Yesterday was my one year anniversary of my surgery. I feel so much better than I did one year ago. At the time I felt like it would take forever to get better. My face was totally paralyzed on the left side and felt very strange. It also had no feeling. I had a gold weight put in my eye one week after surgery while I was still in the hospital. It wasn't even anything I could make a decision about. I don't recall being too with it that week. I also had left-side weakness.
When I finally came home from the hospital after 8 days I had to have a lot of help. I'd have to wait in the car until someone came around to help me out and then walk with me. Initially my family wouldn't allow me to walk up or down the stairs without one of them watching. I had to be taken for walks, wearing a belt no less in case I fell! I also felt like I was half blind because of all the ointment I had to keep in my eye.
Things are so much better now. I can not only walk by myself, I can even run. Since my surgery I've been driving, walking, running, hiking rough trails, kayaking, and boating. I even crawled out on the roof this summer to clean out the gutters! My left side is no longer weak. Although I still have facial paralysis and numbness I have regained a tiny bit of movement. It also doesn't feel so strange to me anymore. I've sort of become accustomed to it. (That doesn't mean that I wouldn't love to get my movement and feeling back. I pray for it daily.) I am able to work. I went back October 31. I don't get overly tired.
I've adjusted to my "new normal." (I saw this in the New York Times today. Outside of New York, however, Americans seem to have adjusted to a “new normal,� two Times/CBS News polls suggest.)
There is light at the end of the tunnel. It's just a long, winding tunnel.
Jean
