It's not funny anymore

David's partial face paralysis was pretty amusing at first. He took it in stride, and we laughed about it and continued on with our lives. However, everything took a huge turn for the worse on Friday, when he started having horrible pain in his ear. He didn't get any sleep on Friday night because of the pain, so Saturday morning he went in to our doctor's office to try to get some relief. The doctor on call told him he had a pinched nerve and prescribed Valium - which, as we now know for certain, is a muscle relaxer, and not a pain reliever. But, he went along with it (you know, doctor knows best), took the Valium, and tried going to bed early on Saturday. I stayed up late writing reports for work, and when I went to bed, I found David in absolute misery. The pain had gotten much, much worse. He said it felt like an icepick was being stuck through his ear. So, we got up and headed to the emergency room. Fortunately, Elizabeth is now sleeping through the night, so we were able to leave Jonathan home with her, equipped with his cell phone to call us if there were any problems.

After 4-1/2 hours in the emergency room, David emerged with a really good shot of pain killers, a prescription for 4 more medicines, including more good pain-relieving drugs, and a diagnosis of probable Ramsay Hunt Syndrome - which is basically the equivalent of shingles in your ear and can occur as a result of Bell's Palsy. Yes, the family doctor completely dropped the ball on this one. Fortunately, the pain is now under control and we're hopeful that he will finally start to improve. Unfortunately, Elizabeth woke up at her normal time this morning, which means I'm operating on less than 3 hours of sleep. Thank goodness for Gran, who is watching her so I can do some of my end-of-the-month stuff for work. I am so ready for October to be over!!!!

On a side note, make sure to ask me to impersonate David, who was in a whole lot of pain but mellowed out on Valium, threatening the drunk, obnoxious college student in the waiting room of the ER when he made fun of our last name....