Postpardum Pits

.....As if recovering from pregnancy isn't enough. As if a lack of sleep from waking every couple of hours through the night with a newborn while chasing a toddler around during the day isn't enough ..... my thoughts EXACTLY!

To make a long and stressful week or so short, two weekends after Ashley was born I was diagnosed with carpel tunnel in my right hand and Bell's Palsey in the right side of my face. Both diagnosis are more likely to occur after pregnancy and luckily neither are life threatening. Life impairing a little bit, but it could be so much worse.

My doctor had me pick up a wrist splint to help with the carpel tunnel. I wear it at night and besides the annoyance involved in taking it off every time I feed Ashley, it seems to be helping the tingling in my hand during the night and also during the day. Carpel tunnel relief- CHECK!

As for the Bell's Palsey, this was the more scary of the two for Rob and I to experience, the right side of my face had started to go numb about a week after Ashley was born. I lost taste sensation in the right side of my tongue, my right ear was aching, I could barely wink my right eye and the right side of my face was drooping. I had a crooked smile and could barely lift my right eye lid. Those couple of days when the symptoms were worsening were tough..... very tough and emotional on Rob and I. I was put on the steroid presnidone, which is safe for breast feeding mothers, and also allowed to take Tylenol for the soreness that I am beginning to get in the right side of my face. Luckily, I have not experienced any of the baby blues and have been able to keep pretty high spirits since finding out the diagnosis. As for how I am recovering, since being put on the medicine things haven't gotten worse, but they haven't gotten much better looking. The first week of onset, I had slight numbness on my right side... now I feel like I have been punched in the right temple, right jaw and ear. LOVELY, huh?!?! Luckily that comes and goes with how much rest I get. I am also beginning to move the right side of my face with a little more ease and can blink a little better. Doctors say that recovery time for Bell's Palsey is 1 week to 4 weeks.... and we have almost 2 weeks down! Fingers crossed that we make headway on getting this out of our lives!

Friends and family have been great during the last weeks. Our mom's have been over, friends and family have visited, Rob's church even arranged meal delivery for us. Rob has also been completely awesome helping out with everything around the house. I am very thankful for all the freezer meals I prepared ahead of time and ee are so lucky to be living amongst such great friends and family.  I truly don't know what we would do without them!

So, Debbie Downer Blogpost is over but I wanted to blog about it just in case someone I know ever goes through this..... It's not fun at all :)

Much Love and Can't wait to smile again,
Jenny