Jaki,
i am sorry you are having to go through this. I am tuning in late here, and others have already given you great feedback. I was interested in what Donnalynn said about someone gaining movement after 8 full years. I also know someone, not on this forum, who got movement after 5 yrs.
I have lived with facial paralysis for 9 years now. During the window of opportunity for the nerve graft, I was still persisting with facial physical therapy. Then due to my gold eye weight failing, I rather desperately needed an eyelid reanimation surgery. So during about a one year period, my energies were focused on saving my vision, and on pursuing the approval for "out of network" coverage. It took a lot of persistence. I am very happy with my eyelid spring, which was done by Dr. Levine in Los Angeles.
Well, all this to say, that over the years I lost steam on the whole thing, and no longer found my facial situation to be such a bad thing. Eventually I may decide to have a partial face lift but it just isn't a pressing need. I think in the initial year and a half or so, while we wait hopefully for movement to return, we have little else on our minds. Then as we focus our attention more on enjoying life, it all seems to fade into the background.
There are many people who for one reason or another, in spite of various facial procedures, still have paralysis, and also have very fullfilling lives. I do hope that your facial movement returns, and if not, that some procedure helps a lot. The reason I give my history, is to try to give you hope for living well for whatever period of time you are living with paralysis.
