horoscopeswithin.com

It has been a long time since I added a post.  It seems that most of my sites readers write me directly, which makes it easier to stay away.  Maybe I should just backtrack to October when I quit writing horoscopes for a while. 

On Friday, Oct. 13th of all days, I woke up feeling a little better after having had a virus.  I went to the bathroom and as I passed the mirror I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  Now, I’m not as cute as I use to be, but that particular morning, all I could say to myself was, “You look like hell.”  So, I continued on with my usual routine of letting my dogs outside and pouring myself a cup of coffee.  Most mornings I wouldn’t take a sip until I went downstairs to check my email.  As I put the cup to my mouth something didn’t seem right.  I went to take my first drink and the coffee seemed to run off of the side of my mouth and down my chin.  I knew that it was not clumsiness, but my mouth!  I headed for the bathroom mirror and understood immediately why I looked so bad; the entire right side of my face was paralyzed!  Ok…now I’m wondering what the heck is going on?  I headed for the bedroom, sat down on the side of my bed and thought about calling my husband at work.  No!  I couldn’t do that yet, not until I call my doctor.  So, now I’m really worried. What if I had a stroke?  People of all ages have strokes.  What if I had one in the night?  Why didn’t I wake up?  Should I have woken up if I had a stroke?  Two minutes later I’m on the phone trying to get in to see my doctor.  The nurse asked what was wrong, and I replied, “I don’t know, my face is paralyzed.”  Needless to say, they saw me right away.

So, I told my doctor about having the virus and that I had begun to feel better.  That on Wednesday I actually felt so good that I was cleaning my house like crazy.  I felt so good about what I had accomplished Wed. that Thursday I decided to clean my sons room, wash his windows, his bedding and curtains.  By Thursday afternoon I had a nagging sharp pain behind my ear.  That night I sat on the couch and tried to watch TV, but that pain turned into what felt like something sharp poking me behind the ear.  Other than that, I was fine.  I went to bed and woke up with my face paralyzed. 

She knew right away by my symptoms that I had Bells Palsy.  I had never heard of it before then.  Oh, I did call my husband on the way to the doctors office.  I told him what was going on and he said he knew what it was, but couldn’t think of the name.  He asked that I call as soon as I left the doctors office, which I did.  I was standing outside of the hospital on my cell phone telling him that she told me that I could look like that for 6 months or longer.  That she was most concerned about my right eye because it was half open…the eye can be a big problem if it starts drying out.  She offered to patch it for me!  When he and I hung up the phone he said that he had a guy from work standing in front of his desk waiting to speak with him.  He said that the first words out of that guys mouth were, “Bells Palsy?”  My husband asked how he knew and he said his wife had it for over a month at that point!  How weird! 

Like a Mercury in Gemini, I immediately started doing some research on Bells Palsy.  That virus caused trauma to the 7th cranial nerve that runs from the back of my head, up behind my ear, over the ear, and paralyzed all of the facial nerves running to the right side of my face. 
I looked like I hit a windshield at some point in my life without scars.  The eye was a big problem.  For someone that hates to put anything in her eyes, I was using eye gel because the moisture lasted longer.  It really didn’t matter what I thought about the gel, I certainly didn’t blink.  My husband picked me up an eye patch which helped to keep it from drying out.  His only request was that when I put it on that I say, “arrrrgh.”  Can you believe that? lol  My daughter, the sweet caring soul that she is, bought me one too.  Only hers was a silver chain and the eye patch was metal filled with clear rhinestones!  She said that if I had to wear a patch, it might as well be some bling. lol  Gotta love um for thinking of me.  lol

I read some articles about eliminating stress, so I opted for purchasing the reprint rights to monthly horoscopes.  I’m a little obsessive about keeping the site running smoothly.  The truth is that I have Saturn in my 6th house.  Saturn will see to it that I work relentlessly at something, God forbid I hit a barrier or I will work all night.  So, I took care of not having to worry about my forecasts.  Then I decided to add some feng shui elements to my environment.  Our current home doesn’t have the same space as we use to have, so a lot of those things are in storage.  I pulled out my amethyst geode and placed it near my desk, added a fountain and some lucky bamboo.  I also bought a 25ct amethyst ring.  I figured if I was going to wear amethyst for it’s healing properties, I might as well get the most energy out of it.  In addition, I started back on my whole food supplements.  Saturn has been conjunct my ascendant for some time and it has taken its toll on my health over the past 18 months.  First my foot, then one cold or virus after another.  I wrote about some of this in January’s horoscopes concerning the Saturn/Neptune opposition and Saturns retrograde in 2007.  Ok…so I’m listening to the Universe!  And last, but not least, I began to believe in my healing.  My friend Judie had mentioned the movie “The Secret” a few times, but I was just too busy to check it out.  Since I had time off due to health reasons, I watched it online.  There it was, my feng shui beliefs,  something I have encouraged my friends to do in their own homes.  There was also my long held belief that I deserved perfect health and blessings of abundance.  So, now I was watching a film that helped to lift my spirits because much of what I heard was what I had always believed myself.  I took all of this…the vitamins, the feng shui, the amethyst ring, the time off from work, and the movie - The Secret, put it all together and believed without a shadow of a doubt that I was healed.  Guess what?  In one month, I had no signs of ever having Bells Palsy.  I had to see my doctor every week and at my one month visit, on Nov 13th., she released me from further check-ups calling me a walking miracle.  She also told me that day, that when I first came to see her, she honestly didn’t expect a complete recovery inside of 7 months.

There are thousands of people each year stricken with Bells Palsy.  I’m nor certain of the number, but its something like one in every 5000, and there are a number of individuals that have had it more than once, or even twice.  My story is merely one person’s experience.  Just because I was healed so quickly doesn’t mean that my method will work for anyone else.  It’s very difficult for those suffering through it.  It’s hard to eat because you can’t open your mouth on one side, your eye dries out, and you can’t close your eye at night.  In my experience, I had a difficult time watching TV and spending time on the computer.  When I took a shower, I had to literally hold the lid of my eye closed so I wouldn’t get shampoo in it.  Besides all of that, I felt awful about the way I looked. 

Finally, a few friends asked, “Well, didn’t you see this in your chart?”  Uhh, no.  I wasn’t looking for it either.  I knew I had the health aspects, I figured something else could show its ugly head, but I wasn’t about to dwell on it and make it a self fulfilling prophecy.  And, considering the fact that I am looking at 100+ charts each month, I barely find the time to look at my own aspects.  Thank goodness I have my chart and current aspects memorized.  Besides the fact that transiting Saturn was conjunct my progressed sun and square my natal mars - hard on health and vitality, I knew there must be something else at work.  Well I did check my chart after I returned from my first doctors visit.  It just so happened that on Oct 13th, my progressed moon was within orb of opposing progressed Mars.  There were more factors as well, but my Sun does trine Jupiter and my Sun sextiles Pluto, giving me endurance and strength.  It’s all good now.  I still have that darn Saturn/Neptune opposition coming around once more, but I’ll take it as it comes. 

So, there you have it.  The reason why I didn’t post my own forecasts for Nov. and Dec.  It sure was hard getting back in the swing of things, but I had a good time writing the January forecasts… even though it was like pulling teeth trying to come up with a creative way to write such a long horoscope. Actually, I don’t “try” to write a long horoscope, that’s how I write because I have Mercury – the communicator - in my social house.  I’m an astrologer, not so much a writer, but I do the best I can and hope you’ll appreciate the time and effort I put into your horoscope.  I’m still working on the creative process as well, so they may change some over time.

If you are here because of this Bells Palsy post, may you be blessed and recover quickly.  Happy navigating through January!

The picture is the statue in my front yard here in Missouri.  We had 13″ of snow which began the evening of Nov. 30, 2006.  It stayed on the ground for 13 days.  Unfortunately, a lot of people in the St. Louis and surrounding areas were without power.  Sorry, I’m not having much luck with this image plug in.