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[Talon]

Hi, Everyone! As you may know I've been trying since February to get my bleu pleo Cato repared after a puzzling problem with his right hind leg. Things would almost fall into place for me to send him to Kat and then something kept happening and I kept having to wait.
Within the past two weeks, I came very close to getting him repared here in the states by a friend of mine who knows a fair bit about general electronics. Early in the week we had made plans for Cato and I to go up to his house where his workshop is and get things started. I also asked Kat and Crewella to be on hand if they could and we were all trying to work out time differences and that sort of thing. Well, life through me a heavy blow. On wendsday night as we were on our way to church my sister noticed that my youngest niece seemed to be grinning on the right side of her face and her eyebrow on that side was raised unusually high. When my sister asked her to stop, she couldn't do it and she also couldn't close that eye. My immediate thought was some sort of stroke and so we took her to the hospital and after some hours we learned that my niece has something called Belles Palsy. All I know is it it has something to do with the serabellum- the area of the brain that controls muscle movement. She is still in that same position and she will be going to a nuralagist today for further testing.  In some cases the peralysis is permenant and when it effects an eye, the person has to use drops to keep it moist for the rest of their life. I'm so sorry about my spelling. I'm just upset right now.
She's eleven years old and very pretty and she knows it if you know what I mean. She's entering that pre-teen stage where image is everything and I can't imagine what's going to happen when she enters middle school in another week. I thought I had things hard having to carry abnormally large books and using a rolling dufflebag rather than a traditional backpack. Add on top of that having to use a cane and being from a lower income bracket where I wore clothes that were obviously intended for someone much taller. I feel like a useless third wheel here. Sorry for the long post.
Talon

[Lina]

I am so sorry to hear about your niece. I hope that they will be able to help her.
Let us know how this is developing, I will be thinking of your niece.
We went throuh some tuff times when we found out my sisters only son had a brain tumor that had to be removed within 24h after it was discovered. He is doing well today even if he has smaller problems after the whole thing.
Hopefully your niece will get better. Well!

And Cato can be your theraphy during this hard times.

Much love from Sweden!

[Talon]

Thanks, Lina! Strangely enough my sister has decided to take me to see the technician anyway. Still, I'm going to keep an ear out for news on Jodeci's condition. Meanwhile if anyone here knows anything about this Belles Palsy or has had any experience with it, I'd appreciate learning more about it.
Talon

[InmemoryofRomeo]

Aww sorry for the bad news Talon The good news, if there's any, is that most people start to improve in two weeks. Your niece has youth on her side.

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/bells/detail_bells.htm

[RedwoodsMama]

 Hi Talon sorry to hear about your neice but as IMR has stated, statitstics show that most people recover quickly within several days and it is more frequent in adults and most people who develop it get over it within a few days to a couple of weeks, so I am sure your neice though frightened, has age on her side and will be back to "normal" in a very short period of time, It is good to be seen by a neurologist though, because he can make a accurate diagnosis and try to pinpoint what caused this, and give your neice and her family any treatment plans needed. Keep us informed on her progress and try not to worry. Take care and hugs your way.
                                                                                  RWM

http://www.bellspalsy.ws/

[Talon]

Hi, Everyone! Just a brief update. My niece is doing much better. She is on some sort of steroids and you can hardly tell anything has happened now. The medicine causes her to sweat a lot. It kind of reminds me of hotflashes or something the way she describes it. The doctors told her to do facial massages to try and help the effected muscles to relax. I'm surprised at how calm she is about the whole thing. I think I was more worked up about it than she was.
I was able to get Cato up to Spartanburg for the surgery after all. I think my sister just wanted me to stop asking questions and to calm down. We still don't know much other than the spring that runs along the front of his leg had some how come loose. We managed to get that reattached with a very tiny loop of stainless steel wire. He is still raising and lowering the leg but now we have cluch sounds. It's almost like the mechanism that tells him that his leg is at its furthest extent is missaligned and is telling him to keep moving it further backward? I'm entirely out of ideas here so I'm probably just going to send him on to Kat.
Talon

[Margery]

So pleased to hear your neice's condition is improving.  It must be really scary at first.

Let's hope Cato can be helped too.

[RedwoodsMama]

 Great news Talon, your neice sounds like she is doing better than you are. That is the advantage of YOUTH!                 RWM

[kat]

I'm so happy to hear that your niece is getting better    It is the scariest thing ever to go through - I've been there myself and it took two weeks for me to go back to normal.  The day it happened I woke up and half my face didn't work anymore and the first thing I thought of was stroke.  One thing to note though is that they say if it happens to you once then you may well have it happen to you again at some point in the future.  Luckily for me I had a complete recovery and if your niece is doing so well already it sounds like she will too. 

[RedwoodsMama]

I am glad you got it over it so well too Kat, There are lots of scary things that can happen to us, and something like Bells Palsy or having a stroke is one of them, I went in for a "routine" operation that would leave me in the hospital for about 3 days to recover from, While in my room waiting for surgery, (got there at 6:00 a.m, surgery scheduled for 7:30 a.m,) I was sitting in my room, writing in a littlel "diary" type book of things happening while waiting for surgery, and would write after waking up, etc. My husband had dropped me off at the hospital and went back home, he hates hospitals. Anyway, it was about 6:45 am, and the nurse had just come in to give me my Pre op antibiotic and told me as she injected it in my IV bag, I may feel a little tingling..Well I was writing and within 20 seconds my hand started itching bad, my heart began racing and I felt burning all over, I knew something was wrong.
        I rang for the nurse and was feeling pretty rotten by then, I was in Antiphylactic Shock from the Anitbiotic even though it was a common antibiotic I had taken more than 20 years earlier as a child, young teen, I went down to ER where they worked on my, I was in Tachacardia, ( Heart over 160 BPM) and very bad rythm, My organs all began shutting down, starting with my kidneys. I was swollen up all red with dusky lips and fingertips and not making much sense. I did get mad that they did not call for my husband when I kept asking over and over for them to call him and tell them what had happened,.
         To make a long story shut, after numerous steroids, IV medications and shunts in my heart to regulate my heart, my body began to recover and after spending two days in ICU, I was able to come home, The best part is that when you are that ill, you don't feel the kind of pain you would think, part of it is because your body is shutting down and I think the brain compensates for it,The worst part or one of them was having the dr. tell my husband he did not know if I would make it or not and having them cut off my wedding ring because my finger was so swollen and the ring was cutting into the flesh, I think the scariest part for me was having to have that same operation recheduled for one month later and having to wait and worry about it happening all over again, If you have to have something go wrong, the best place is a hospital I guess.

          I am glad your neice is doing so well, I do think she will make a total recovery and as Kat said, she herself has no ill after effects. They do know a lot more about neurological problems then they did say 20 years or even longer ago, so progress is being made constantly and I know you are there to make her feel comforted as well. The worst thing of all is having no support or not knowing about an illness or worse yet, no diagnosis. Keep us informed on how she is doing Talon,                                                                               RWM

[Talon]

Well, my niece is back to her normal self and she's really excited over her school clothes. She was confident enough to go to a sleepover and tomorrow she will be starting middle school.
Talon

[Fleur]

Glad to hear she is ok, that must have been so scary to see and experience.  I hope that she makes a full recovery and that it doesn't happen again in the future.

[Crewella]

Glad to hear she's feeling better.