Overall, things are still moving forward. Again, my eye seems the last to recover. I am 49 days into this, although it feels like much much longer.

I want to reassure the caring readers that I am, in fact, taking perfect care of my eye - have from the beginning as I saw eye docs in the ER. I have a long history of eye dryness, lasik, cataract surgery etc. so I am completely on top of eye care. This does not mean I can entirely avoid discomfort. My routine remains drops by day (which I was doing before all this) and goop and cover at night - my eye closes enough in most positions but I am protecting it from cat fur as my cats sleep in bed with us. My cover of choice is children's eye bandaids. I put them on my arm for awhile first so the sticky is not so sticky and does not hurt the delicate skin of my face. I have experimented with many other things and given my eyes are small, completely deep set, much like Asian eyes with no eye lids, this is the most comfortable and effective.

Re: progress, my mouth is almost completely normal looking most of the time. There is still some right side lower lip frozenness but since it is sticking less on my lower teeth when I sing, I can tell it has improved. And as I mentioned earlier, my eye is the slowest to complete its recovery. However, there is cheek muscle action, eyebrows raise almost evenly. Most obvious is the lack of a complete casual blink and I cannot close the affected eye on its own yet - have to close both eyes together. So I cannot wink with my right eye. But I am practicing! The muscles that shut the eyes are not as strong. This still means that sunlight is intense while driving (I wear glasses mainly for the left eye) and I feel a little vulnerable with hugging and right side contact with people. Funny, how last night someone who had had another disease that paralyzed her face - completely recovered - pulled me to her to plant a big fat kiss on my cheek! I reminded her and she apologized.

The post viral fatigue continues to abate and I have a lot more respect for my tiredness and don't push myself at all. I am still uninterested in socializing - have declined offers to get together with me. Also, after an event where I am leading singing, I look around at the people hanging out and talking and have no interest. This is a fundamental change that I hope will not be permanent. I have a suspicion that were my face not to return, I would remain unsocial.

I still feel intermittent sensations in my face and facial nerve area and even tickling at the ear canal entry, where I had had three blisters at the beginning.

I know, re: return of my face, that I have fared well. However, checking out online video blogs of people with Bells Palsy, some of them have taken between one and two years to heal or more and it appears that progress still happens - just at different rates. Meaning, please use my results as encouragement, not discouragement if your situation is taking longer. Its a crapshoot and we tend to give credit to whatever we did or didn't do. I don't believe that is known because initially I DID do aggressive acupuncture but I also got on the right dosages of the medications within the alleged 3-day window. If I don't get complete complete complete recovery, that is not a big deal as I have observed that all faces differ from side to side anyway. Just happy the snarly thing is gone.

That appointment is still out there with the physical therapist but as I have said, I may cancel it both because her vm to me was kind of arrogant and stupid - and also because what do I need her for? If things are healing on their own, what can she do? Rhetorical question here.

Flying in four days. To a very cold climate in the eastern part of the country. Will be loading up with scarves but temperatures below freezing are rare here in Oregon. Wishing all the readers complete healing of body, mind and spirit.