Update

   I went to see my dermatologist and we are going to do the Enbrel treatments again. I'm not really looking forward to this, but if it gets rid of the psoriasis, then I guess that's what I need to do. This time they are going to have me take the shots twice a week instead of once, and there is a pill I will be taking that has some awful side effects. One of them is severely dried chapped lips. If this happens I have to wing myself off the pills one by one until it stops. The second one is that I may have bad headaches that won't go away. I get rid of the headaches the same way.
   The swelling in my feet came back again and now it is in both feet. My clinic seems to feel that the edema and the psoriasis are aggravating each other and causing the swelling. My ankles are very swollen and I am wearing my house slippers to work. My dermatologist looked at my latest outbreak and agreed with what the doctors at the clinic had to say. He said that what is probably happening is the blood is only flowing so far down my legs and then backing up and the water is accumulating in my lower legs. All I know is that it's uncomfortable.
   In other news, the Bells Palsy is starting to get a little better. I notice it mostly when I sleep because I drool. Plus when I talk I still slur my speech. It is the weirdest thing ever to feel your face all scrunched up like this.

   The girls just got out of school this week. The oldest got honorable mentions in the Kiwanis Club's terrific kid award, a Presidential certificate and medal for Academic Excellence, A certificate in Language Arts and received another certificate for highest GPA average between 3.8 and 4.0. along with 9 others. She had straight A's this last quarter. Pretty darn awesome.
   Aly's school didn't have all the awards because she just graduated from 7th grade, but she also received A's and one A minus. I am very proud of the two of them.

   That is all.

What Now?

   Yesterday I found myself having difficulty drinking and eating without having some dribbling problems. I figured that it was related to my cold and I just had some swelling going on. This morning I woke up and it was more pronounced and I told Lois about it. She said, "I wonder if maybe you had a stroke?"
   Not ever having a stroke before, I replied, "How would I know? I've never had one."
   After I got to work I was talking to a co-worker and he said, "Maybe you had a stroke or something." This freaked me out so I called Lo and told her I was worried and she said call your doctor and see if you can get in today. After explaining to the nurse some of the symptoms that I was feeling, she told me to get to the ER because it sounded like it could be a stroke.
   So off I went with Lois and the first thing the RN said was, "Just looking at you, I'm thinking that you have Bells Palsy." She explained that it can often be triggered by a respiratory viral infection. That made sense, since I was coming out of a really bad cold. The doctor came in moments later and confirmed it. They did a CT scan of my brain to make sure I wasn't bleeding and found a sinus infection, too. I am on prednisone for the next 11 days and some other anti viral stuff. Plus at night I have to tape my eyelid closed because it doesn't want to close on its own.
   Just when I think things are settling down, wouldn't you know it. Ugh.