Literally.

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood, but felt no pain.  Most of the skin on my face, my lips, my tongue are more or less numb.  The strange thing, I realize now, is that it’s been happening so gradually I hadn’t noticed until tonight.  Or maybe I didn’t want to notice.

I just went down on my dose of Prednisone.  Must have made the numbness severe enough for me to finally take notice of what wasn’t there.  Because this has happened before.  When I was last in the hospital the left side of my face was numb for over a month.  Prednisone finally made it go away.  Swelling in my brainstem my doctors suspect.

And now the Prednisone is being tapered and the numbness is back.  If only it would numb the pain from my arthritis or Autoimmune Pancreatitis.  Then maybe I could be on less pain medication.  Or numb the anxiety I feel about this returning symptom or my unknown prognosis.

But alas I am merely tactiley numb.  And that knowledge hurts so much I want to cry.

Tomorrow I’ll have to call my neurologist and rheumatologist and determine what to do.  I am waiting for my insurance to approve a new IV infusion treatment.  It’s been a month of waiting for that so far.  Hopefully I can just start that and avoid more Prednisone.  But if I have to go back on high doses of Prednisone in the meantime, I suppose I’ll just learn to deal.  I always learn to deal.

The most important thing through all of this is that I do not become numb.  That I don’t loose my spirit in the face of this illness.  But I have no fear that will ever happen.  I do not know if I believe that everything happens for a reason, but I do believe that I can make a reason out of everything that happens.  I have faith in my ability to do that.  And that is enough for me.