Bell's Palsy Update - Day 19

And so it continues...

I shared the following information with my brothers yesterday, so I'll take a shortcut and paste their update into this post.

I'm seeing daily improvements in my Bell's Palsy...possibly not as visible to Mr. T or Missy M, but it FEELS like improvement to me.

My lower jaw has all but quit cramping, and the pain is receding from moderately excruciating to merely annoying. My drooping eyelid feels less droopy, and I'm blinking easier...but I can't raise my eyebrow or wink yet.

I can open my mouth much better and chew easier, but my upper lip is still numb. I drank milk from a glass this morning WITHOUT A STRAW, although I'm not quite ready to do the same with my coffee just yet. Maybe tomorrow...or the next day.

Although bright light and loud sounds are still bothersome, I'm wearing my eyepatch much, much less without too many problems, especially since I'm following this new doctor's advice to use artificial tears every hour. Dr. E says "one month to three months," and he has put me on stronger meds since I saw him on Monday.

I'm making an effort to REST and recuperate, and the time is passing...slowly, but surely. I didn't make that 15-day deadline, but I have high hopes that I'll hit the one-month mark with a whole smile on my whole face!

Today I've noticed that my eye is tearing much more than yesterday. I'm trying to leave my patch off as directed to give "the eye muscles a chance to strengthen," but I may have to give them a longer rest this afternoon. We'll see...

I must admit that, while I continue to be optimistic about my recovery, I am experiencing some frustration...as well as a good deal of insight. This "lightbulb" came on about my speech difficulties.

My grandfather Keaton, known to us as Papaw, suffered a series of TIAs, or mini-strokes, in the year or so after his retirement. Then, in his mid-60's, he had a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and robbed him of his power of speech. Therapy helped return most of his abilities...except the speech part.

He would struggle to say the word that was in his head, but it would not come out as he wanted. Made him so angry...and those words ALWAYS seemed to come out perfectly. As a teenager at the time, I remember just wanting him to be like the Papaw I used to know and love.

Now...I'm getting a little tiny taste of what he went through, all those many years ago. Through my numb and frozen lips, I struggle forming words, especially those with the P, B, F, S, and double-consonent sounds. And the more I have to re-pronounce and enunciate, the more tired and strained and frustrated I become. Vicious cycle.

Ah well...

I watered the garden today for the first time in a couple of weeks. Mr. T has been trying to keep up with this chore, too, but the high temperatures of the past days have devastated the most vulnerable plants in the smallest containers, which dry out much quicker than the larger ones.

So, how dry is it after all that heat, you ask? This message from my friend Just Jane in Missouri, put a half-smile on my half-face:

IT'S SO DRY IN MISSOURI.. that the Baptists are starting to baptize by sprinkling, the Methodists are using wet-wipes, the Presbyterians are giving rain checks, and the Catholics are praying for the wine to turn back into water!

And Bro J added: ...and the Episcopalians are drinking whiskey under a shade tree!

Pah-dum-pump!

The weeds, however, are a different matter entirely. They have moved into the Secret Garden with a vengeance and are enjoying the benefits of all that fertilizer I applied for the veggies and flowers 6 weeks ago. Oh my, I want so badly to weed...and I HATE weeding! I thought that might happen today, as it is over-cast and the temperatures have dropped to the 80's, but my teary eye is telling me "not a good plan." Still, having the desire to be back in the garden must mean I'm getting better, right?

Progress. Celebrate the signs of progress, no matter how small.

Welcome to Summer!

Holy mackerel! One Hundred and Five Degrees?! That's what Missy M's car registered when I got in it yesterday at 5:00 p.m. That's the outside temperature, not the inside temp...which was probably approaching "fry an egg." Her car had been sitting in the sunshine on the driveway on the west side of her brick house all afternoon, so I imagine we are talking a true reading here. Of course, the weather wonk said on the 11:00 news that the official high yesterday was 92, but that was at the airport...probably out of direct sunlight. And then you have to factor in the humidity...that's a whole other chapter.

Today...the first full day of Summer...is predicted to be 96, so we are in for another scorcher. If this be June, what the heck is August going to be like?!

I spend upwards of an hour each afternoon watering the garden and all the containers. Now, I know that it's better to water early in the day, but that isn't usually possible, given our present schedule. And watering in the late afternoon is preferable to the alternative of NOT watering, any day. And, I usually pull weeds in the raised bed gardens in the afternoon, as that's when it's coolest on that side of the house. Not yesterday...it wasn't cool anywhere...even at 8:30 in the evening!

One of the first things Missy M was told about living in Louisville was how late sunset was in the Summer. You see, Derby Town sits on the furthermost edge of its time zone. Check the map: Nashville, which is in the Central Time Zone, is farther east than Louisville...which is in the Eastern TZ!

Well, we are making our way through the first week of Take Your Daughter to Work Days. So far, so good. Missy M has done remarkably well getting to-and-from her office on her crutches...and with using her knee-walker while at work. She has doctor's orders, limiting her to 4 hours at work each day, but even her Disability Counselor recognizes being that precise just isn't always possible with some jobs...and hers is one of them. So, they have agreed to "more or less" take an average of 4 hours per day (basically 20 per week)...and call it close enough. Monday and Tuesday were more...today was less. She sees her doctor next week, so we'll see how the healing process is being affected by this new routine. Fingers crossed...toes, too!

Since I've been here, I've tried to fix some of M's favorite foods...you know, for comfort. It's terribly hot tonight, the new AC is working hard to keep it cool inside, and it's probably not the best night to heat up the kitchen for this one, but I'm making about the only casserole she has ever eaten. She has always called it Chicken with Sloppy Rice, although I believe the original recipe I got from a Lauderdale County cookbook was called Easy Chicken and Rice...or something along those lines. I've been making it for over 30 years, so I know it by heart...thank goodness. Plus it's a forgiving recipe, not requiring you to be so precise about measurements or ingredients. I can add some chunky veggies like carrots and celery, without offending my no-veg-shall-pass-these-lips daughter, so I can have a one-dish meal (protein, starch, & veg), and she can push the offenders aside. Of course, I can secretly hope that there might be some small transference of the veggies' vitamins into the sloppy rice...but that's a topic for another discussion. (Recipe shared below.)

M was so beat last night when she came home, that she took her meds and went straight to bed...and probably would have stayed there for the rest of the night if the peace hadn't been disturbed by fireworks after the sun finally set after 9:08.

Fireworks? On June 19? All we could figure was someone was celebrating an early arrival of the Summer Solstice. Wonder if there are any practicing Druids in the neighborhood?

Druid or not, Happy First Day of Summer (in the Northern Hemisphere...:)! If today is any indication, we are in for a long, hot one this year.

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Chicken and Sloppy Rice

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, whole/cut in half
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 can of cream of celery soup
2 cans-ful water
2 cans-ful rice (uncooked)
2 Tblsp melted butter
1 tsp seasoned salt or poultry seasoning, more or less
1 tsp ground black pepper, more or less
8-10 baby carrots, whole (opt.)
Celery slices (opt.)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray inside a covered casserole dish with cooking spray. Set aside.
2. In a large mixing cup, blend the soups, the water, the rice, the melted butter, and the seasonings together. Pour into prepared baking dish. Place chicken breasts on top of the rice mixture and sprinkle with more seasonings, especially cracked pepper. If you like cooked veggies, push a few whole baby carrots and/or celery slices into the rice mixture. Cover with tight-fitting lid and put in oven for an hour.
3. After 60 minutes, stir to distribute the liquid. If the rice seems to be drying too rapidly, add some hot water. Return to oven for 30-40 more minutes, covered, until the chicken breasts are done and no longer pink. Stir and allow to rest for a few minutes before serving.
4. Great served with a salad and some warm Italian bread. Enjoy!

How Dry...and Hot...We Are

What a difference a month makes.  I seem to recall that I was whinging about all that rain we were getting at the end of May, beginning of June.  Daily downpours. Weekly wash-outs.  Well, just where is it now, I ask you?  Not here, for sure.  It's starting to look like the Dust Bowl around High Point.  I water the garden twice each day, but it still is parched.

As I headed home yesterday from a short drive to the Post Office, I watched the thermometer in my Lillie Pearl PT Cruiser jump from 98 to 100 as I made the turn from Skeet Club onto Waterview.  Stop the car, as my dear Daddy used to say.  I pulled over to the side of the road to snap the shot, left.  Had to document the occasion, of course. The weatherman said the official high for Piedmont Triad International (PTI:  local airport, serving Greensboro, High Point, and Winston-Salem) was 99, but at 3:47 p.m., it was one hundred degrees in this northwest corner of High Point.

Pardon me while I go get a glass of iced tea.

And, if the heat, humidity, and the lack of rain wasn't enough to make you want to stay near the AC (which is running constantly, night and day), we had a Code Orange air quality alert yesterday.  Over 150 for the first time this year.  Unhealthy for individuals with breathing issues (like N/M/E).  Not to worry, BFF AW braved it all and came over to join N/M/E for a Chat 'n Chew.  I fixed supper trays with scoops of tuna salad (made with apples instead of celery) and bow-tie pasta salad (made with both yellow and zucchini squash from the garden, of course), followed by dessert bowls of homemade vanilla ice cream (which was still tasty after our Fourth celebration).  My job was to keep the Drool Gang otherwise occupied so the Lovely Ladies could enjoy some uninterrupted time together.  It all worked out pretty well, thank goodness.

Speaking of the Fourth...

Missy M and Ella Rae made the long drive to come visit us over the Holiday weekend.  On Saturday, when it was just too hot to do anything else but ride around in an air conditioned car, she and I hopped in Lillie Pearl and headed her toward Hillsborough, NC.  There is a yarn shop there, you see...and they were having a sale.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.  Mother-Daughter Bonding Trip, by any other name.  A good time was had by both!

Sunday was another scorcher.  Limited our activities to after sundown.  Hamburgers and hot dogs and corn-on-the-cob on the grill.  Homemade ice cream with strawberries (a few of which came from the garden, even!).  Topped off with fireworks after dark (first...on TV, from the Capitol Fourth; then, big booms from across the Lake, here in HPNC).  Happy 234th Birthday, America!

On this morning's water-walk (replacing the usual Coffee Walk...too hot...:), I couldn't help but notice the Jubilee watermelon's progress.  Took this snap (left) to compare it to one I took 8 days ago (right).  Yowza!  How it is growing in all this heat is a miracle.  Same goes for the corn, which is tassling and setting ears in the worst week of the season so far.  Wonder if it will survive...much less thrive?  We'll see...

  

I also enjoyed taking a couple hundred snapshots of the butterflies and bees who are enjoying the blooming zinnias and marigolds.  OMG.  I've never seen anything like this!  I took so many photos that I zapped the batteries...which is probably the only reason I stopped taking pictures.  They are so beautiful.  We've always planted borders of zinnias and marigolds around our gardens, and we've had better/thicker flower results before, but I cannot remember when the visitor population has been so spectacular.  It was difficult to pick which ones to show you.

 

 

Weatherman is calling for a slight chance of rain tonight, increasing to a 50% chance tomorrow night.  Fingers crossed.  Toes, too!