Just a little more trauma!

Warning*** This is a really long post and probably pretty boring for most people. You are not all expected to read it. I think that I wrote it more for myself and my records than anything.

Alright, here I go. I have been avoiding writing anything on the blog about my current situation, but I decided that I would write it all down to update everyone and then maybe I don't have to keep telling the story over and over...

Now there are a few rules to reading this post. If you read, you are not allowed to write a poor you or hope you get feeling better soon comment on the end. This is not a sympathy post, but an informative one. Okay, now that we have that crap out of the way...

So, you all know about the M.R.S.A. staph infection that I dealt with on my leg. Well, I healed up from that and had about one good week in life, then it hit me again. This time it was on my face. I woke up one morning to what looked like the biggest zit I have ever had and believe me I have had some good zits in life (aestheticians should never call them zits, the word pimple just doesn't get the point across though). Anyway, my left eye was also swollen shut. It was not the same feeling as when we were little and always got swollen eyes from mosquitoes when we slept out on the tramp. It was a feeling that is a bit claustrophobic and we all know how I deal with claustrophobic situations. Luckily, I had already had an appointment scheduled with Dr. Blauer that morning and was able to get right in and get it taken care of. Dr. Blauer was not able to find the spot that he needed to open that day, so I had to wait until the next morning. I went in and he was able to determine the best spot to cut my cheek open and drain it. I luckily caught this lesion early this time instead of waiting a week or two (learned my lesson on that one). Now I will have to admit that there are perks to having your face cut open and having the husband there to watch. Cody was very helpful and sympathetic after being there for that one. Dr. Blauer was able to use a lot less packing to drain it this time, but was concerned about my eye not opening and sent me to Twin to an Opthamalogist. Dr. Hurst checked to make sure that my eye had not been affected by the infection and sent me on my way. I guess the fact that it didn't open wasn't a big deal to him. Then the next week was filled with everyone telling me that I needed to go to a specialist and get healed and everyone around me (you all know who you are) became M.R.S.A. experts. It cracked Cody and I up. Well, Sarah decided that she was just going to handle the situation herself and she found an internal infectious disease doctor in SLC. She then called and set up the appointment for the next day. Sarah doesn't mess around. Dad called and got Wayne to give me a referral and I was on my way. I learned that I have the external form of M.R.S.A., instead of the internal form. The staph bacteria is colonized on my skin and will always be there. The trick to it is just a lot of preventative stuff. At first thought it is pretty gross to think about, but everyone has bacteria on them, I just get the fun kind. Now to get rid of all the myths out there. I am not contagious and neither is my home. Dr. Mooers has assured me of that. The only way that you are going to get it is by touching one of my wounds and I am pretty sure that I am not going to let anyone get near the first lesion site, and I have always had facial touching issues (no one needs to touch my face, but me) so I can almost guarantee that I will not pass the infection on to you. I really enjoyed going to a specialist. Dr. Mooers is very informative and smart and it feels good to be in her care. She has told me that as soon as they find a cure for this, I will be notified. Good to know!

It has taken me a long time to get to this part, but on to my latest adventure... I went to Dr. Mooers on Wed. of this week to get my cheek checked on and make sure that it was all healed up. I got a clean bill of health as far as the infection goes on my face. I am happy to report that the scar is minimal and that there will be no need for plastic surgery. So all of you that were willing to donate to my plastic surgery fund... Thank-you anyway, but your donations will not be needed at this time!!! I am happy to tell you that. Because as most of you know I am about the most anti-plastic surgery person there is. I have spent years trying to educate clients on other ways to take care of things than going under a knife. I was definitely going to have to swallow my pride on that one. Good thing I dodged the bullet. The only remaining issue is that I can still not open my eye. I have tried to hold it open, prop it open, Cody has yelled at it to open. We are both getting sick of it. "Just open eye, open". Dr. Mooers can not find any reason why it is related to the staph infection, so she sent me upstairs to an eye surgeon. Meet Dr. Daynes. Yes, another doctor, I have lost count at this point. Dr. Daynes has impressed me so far. He seems very eager to help me. Cody thinks that I only like him so much because he is young and cute. I will admit to that being a perk, but his personality has made the situation easier. Mom, Sarah, Emma (dressed in her new pirate costume) and I all went back into the room with Dr. Daynes. He said everyone come on back. I said you want the whole herd, sure he said. After giving us crap about being from Idaho and calling us Idahoeians (yes it should be Idahoans. I know) he gave up his lunch hour to help me. He examined me a little bit, brought in his senior partner (who by the way has pants that are too high and a tie that is too short, after thinking about it, the tie must have been made for Tate, because with the pants being as high as they were, the thing was still not long enough. Nice guy though.). The two of them would do a few things, and then say that they needed to leave the room and talk. Now after a few times of this it gets a little nerve racking. Dr. Daynes would say over and over "you just don't see 3rd nerve palsy everyday." 3rd nerve palsy is what they think that I have. It is when the 3rd cranial nerve to your brain is not functioning right. It paralyzes parts of your face. The 3rd nerve is in charge of your eyelid. Hence the fact that I can't open it. I show some signs of 7th nerve palsy too, but not very many. The doctors are not quite sure what caused it or how they are going to fix it at this point. They are pretty thorough and I have at least made improvements, because I think that the last guy that checked me out thought that I was faking. I promise that I am not faking. Who would fake 3rd nerve palsy. Didn't even know what it was until Wed. Sarah thinks that I am faking for the attention and for Mom and Dad to keep coming over and clean my house. Now I will admit that it was nice having my parents clean my house, but I would rather not have palsy and clean it myself!!! Then Mom points out that she thinks that it is all in my head and that I just need a shrink. Okay, so Sal thinks that shrinks can fix everything (we won't even get into the Austin story here :) ). That was a good one!!! Dr. Daynes laughed that one off. I am glad that I have finally found someone that is going to help me. I am definitely going crazy here. The senior partner kept poking his head in and saying "It's going to be okay, we are going to figure this out". About the 3rd time he said that one, I started to worry that he is just trying to reassure himself. Dr. Daynes put me on steroids. I have decided that I don't think that I would make a very good Drugi. Heavy duty drugs and I just don't mix. I have not been to sleep since Wed. night. The Prednisone keeps me wide awake. It is the weirdest feeling. I am so tired that I want to pass out, yet wide awake at the same time. It is 1:16 in the morning right now and I am still going strong. I halved my dose today after talking to Dr. Daynes about it. He said that I would be able to get some sleep that way.......hmmmmm. Maybe we will 1/4 the dose tomorrow. So now to the best part. I am going back to SLC on Tues. the 28th, for my next appointment. I will be going for BOTOX. Yes, I said it, BOTOX!!! The only thing that I am more anti about than plastic surgery is BOTOX. I have told sooo many people not to use it for soooo long now. Why inject poison into your face when there are other ways to improve your looks. There are other chemicals, Restaline, etc. There is no need to use the B word. I am now going to insert my foot into my mouth and receive my botox injections on Tues. proudly. I still don't understand why you would want to put something in my paralyzed face that is known for paralyzing people faces. It is pretty comical though that I would be the one out of all of us that has to get botox done. Everyone is jealous! Does no one else have a terrible fear of needles? I am so sick of needles. If anyone else tries to take anymore blood out of my body I am going to scream. I am proud to say that when they took blood on Wed. I did not pass out. The lab techs were so proud of me. It is sad when you become good friends with the needle notsies. I have made a very long story a lot longer than I had planned on making it, but I felt like putting the whole thing out there and I have nothing else to do right now at 1:30 in the morning. Well, I could be cleaning my house, but no energy for that one. I will give Cody some credit though. He has been a trooper and has really taken on a lot more than he has ever had to. I think that he is starting to think that being the Mom is a lot of work!!!! HMMMM!!! But he has gone to the grocery store and picked up the kids and has not once complained about it, except for the time that I wrote KOTEX on the grocery list. "You owe me for this one" was all he said!!! What a man I have. So, I will try to update about my wonderful Tues. appointment after I get back from Utah. Maybe that one won't be a novel. Wish me luck! It is 2:14 in the morning... I think that I will go wake someone up to hang out with me!