Well it's been a little over a week since I started the Neurontin and I'm happy to report that my facial pain is almost completely gone. In my last posting I hypothesized that if the pain goes away, then this means that I have trigeminal neuralgia (TN), but I'm not entirely convinced that my pain is due to TN, but instead due to nerve regeneration. Here's my evidence.
Last night we went up to Paradise to celebrate our friend, Steve Arrington's 60th birthday. In attendance was one of my old high school friends, Doug Snider, who I saw about a year ago. At one point in the evening he commented, "so your facial paralysis is almost completely cleared up now?" Quite frankly I was taken back a bit by this question because I'm a realist. I know that it is still evident that I have facial paralysis, but the way he asked the question did not indicate that he was just trying to "be nice." He asked the question in ernest. So I'm left to wonder...maybe he's actually seeing an improvement because there is an improvement. Follow my logic; if there is an improvement in the movement of my face, then this means that nerve regeneration is occurring, which means that the facial pain is due to the nerve regeneration and not TN. Put it this way, I'm hopeful and I'm not willing to concede that I have TN.
Cody was home from school for 4 days last week because he had a case of the flu. Unfortunately, on Friday I started getting a sore throat and by Saturday morning I had full on body aches and a terrible headache. My nose began to run, along with the obligatory nasal congestion. Today the body and headaches are gone and I'm left with a garden variety cold. The good news is that I'm going to be fully capable of going to work tomorrow. I'm scheduled so tightly with my class curriculum that I just can't take missing a day of work. I'd rather work sick than deal with the stress of catching up.
One final note. One of the reasons that we didn't cancel going to Steve's birthday party was because of his wife's step-father Walt. Walt and Ruth Barber came and stayed with us during the horrific fires in Paradise. We were happy to provide them lodging and having Ruth here felt like having a mom in residence. She prepared meals and helped around the house. Walt is such a sweetheart and lovely to just sit and visit with. Upon returning to their home after getting the "all's clear," they kept their usual doctor's appointments and it was during one of these appointments that Walt received the terrible news that his skin cancer had spread to his bones and now it is all throughout his body. He does not have long to live. He's a precious man. Now that most of us have lost our dads, he's become a surrogate dad. So the news of his impending death is heartbreaking. Walt and Ruth live next door to Steve and Cindy, so we felt strongly, in spite of my illness, that we wanted to go up to say our good-bye's to Walt. Cindy took us next door upon our arrival and ushered us into Walt and Ruth's living room. There was Walt, wrapped up in blankets in his recliner. He barely could wake up and he mumbled his acknowledgement that we were there. But he really couldn't talk. His one comment was, "Well, I'm not dead yet." This statement was not morose, but simply a comment on the current state of things. We spent most of our time visiting with Ruth, assuring her that she and Walt would remain in our prayers. This will be the second husband that she will bury. Fortunately she has her daughter and son-in-law, along with their 3 children living next door, so they can daily love and support her through this. I'm so glad that we were able to say our good-byes to Walt and to tell him one last time that we love him.
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