Bell's palsy is a disorder of the nerve that controls movement of the muscles in the face. This nerve is called the facial or 7th cranial nerve. Damage to this nerve causes weakness or paralysis of these muscles. Paralysis means that you cannot use the muscles at all.
When I woke up yesterday, my face felt funny. The muscles on the right side of my mouth felt weak and my speech was a bit slurred. By the time I'd gotten up, dressed, and into the car for my appointment, the feelings had largely gone. Assuming I'd just slept wrong I promptly forgot about it.
My appointment with Lady A went well; we discussed my not-unsubstantial progress over the last few months and set some new goals for me. Dad and I left*, ran some errands, and headed home. As we drove home I noticed that my face was numb again, and that the right side seemed unresponsive to attempts to move. It kind of felt like I was coming off of a dose of novacaine, actually. I mentioned it to Dad; he wasn't too concerned, since I wasn't in pain and was still lucid and could ommunicate and whatever, but he said that we'd run up to the clinic if it got worse.
C2 and I went to Mom's house for lunch. I had a lot of difficulty eating (as in I had to eat my salad one piece at a time, which took more than an hour). Mom finally noticed and asked what was wrong. My response was so garbled that I had to answer her three times. The right side of my mouth did not move at all when I spoke, it took intense effort just to smile using both sides, and my right eye couldn't close entirely.
These symptoms, among others, are the signs of a stroke. After making me do a bunch of full-body coordination tests Mom determined that only my face was affected. Apparently when I was younger (four or five years old) the same thing happened. I don't remember it.
By the time Mom took us home I'd regained some control over my face, enough that Dad decided I could wait a few hours to see a doctor. He was taking C2 into town for his driver's test; which apparently meant that he was incapable of, you know, taking me with or anything. He and I argued about it, and when I tried to tell him that I was seriously freaking out the muscle weakness suddenly came back. I lost complete control over my mouth, couldn't communicate in any way, and was crying like a kicked puppy. It was humiliating, and to make matters worse I couldn't feel my right arm but for some strange reason couldn't figure out a way to tell anyone that. It was terrifying, honestly.
Mom took me to the hospital. Once we'd gotten there I'd calmed down and figured out how to work my mouth again, making myself intelligible but still noticeably impaired. After testing my reflexes and asking some questions the doctor told me that I had Bell's Palsy. Basically, sometime during the night before last I slept wrong. Some (or maybe all, I'm not sure) of the nerves that control your face pass through a small opening just below your ear. If one of those nerves is pinched, it swells up (either through basic inflammation or a virus; medical science isn't quite sure) and muscle control in that half of the face is lost. If caught early, B.P. is temporary and curable. Apparently, my impediments were pretty minor compared to most cases (not that that fact made me feel any better). Interestingly enough, only one in twenty thousand Americans get Bell's Palsy each year, and since the likelihood of getting it goes up as you age, the chances of recieving it in your lifetime are one in sixty five. I've had it twice now. Anyways, for the next week and a half I'll be taking steroids and anti-virals to reduce the inflammation.
With any luck I will have regained full or partial control of my face by he time school starts on Sept third. My senior pictures, originally scheduled for tomorrow, have been rescheduled to the sixth. In the mean time I'll be stuffed to the gills with drugs, hiding inside, and riding an emotion roller coaster**. Wish me luck lovelies.
*Lady A switched to a different building, by the way. She's still an art therapist, but she now works for a larger, somewhat more progressive company.
**On one hand, Bell's Palsy is only a mild medical condition. It isn't contagious, is beyond my control, and is no more shameful than a broken leg. There is absolutely no reason I should let it affect my day-to-day life. On the other hand, B.P. is extremely embarrassing. I cannot talk very clearly, and the fact that there's something wrong with me becomes apparent every time I speak, eat, or even smile, Earlier this morning I took C 3, 4, and 5 to our town's celebration. The two older girls got their faces painted and hair dyed. C4 was adorable and C3 was beautiful, and when I chose to smile and tell them how wonderful they looked, the lady with whom I'd been talking (she hadn't really been looking at me) stared at me for a long moment, then grabbed her kid and left. He daughter was crying because they'd paid for a facepainting and didn't get it. That seemingly nice woman not only humiliated me but wasted her own money and made her daughter cry, just because she didn't like the way I looked. It was embarrassing and degrading and I wanted to cry. Thankfully C5 was there. Sme days I swear that kid can read my mind. Every time I'm feeling really low, he does something sweet or adorable to make me smile. He's a baby; he doesn't care what I look like or how people are treating me, as long as I'm taking care of him and smiling. I know he loves me unconditionally, and that's an amazing feeling.
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