I’m taking another blogging break.

I know I haven’t really returned from the last one fully yet, but there is a different reason for this break. I have only gone and developed Bell’s palsy, and the whole right side of my face is paralysed.

I have a gorgeous smile on the left side of my mouth, and nothing on the other. I can now blink with only one eye. Flare one nostril. Pick up different sounds with my right ear. And I have a gorgeously smooth forehead – on the right side.

I can’t close my right eye, so I have to sleep with an eye mask on, and use eye drops to stop my eye drying out. I’m taking steroid medication for the muscle loss.

I have to get as much rest as I can, although I am still working and concentrating on computer screens, so I have to try to get a balance between being on screen and off, which is why I’m taking time away from my own computer.

Hopefully, this won’t be for too long, but we shall see. I can’t in all honesty stay away from Blogland for that long, so I’ll undoubtedly be popping in and out as I love reading your posts, even if I do so only as a lurker. I’ll probably be liking more and commenting less, but again we shall see there as well.

It’s only my face that’s affected, and the rest of me feels fine, and I’m handling what has happened OK. I can even see the comical side of it… especially when I laugh. When I laugh, it sets others laughing, which makes me laugh more, so they laugh more – and so on. In the end, I have to say “Don’t make me laugh… you won’t like me when I laugh.” And we laugh.

It’s a reminder really… anything can happen at any time, which makes it all the more important to enjoy the moments before that ‘anything’ happens. And really, more than ever, to keep Feeling Good.

I was going to switch the comments off for this post, but I’ve decided to leave them on. If you do leave a comment, I will try to reply as soon as I can… and this goes for all of the other comments on the other posts you’ve left recently that I’ve failed to reply to.

I shall apologise for this delay, and advise that normal service will be resumed in due course.

Keep smiling!