Age: 62.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: COVID19
Symptoms: Balance disorder, Bell's palsy, Computerised tomogram, Disturbance in attention, Dysarthria
Clinical narrative: She got her vaccine, it was more painful, she had fever, she spent 2 days just sleeping due to being tired.  She felt as if she was "out of it".  She was not focused to work on the computer, to do school work and decided to not do that.  She is a multitasker and was hard for her to get on her treadmill as she was off balanced and could not do that.  She just had a brain fog, memory problems, was off doing her homework and reading things, but the clarity and focus was not there.  She knew the answers to her tests, but when she was writing down it was not being written down as the answers in her head and was scoring low on her tests.   She was also not sleeping.  She has a fit-bit and averaging between 3-1/2 to 4 1/2 hours of sleep.  She just felt out of it and this was through the month of April.  Then on 5/8/21 she felt like something was in her eye, she had dyed her hair and put eye drops in her eye.  She did correlate anything with the vaccine yet.  Then Sunday morning (Mother's day), she observed something and was so tired and decided to go back to sleep.  Then she woke up and the eye and the face started twisting and was paralyzed on the left side.  Her speech was not clear and the automatic thing was to speak slower and it would fix itself, and what was going on.  (She had a prior TIA).  She thought of a stroke coming to mind, and decided she needed to take action and went to the ER by ambulance.  Once she was in the ER, they did an EKG, did CT scan and an MRI to see if there was anything going on for a stroke or sign of a stroke, which there was not according to the paperwork and results.  Not felt to be related to her heart either.  They diagnosed her with Bell's palsy and sent her results to a neurologist for them to do their assessment.   They were relieved that it was not a stroke.  She went to the neurologist the following week and felt that there seemed to be some white matter on her CT.  She finished the medication that she was given, and was told that he was going to do a phone appointment, and she refused to have that and said that he could not see the differences in her face and the progress over the phone.  She was not able to breath out of her left nostril and was getting worse, having pain and wanted to find answers and they did see her in the office.  They did EMG's, checked her eyes and said that she was fine, and asked why did it seem that it was getting worse.  She felt like her skin was coming off her spine, and feels a pull.  He suggested doing an MRI of her spine and her face, and suggested an EMI to see if there was damage to her nerves.    She had shingles in the past and was already having difficulties lifting her arm and had suggestions.  She also saw her acupuncturist who did not touch her face and did needling on her body and she was able to swallow better, and was informed not to do them on her face.  She also had a telemed APT and was OK'd to have acupuncture on her head but again not her face.  She was still on the steroids, and had information and paperwork that she had researched and asked him questions to educate her and help her.  Her daughters have been doing research and told her that maybe she needed a different neurologist.  She called the nurse line at the clinic who advised her to stay where she was and see what he had to offer.  She is doing warm towels in the morning and evening and she?s able to get some relief and sleep.  She finds that her brain is working better and that it is going to take some time for this to heal.    She had testing for AVM?s during her chemo and she had no indication for that.    In November and December 2019, she was really sick with URI and was on breathing treatments and was one step away from pneumonia and was not able to work.  She took an antibodies test in March and had antibodies.  She then had COVID in her household in December of 2019, but was tested several times and tested negative for that.   She was diagnosed with cancer when she hit her head on a cabinet at work, and noticed that she had scarring, which she thought was from chicken pox and shingles.  Her chicken pox left scars on her lungs and she did not take medication for that due to driving her kids back and forth to school and not wanting to be under medication effects.   The ER followed up with her after telling her that she needed to see a doctor.  She went to a cancer center and had biopsies and they lost her specimens at the hospital.   She ended up having to get another test and was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer, and told her she needed surgery.  She had laparoscopic thoracic surgery and they removed 3/4 of her lung.  She had chemo for 5-6 months, and was antibiotics the entire time due to infections.  At one point she was excreting skin from the chemo.  They inadvertently found out that a nurse had given other patient's wrong chemo and was fired from being a chemo nurse.  She has been under a great deal of stress.  Now since doing the warm towels her symptoms are better, the nerve is not as tight.  It goes from the top of her brow all the way to her chin on the left side, it goes in sections.  It was in the middle first, from there it goes up above and bulges on the top of her brow, and then with warm towels it progresses to a bulge on her face.  She can't breath out of her left nostril and uses saline to keep it moisturized.  She can blow her nose if she pulls her nose towards the left.  She uses the salt water rinses in her mouth as she feels everything is pulling to the right including her neck.  She was given a salve from her acupuncturist that has helped as well.   She does self pictures throughout the day to see her progress of this process.