Why Does My Stiff Upper Lip Taste Metallic? No, seriously, I'm having problems with my tongue. I wasn't going to say anything, and in fact I spent some time in "private consultation" with my sister over lunch today, who tried using my blackberry to research the internet for me. But I'm worried that if I keep this to myself and present the "stiff upper lip" to the world, I may have overlooked something Very Bad (TM).

Sometime after Christmas, the center of my tongue went numb. The sides, tip, and back of my tongue felt normal. But the center of the flat plane of my tongue feels like I've consumed novacaine, or licked the oragel stuff you put on toothaches, or used a Halls lozenge for too long, or injested too much ground cloves. At first, there was just a plain numb-novacaine kind of feeling. Now, the edges of my tongue that touch my teeth feel like everything has a metallic taste. I cannot stand diet coke at all right now (which should shock most of you who know me) because it tastes ALL wrong, although it didn't taste wrong for the first three days. Coffee is the only drink that tastes "normal." Food tastes all wrong, and that's if I can taste it at all. The center of my tongue can distinguish texture and heat/cold, but no flavor at all.

Altoids feel normal at first, the mint seems to be received normal throughout my mouth. But by the end of the mint, everything feels metallic and weird again. I like to chew bubble gum while driving (Orbit sugarless bubble-mint), but it tastes completely bizarre, and quickly annoys me.

Rae, of course, said "Go see your doctor." Um, that would suppose that I have one. I cannot even remember if I signed up for medical insurance when I got my new job, or if I was waiting for it to kick in after a certain period of employment. I've gone from one contract to another for so long, I've never had the same insurance twice, so I've never found a "regular doctor" for several years now. [Yes, that also means the obvious: I haven't *seen* a doctor in many, many years.]

So, (1) Please don't lecture me or yell at me. I already know this is a bad thing. Making me cry or feel guilty isn't going to help me at all. Thank you.

(2) How serious is this? The only things I found when I first looked up "symptom tongue numb" online included strokes, and it scared me right out of my google search. And yes, I have a few tears of fear in my eyes, just writing this journal entry.

Are we looking at some kind of sudden food allergy onset? Did I get poisoned? Have zombies been nibbling on me when I wasn't looking?

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Visiting Relatives - So, back in the realm of narrative adventures that don't frighten me like unpursued mystery ailments... My mom, sister, eldest niece, and I went out to visit several relatives today. My great-aunt has gone into some decline recently, but she was very lucid today and recognized us. We managed to get her to eat a few bites twice during our visit, which is very good. And we had a nice visit with one of our cousins from that family. I took digital photos of several antique pictures in the house, manipulating the frames to get the least amount of glare off the glass.

Then we went over to my grandfather's house, where my step-grandmother has also been in decline lately. We had a nice visit with Grandad, and hopefully made Grandma Joyce feel good about the visit too. She's in a lot of pain, and there are other unspoken issues, but I just wanted her to feel loved and appreciated.

I'd spent so many hours sitting around visiting relatives, that I finished two more scarves today. The white-and-girlie-pink one didn't have an intended recipient when I first put it together, so impulsively I gifted it to Grandma Joyce at the end of the day. She wasn't really interested in it at first, until by inspiration I said as we were saying our goodbyes, "I cannot be here to hug you very often. I hope you can think of each stitch in this scarf as an individual prayer for you and each stitch as a hug for you. Then the scarf can hug you when I'm not here." For the first time this evening, her eyes lit up and she relaxed into her chair and beamed at me, the biggest smile and said, "That was a lovely thought. Thank you."

I also finished one of the sports-colors scarves for my Mom, so that when's she's at all the soccer games my eldest two nieces play, she can be wearing their colors in support. Because she wanted a wider scarf, it turned out to be not quite as long as some of the scarves. But she liked it very much anyways. And earlier this week I'd finished the all-black scarf my eldest niece had requested, and so I was able to deliver it to her today too. I'm not sure which colors I'm starting next, but probably the scarves for my step-sisters and then the high-school colors for my nieces.

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Today's Photo Portion - My visit with Ceri and David, and their son "Smiley"


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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Thelma, Dave, and Mandy