If You Don't Have Your Health You might be in Dante's Hell

If you don't have your health--you don't have much. Surviving on faith is what I have been doing since my last post. I found out have a hearing loss issue in one ear...which led to a CT scan and an MRI and a week long scare that I might have a brain tumor. Nope... no brain tumor. Praise God. No issues with sinusitis...the ENT DR. TMJ is fine. No bad teeth- report from the dentist.

3 courses of antibiotics and two courses of prednisone later-one of which was high dose, and now the general consensus before I am to meet with the neurologist is that it might be trigeminal neuralgia.

So I am stuck alternating ibuprofin and tylenol. I have discovered two minor reliefs that I can use when its really bad...nuprin topical cream... you know the stinky stuff you put on your hands for arthritis? Yup that's it... it stinks but it does help- then there is the old tried true toothache medicine Orajel®... well then your are speaking like Bill Cosby in the Dentist routine "Lookkkaaa whattthhh yyyaaaa donnneee to my lipth!

Let me tell you about prednisone... the little dose pack is nothing. When your Dr puts you on higher does of this wicked medicine such as 60mg... all of Dante's Hell is realized. My last dose was Tuesday and I am still "not right". I won't go into all the side effects I had and have, but suffice it to say, I will have to be in a coma before I take that stuff again.

And the bottom line in all this? No painting going on in my studio here. But I do anticipate feeling better day by day as these prednisone side effects wear off. One thing to note if you do have trigeminal neuralgia yourself: those vibrating tooth brushes are not a great idea. They just irritate the nerves in your face more and can actually trigger an attack.

As if all this wasnt enough .. my grandfather has been in and out of the hospital for the last two weeks and they finally did surgury yesterday. He is not a happy camper but rest assured, he will feel like his old self soon enough. God Bless great grandparents!