Silent Sinus Syndrome ~ Why I Disappeared

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:01]Hi everyone. I thought I'd come on and tell you why I've been MIA for a few weeks. Today happens to be a good day.

[00:00:09]So, I thought I could Yes, Jerry, you can make a video.

[00:00:14]Anyway, hi. If you're new here, my name is Jerry Bellini and uh my channel revolves around aging creatively and gratefully. So, this is an aging thing.

[00:00:24]It's also a grateful thing.

[00:00:29]So, let me begin. I got permission from um a family member, a very close family member. We'll just leave it at that to talk to you about this. Uh it was uh recently I don't even know how to start. Okay, let me just start.

[00:00:52]So, there's been a lot going on the last few weeks and my person, let's just call it that way.

[00:01:02]Let's just put it that way. My person uh started to notice something um changing on her face, but thought it was part of aging.

[00:01:17]And I'm going to stop there and tell you we're going to talk about uh a syndrome, and it's called silent sinus syndrome.

[00:01:27]So, please look that up. I won't go into all the particulars about it. It's an extremely rare thing. And yeah, it's just so rare. It's mind-boggling.

[00:01:41]I think there was less than 100 cases in the United reported cases in the United States, but I I could be off with that um statistic, but I do know there's only a few people in the entire world that study this syndrome. So when this my person came down with um this and actually started to recognize that this was the problem. Uh now how do you find somebody to help you with it?

[00:02:14]So let me just back up the train a hair and say that uh this person is getting older.

[00:02:24]I feel so stupid saying this person, but you know what I mean. Is getting older and has been, you know, doing her makeup every day and not really noticing a whole lot of changing on her face, but something, you know, something was changing with her eyes and she just thought it was part of aging. She wanted me to be sure to tell you that if you notice anything changing, not just on your face, but on your body, you know, um, pay attention to it and maybe maybe go to the doctor, maybe talk to your doctor or at least someone talk to someone about it. Don't just ignore it. Um because this person uh she was doing her makeup like I said and she started to notice you know her eyes and she just said ah well you know I'm getting older and you know how you get the stuff the droopy eyelids and all this other nonsense.

[00:03:22]She just attributed to that and the change happened so gradually that the people right around her didn't notice it either or maybe they did subconsciously. That's another thing like how could people not notice this was happening because it's quite a dramatic if you haven't seen her for a couple months it's kind of dramatic the change.

[00:03:47]Anyway, um someone who knew her very well, who hadn't seen her for a few months, saw her recently and went, "Oh my gosh, what is happening with your face?"

[00:04:04]And pretty awful. That triggered, you know, a a doctor visit and um she's brilliant.

[00:04:15]She researched it. She's really smart and a very good researcher and researched it. Kind of figured out on her own what it was, believe it or not.

[00:04:22]Went to the doctor anyway. Went to her regular doctor. Her regular doctor wanted to put her on allergy medicine.

[00:04:30]I don't think she knew about the condition.

[00:04:34]Anyway, um to make a long story short, she wound up researching uh specialists in the area. we live in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area that were um really good with sinuses. She actually I don't even know how she thought of this. She actually emailed this surgeon on a weekend and told him the specific scient in scientific terms what her symptoms were. and he wrote her back right away, which goes to show you how rare it is. This is a surgeon, a very well-known surgeon.

[00:05:20]Just boggles the mind. Um, and said, "Come into my office on Monday." This was on Sunday, I think. Come into my office on Monday if you can. Which she did. And that was uh Oh my gosh. My my brain is fried. Very recently, uh, she went in, he Yes, you do have the s silent sinus syndrome. Did all the testing that he needed and scheduled surgery for the following Monday?

[00:05:56]Like, where on earth does that happen?

[00:06:00]So, that's where the gratitude comes in.

[00:06:02]That that was like a God thing as far as I'm concerned.

[00:06:07]And I am so grateful that it was recognized and dealt with immediately. So when you leave this particular condition untreated when you're undiagnosed, you can actually start to get double vision. Maybe you can even lose your vision and all these other horrible things can happen to you. So it hadn't gotten that far with her. Thank goodness.

[00:06:37]But um it's still, you know, still pretty bad. Anyway, we've been busy with that and um she had the surgery.

[00:06:52]Uh it went very well. Again, I'm not going to explain to you all the particulars about about it, but it did go very well. She has to go back every week for a few weeks um to get these things. They had to put stances in her nose and stuff to get them some of them removed. So, she did the first one uh this past Monday, a couple of days. I don't even know what day it is. Couple of days ago, she got the the two biggest ones out and now she can breathe a little bit.

[00:07:27]I am so grateful. You have no idea. I'm so grateful. But meanwhile, there's like a couple of other things like that was so important to me, but there are were a couple of other things that were happening at simultaneously that were just sucking the life force out of me. So, that's why I just haven't been here to make a video. I just couldn't. I just can't. And I want to thank you all for your messages and your emails and and everything. I just I couldn't even open my computer. I mean, I did open it a little bit to watch some videos, but honestly, I've been like a veg. I've just been like sitting or Okay, I take that back.

[00:08:14]The other thing that I started doing was gel printing. And I have a big mess on my table back there, and I'm going to show you that in a minute. And how I found um for me to reset my nervous system is to um be outside. And so I went outside. I'm at the beach and I went outside and I planted in my horse trough and I have a hummingbird so I get to sit and watch that. And I just put it around. Um the other day I was outside all day long until it got dark. I couldn't believe it. I was just cleaning the yard and just trimming, you know, a little uh tree thing and I set up my screen tent. I'm going to show you that, too. I went and uh cleaned out my screen tent. And those of you that have been following me, you know I'm at the beach and I have a a screen tent out in the yard.

[00:09:09]I cleaned it all out. I set my table up a certain way. I bought myself um a hammock for Mother's Day. I bought it for myself and I put it in my screen tent and I'm going to do like painting out there or uh whatever sewing or I've been really involved in the gel printing. I haven't touched my sewing in quite a few weeks and just I've been painting rocks. So, I was out there painting rocks and doing all this stuff to reset. So, that's another thing I wanted to say. One thing is pay attention to your body. If you're not feeling good or if you feel overwhelmed or if you're working yourself too hard and you're starting to get too tired, you need to take a nap. You need to take a rest. You need to take a break break and just decompress.

[00:10:02]That's that's so important. Um the other thing, you know, the two things that was one, take care of yourself. The other thing is pay attention to your body and if you feel like something's not working right, investigate it because when left untreated, we could get really um have real big problems.

[00:10:25]All right, so I want to leave this video on a positive note. As always, I always try to uplift you instead of just dragging you down with me.

[00:10:38]Anyway, I think I'm going to be okay. I don't know when I'm going to be able to make a video, a regular video. I just have to wait and see and take each day as it comes. This morning I woke up feeling um pretty good and that's why I was able to turn the camera on. Um but I can tell I still need I still need time.

[00:11:04]So, I think I'm going to go to the library later and just, you know, look through some books, but I am going to go outside when we're finished uh chatting.

[00:11:14]All right, I'm going to show you my gel printing and I'm going to show you my beautiful um horse trough that the squirrels have been digging in. So, let's go see what's going on.

[00:11:27]So, you know, I'm here by myself, so I can spread out and do whatever I want.

[00:11:31]So, I have my table. I moved my table.

[00:11:33]Let me stand back and show you. I moved it. I put it uh coming out from the window. My family was here the other day and uh they said, "Mom, why don't you move the table the other way?" And I said, "Well, because it's going to stick out into the room too far, but it's not too bad. See, sticks out. I mean, it sticks out a hair, but it's not bad."

[00:11:52]So, I said, "Well, there's there's more room for activities like this, so I'm going to leave it like this for a little bit." So, I have um all my pens and pencils uh handy in that um case. And then here's some of my jelly prints. I haven't gel printed in oh, I don't even remember the last time. It's got to be 8 n 10 years. It's a long time. So, I still I had all the supplies, but I kind of didn't remember how to do it. And I don't think I ever really did it very well. So, these are some of my prints.

[00:12:26]And um I like this one. I like that. That's a rubber stamp that actually I think Brian carved for me. And I thought I would make a book. So these are going to be pages in a book right here. Oops. Can I open that? Yeah. So I I did I like square books.

[00:12:47]Um and yeah, I just got a lot of paper and I got out all my stencils.

[00:12:55]And as I said, I'm here by myself, so I can spread out. So, I sit back there and I have uh two jelly plates out. And I also started doing, let's go around the table very slowly. Uh that basket is full of stencils.

[00:13:14]I also started um rolling off, you might say, the excess paint in a book.

[00:13:26]So, and and I actually have a couple books going and I just roll off the extra paint and then I'll I'll make this into a sketchbook.

[00:13:34]Let's see where's some serious paint rolloffs back here. I think the book is upside down.

[00:13:42]And um yeah, why am I not being able to show you this?

[00:13:49]Here it is. Okay.

[00:13:53]Uh, and I'm trying to do a little color uh studying because I'm not real good with that, believe it or not. Um, you know, I know that uh the primary colors, you mix them and you get other colors, but that's about as far as I I go to be honest with you. All right, here's my other book. I don't know if you can tell. This is purple. I brought this one from home when I went home. I love square books and I wanted to use some big books for a sketchbook, but I I didn't want to use like a regular paper thing. I wanted to This is a knitting book and I looked it up and made sure it wasn't valuable before I started doing this, but um I started this when I was home. I had to go home last week. Uh that's the other thing I didn't mention in the vid in the earlier part of the video. Um because of you know uh the the person having the surgery and stuff. Um so I went home and I started this book.

[00:14:49]So I'm going to do like some collage art in it and whatnot. And so I was working through different colors on different pages.

[00:14:58]And uh yeah, it was just so uh relaxing.

[00:15:02]It was very relaxing. It took me to my happy place.

[00:15:06]That's the paper I'm using for the book I'm going to make. Um, yeah. I guess I didn't let that one dry real well. But see, isn't that fun? So, it's already got stuff in it.

[00:15:20]So, it's a good start for um I think that's as far as I went. It's a good start for a sketchbook or just an art journal. All right, let me show you something else. I'm going to play around with this board book. So, I uh sanded it and it's about the size of those pages.

[00:15:39]So, it's another square book. I love that. All right.

[00:15:43]So, I brought you outside and this is my screen tent. It's right outside or I should say off to the side from my deck. There's just the corner of my deck.

[00:15:57]And I cleaned it the other day, swept it out. There was a lot of leaves and debris. And I've always had this table in there, but I never used it.

[00:16:08]And just I turned it sideways so that I could fit this hammock in there that I treated myself uh to for Mother's Day.

[00:16:16]And it fits in the screen tent. I'm so glad because if I left it out in the yard, it would get all uh full of dirt and leaves and it would be more of a mess. And then I know I wouldn't lay in it. So, I already took a nap in it. So, I'm going to My plan is to sit out here.

[00:16:32]And this actually has a screen. You Yeah. See the screens in the corner? I haven't closed them yet. So, when the bugs get going, uh, I can put the screens in and, you know, try not to get too many mosquito bites. But, I've been painting rocks.

[00:16:48]And so, there's some of the rocks that I painted. So, after I they're stuck to the thing after I paint them. This one is really It's a mess, but I don't care. This is like a bluebird or something. I don't even know what it is. I saw it on Pinterest. I said I'm going to make one of those. Isn't this one cute?

[00:17:09]And then, of course, the the gnome. My daughter loves gnomes.

[00:17:14]So, I sat out here one day and I just did that. And then I have over here uh let me just stand back a little. So, I sit back there in that chair and the oak um they're TV trays. So, we have um an area where you bring your trash and people throw out furniture all the time.

[00:17:33]So, I junk picked these, garbage picked them. And I said, you know what? I'm just going to put them in my screen tent and I can put my paints on them and whatnot and I could sit like a queen right in that chair and just just do art. All right. here. Um, I paint some shells and that's always fun. And I like to put the shells, um, you know, around in the yard. All right. I do want to show you one other thing. So, those are my soda canam flowers. And I am going to do a workshop on them. As soon as I'm starting to feel better, I will do that.

[00:18:08]All right. Now, I want to turn you around very slowly and show you where I'm going to put these rocks that I'm painting. My thought was my daughter did this down in her um camper. She's got that little bit of a space there where those gravels are.

[00:18:28]And I'm going to clean the gravels out.

[00:18:29]And I'm going to put the rocks there. It just looks so cute when you're approaching her house uh to see all the painted rocks. So that's the plan.

[00:18:40]And let's go look at the horse trough.

[00:18:47]This is I worked here the other day. I'm going to tell you these darn squirrels.

[00:18:50]No matter what I do, you can see they they were running a muck in there. They got dirt all over my shells. So, I thought, well, maybe just put some shells down and um you know, maybe they would would stop digging. But look, there's there's the hole right there. I don't even know. I can't even tell you. And then he jumped over there and was digging in that Zenia one. But I'm just gonna step back so you can really see this gorgeous. Isn't that gorgeous? That plant. I don't even know what it is. It's in the Patunia family.

[00:19:24]And then uh that's my hummingbird feeder. And I've been seeing butterflies. Okay. So, the last I'm going to say week we've had nothing but rain.

[00:19:34]It's been awful. And I think that's why that plant looks so sad back there. I think he just got drowned from all the rain. Today's the first nice day.

[00:19:44]Uh this is a perennial that uh yeah these all these buds are going to open real soon.

[00:19:53]And let me just show you. This was my mother's favorite aolus.

[00:19:59]Not really sure what this is. There's a stick back there. Impatience. This is an impatience. My daughter gave me that.

[00:20:07]And this is called cat mint. Cat mint, not catnip. And uh it flowered already. It was purple flowers and it said to cut it back and then it will flower again. So we'll see.

[00:20:23]But look, those little devils, they were down there. So Brian bought me this um clatus when I went home and he saw it somewhere and he thought of me cuz it's purple. Um it was uh I thought maybe you know I'd kill it when I drove it down here in the car, but um the flowers all had fallen off and now they're coming back. So I'm a happy girl. All right.

[00:20:49]All right. I'll just say goodbye for now. Um I will see you when I see you.

[00:20:55]But thank you so much for all your prayers and love and support. Uh I really do appreciate it.

[00:21:02]Big kisses. Bye for now.