Okay, to be totally honest, I've been hoping things would get better but I guess that's not the case. 3 years ago, I was told by doctors that I have panic disorder, where I sometimes feel like I'm going to die right then and there. I sometimes get heart palpitations and chest pains as well as nausea and other fun stuff. I've been living with it for years now and somehow learned to live with it. It's not fun but it's not the end of the world.

Well, last week on Monday I started having neck pains. So I tried to massage the kinks out of my neck and for two days the pain didn't subside. On Wednesday, I started to feel the left side of my face getting a bit numb. I had to buy a new cell phone and had to wait for 30 minutes for them to transfer the service to the new one, so decided to wait at a nearby cafe. Ordered a cup of coffee and a piece of cinnamon toast. I love the cinnamon toast here and was really looking forward to eating it. I really didn't feel that great and forgot to bring with me my anxiety pills. I decided that it was ok since I could just rush home if something happened. The toast and coffee arrived and I opened my mouth to take a bite. However something was wrong. My mouth wouldn't fully open. Some of the cinnamon got onto my upper lip and I found that I could not manuever my tongue to lick it off. I tried taking a sip of water and I found it difficult to keep the liquid inside my mouth. Okay, now I knew something was wrong. I profusely apologized to the waitress telling her that I had an emergency I had to take care of. So I paid and left without touching my coffee and my toast, except for a small bite. I went to pick up my phone and got onto my bike to go home, all the while feeling a bit dizzy and scared that I might get into an accident.

This continued throughout the day and was hoping that it was something temporary. I decided to rest and get and early night's rest and wait until morning to see if there are any improvement. When morning arrived, things hadn't improved, in fact it was worse and decided to go to the hospital. I was diagnosed with Bells Palsy, an illness where you usually paralysis on one side of your face. I was given three different pills to take, one being steroids. I started on the regimen right away, however that evening, I had a serious panic attack where my heart was beating double time, I couldn't breathe, and most of my body started going numb. I had my boyfriend call the ambulance and I started to shiver uncontrollably.

Anyway, that was a week ago. I went for further testing and it showed that I had nerve damage and that it would probably take 2-3 months for my face to recover.

I'm depressed and although I'm positive about the whole thing, I'm so tired. I have pain in my head and neck all the time, my face is totally paralyzed that I hate smiling because it makes me look like a freak, and refuse to meet any of my friends. I have to cut everything into small pieces as I can't really open my mouth too wide. After eating for about 15 minutes, I start getting headaches and feel so tired that I have to lie down. My left eye doesn't close completely so I have to be careful of always keeping it lubricated with eye drops, and on and on and on I can keep going with the things happening to me. It's just so tiring and I just don't feel like doing anything. The doctors don't really seem to know much about the illness and looking at different sites on the internet, it confirmed my suspicion that the doctors really don't know much about it.

I know I'm just pitying myself and I have to remind myself that there are far worse things in life and things could have been worse. It's just frustrating to have to try and stay strong after the panic attacks and now this. I'm just really tired...that's all.

My head is starting to hurt again and so I need to get some more sleep.