects of the palsy have gone away. Luckily, it was caught quickly and treated. I've read that sometimes it can take six months for everything to get back to normal. I am very thankful to Dr. Mike for jumping on this quickly. I thought you might enjoy one of my pics during this time.

I posted this on Instagram with the title - "Aaarrgh, mateys!"

It was hard to cross stitch during this time so I did a lot of reading and listening to books. I'm now at 31 books on the year. I'm still working through Deborah Crombie's Kincaid and Jones series. I think I'm up to #12. I'm also working through Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series and have read through #4. Currently I'm reading The Ice Beneath Her by Camilla Grebe and also, The Other Widow by Susan Crawford. I can read 2 or 3 books at the same time and not get lost. My Mom use to marvel at that. She said she did well to keep up with 1 book. :)  But I've always had at least 2 books going. I use to keep one in the car when the kids were in school and involved in all different things. I almost always had to wait when I picked them up from something so I read while waiting. And I had one at home to read when things quietened down at night. I listened to The Third Gate by Lincoln Child and finished it in 4 days. It was really good.  I don't have anything audio at the moment. Everything I want at the library is on a wait list. I borrow ebooks and audios from my local library through Tennessee Reads and it has been a very welcome addition to my reading.

I'm still working on Sam's birth sampler along with a few other pieces. I've totally gone from a monogamous stitcher to doing several projects at a time. There are so many beautiful things out there to stitch and I want to do them ALL! And I'm easily sidetracked and procrastinate very often. I finished this T Rex on the sampler on Sunday.

The pattern I used didn't have teeth or the front claws so I had to do some adapting. Even though this is for Sam, James, the resident dinosaur expert, would have pointed out that I messed up!!

Well, that's about it for now. I hope everything has saved. Blogger keeps giving me a message that there was an error in saving, so fingers crossed I'm going to publish.

Thank you, as always, for reading my blog and being my friend. I love you all!

Hugs,
Sharon