Just for reference, above is a photo of me during Christmas 2003. I'd be the chik on your right.

I woke up looking a bit worse that this. Any questions on why I panicked and rushed to the ER?

On the lighter side, Jason was getting some EXTREMELY nasty looks from strangers.

I wish I'd gotten photos of my profile over the next few days - my face above my lips is almost FLAT at this stage.

After two doses of IV antibiotics and the work of gravity pulling the infection downwards, I can finally see out of my right eye by Thursday night. Jason still has to act as the "seeing-eye-husband".

We considered hiring an agent to get me the lead for the movie remake of "Mask".

This is at the beginning of 14 hours at the hospital for three more doses of IV antibiotics, and a special visit with the Infectious Diseases Team (ID). They didn't think this is too worrisome - now THOSE people have seen fire and rain...

The last time I took any sort of penicillin, I broke into small hives all over my body so it's been flagged as an allergy. Today, they had me do the "Penicillin Challenge" at the hospital because the ID team thought that penicillin would be the only thing to quickly knock whatever this is. I passed the challenge, so I'm not deathly allergic, and if I can get even a few doses into my system before any sort of skin response occurs, it might be enough to get ahead of the infection.

This is after I was released from the hospital. St. Paul's has a really nice ER team and I enjoyed my visit about as much as you can enjoy a 14 hour ER visit. I'd be smiling, but I can't move my cheeks at this point.

Notice the swelling is moving - if I lean one way for more than an hour, the poof moves with gravity. Jay is hoping it moves to my boobs.

I haven't really stopped sleeping since Thursday morning, and you can tell I sleep on my left side (right in the photo) because that side of my face is bigger and indented like my pillow. Cool party trick.