Flip This: I Am Diagnosed with Lyme Disease and It's Causing Bell's Palsy on My Face

In a while will the smile on my face turn to plaster?
Stick around while the clown who is sick does the trick of disaster
For the race of my head and my face is moving much faster
Is it strange I should change? I don't know, why don't you ask her? -- Neil Young

All day Wednesday at Fox, my right eye was watering and really bothering me. I don't have allergies, but I figured the only explanation for my right eye suddenly acting up like that had to be allergies.

I took some Tylenol PM, something I hardly ever do, before bed Wednesday night and woke up to an email from a Fox executive who was worried after seeing me on FBN Wendesday night telling me to get myself checked out ASAP because he was concerned that I was developing Bell's Palsy, which leaves half your face temporarily paralyzed for a few weeks. I wrote him back that I felt much better and there was nothing to worry about.

That was until I decided to look in the mirror after returning from my morning bike ride with Lobo. It was then that I saw that the entire right side of my face was indeed paralyzed. The reason my right eye was bothering me and watering was because it wasn't blinking. It wouldn't close.

Hours later, I'd spent the day at NYU Hospitals having blood taken from me three times and eventually succumbing to a spinal tap to test for Lyme Disease because I'd had a rash on the back of my leg a few weeks ago after returning from a camping trip in the woods in upstate New York.

Though they're not sure they can ever tell for certain, the diagnosis from the gracious and professional Dr. Marc Seigel (a Fox contributor, I might add) and his staff (and his wife who is a highly-respected Neurologist at NYU) was that I do indeed have early onset Lyme Disease and that is the cause of my Bell's Palsy. They're still running some more tests on my spinal fluid and blood to get more information and diagnoses.

For now, I've got a tube sticking out of one of the big veins on my left arm and I've already administered myself the daily potent combination of antibiotics and saline and blood thinner three times.

On the blessing/silver lining part of the equation, my parents happened to have arrived to NYC from New Mexico for the first time in years Thursday afternoon. It's ironic how often I have been lamenting the lack of familial support I have in this city lately. I truly don't know how I could have made it through this weekend and this nightmare of a disease without their support and help. Family is important -- always. (That my parents and sister are still pretty much what constitutes "my" family at age 35 is another issue that this ordeal underscores for me, but I digress.)

It looks like we probably caught this Lyme Disease quickly enough that I will be fully cured from it. In that sense, getting this Bell's Palsy to get me to the hospital to get cured is also a blessing. That said, I have to wonder:

I had 25 broken bones in my life that always disrupted my life and career path since I used to depend on my body -- sports were my life growing up. I don't think I ever had a problem with my face before -- at least until I started the first and only job I can possibly think of that outright requires the use of my face...TV. And now I get Bell's Palsy? Now?!

I can only make this a positive by talking and writing about it here on my platform, no? Lyme Disease by some studies is a very common but undiagnosed infection in the US, and I have some friends who didn't know that they had symptoms of it even after they'd been exposed to ticks in the woods (which is how you get it most all of the time). And this Bell's Palsy, let me tell you -- scares me badly. Everyone says it always goes away. But I don't like not having control of my face and it's scary that there's simply nothing I can do about it but wait.

One thing you won't see me do EVER -- testify in front of Congress asking for more of your tax dollars to research this stuff. I might donate money and/or fight for this cause myself someday -- but not with your tax dollars. Michael J. Fox, the Canadian, I'm not.