29 cruel, cruel candles...

The day after I was diagnosed, I turned 29.

I had recently been laid off but was up early because I had volunteered to help my pastor move some shelving into his new office at the church. He called to see how I was doing and to see if I was still up for the chore at hand. I'm fairly sure he found out through word of mouth via one of my Facebook friends. I don't think he's a tweet; in fact, I'm 100% sure he's a Methodist.

By this time I had already procured an eye-patch and while I've always enjoyed pirate humor, I wasn't too keen on being seen in public with it. I was even okay joking with friends that I intended on using white-out to paint a skull and crossbones on it for authenticity's sake - in the comfort of my own home...out of public view. This was not the case when I left the house. I was surprised to find myself in a position where I did NOT want attention. Anyone who's shared even a day with me knows that I enjoy making people laugh, telling stories, and generally captivating an audience. What a complete 180. I decided that I was so self conscious about the patch that I would forgo it and simply suffer the incessant watering of my right eye and mandatory manual blinking (using the back of your forefinger close your eyelid) every 8-10 seconds. You know, whenever it started burning.

At this point the feelings of "this is temporary, but it is also indefinite" began to really stew. As mentioned before, I'm looking for work and having a condition that makes it extremely difficult to talk normally made me almost dread being called in for an interview. Would they see my condition and view me as unable to communicate effectively? Would they worry that I would be missing time from work for this? What if their names have a lot of B's and P's in them (two extremely difficult sounds to pronounce with.....Bell's Palsy....just cruel)? I got to a point where I honestly didn't want anyone to call me back for an interview. Not wanting to interview coupled with no steady income makes for a very bad mix....ONE of those has to give.

That night was the Barrett Walker birthday extravaganza. I was not in the mood. I had extremely high anxiety and was feeling dizzy from the medications I was on. I was surrounded with my closest family (including my three beautiful nieces) and found it difficult to be comfortable, much less festive. I had no idea until the waiter delivered them, but wings are an extremely awful thing to eat with the palsy. For 28.9999 years, I had taken for granted the muscular ballet that was my lips caressing the sauced, yet crisp morsel into my mouth while my jaw strategically began to disassemble the helpless cutlet. I. Couldn't. Eat. Wings. Well, I could, but it was MESSY and if my dad were around he'd be disappointed at the amount of meat I had no choice but to leave on the bone. Pizza was easier, so I downed one. A whole one. The steroids make you eat. and eat.

Cake time came and while folks were LOVING the fact that there were 29 candles to be lit and extinguished, I pleaded that they not be lit in the restaurant. Partially because I could just see us setting the new pizza restaurant that JUST opened ablaze and incinerating the hopes and dreams of the young entrepreneur (that my mom has a huge crush on) who runs the joint, and partially because I can't pressurize my mouth enough to blow. I don't think my family realized the latter until the candles were lit and I needed help. Haven't needed help dousing my own fire since I was 3...

Later that night I remember moping on the couch. My fiance was wonderful and asked all of the right questions and comforted me. I remember going from utter self pity to shame that I was feeling that self pity. After all, there are folks that have strokes that lose a lot more than the use of their face. Here I am still able to, basically, function as normal and I'm complaining. This would become a recurring battle throughout this process. Imagine a pendulum toggling between "I can't believe I have this condition" and "Thank god it isn't worse." I began feeling both so frequently that I didn't know which one was right. I would find out the next day that both are, but for now life was dark. I had no idea when my face would return to normal. I had researched myself into depression by learning that it could take weeks, months, even years to correct. I even heard one account of a person who never regained function. Bummer.

Coffee and Palsy - Day One

First of all "Bear's Palsy", pathologically speaking, is Bell's Palsy. My nickname is "Bear" so I took some creative liberties with my particular diagnosis. Please do not contact your physician and refer to "Bear's Palsy;" at least not until my blog is published in a reputable medical journal.

This blog will give you an interesting and, hopefully, spiritually uplifting perspective of one person's experience with Bell's Palsy.

I was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy on Monday, August 24th, 2009.

That particular Monday was indistinguishable from so many I've had before. The first sign of any problem was when I was rinsing the suds from my hair. As I ruffled my hair to root out any stow-away shampoo, I got a face full of soapy water that immediately had me staring at the floor and feverishly blinking while rinsing my right eye. This wasn't the first time I've maced myself with Sunsilk (the fiance let's me use the good stuff), but it was definitely the most intense in memory.

Preparation progressed and I finally became conscious and minutely concerned when I noticed that the right side of my tongue was slightly numb on the surface when I brushed my teeth. I remember thinking it was weird that the surface of my tongue couldn't feel the bristles as I brushed, but could feel the pressure deep within the tongue. My mind flashed the possibility of a stroke, but laughed it off due to my age and the fact that it was just my tongue at this point.

After getting dressed, I headed out to meet my mom for lunch. I noticed my smile beginning to bias to the left. My right side wasn't puling it's weight when I wanted to blast someone with my pearly-whites. I had made mention that my face seemed a bit numb on one side and then mom sprung into action. In a single motion she comforted me, spit on her thumb and tried to wipe the numbness away (I kid), and began dialing the number to my physician. I had an appointment that afternoon.

As I awaited my appointment, I took the time to let my fiance know what was going on. Naturally, she was extremely concerned. I told her I would keep her posted and headed to google. I threw "facial paralysis" into a search field and was surprised to learn that Bell's Palsy, a term I've head numerous time without any real context, was likely to be the culprit of my facial laziness.

Throughout all of this, I remained quite optimistic and even was able to joke with family and friends that I "got the palsy." I am a joker by nature and very extroverted, so I had no impedance with confronting this problem with jokes and smiles (albeit half-smiles,) initially. I had no clue that I was about to crash emotionally the next day.

I met with the PA that afternoon who confirmed the news that Drs. Google and Wikipedia had already broken to me ever so coldly earlier in the day. The Physician's Assistant and I were able to kid and talk candidly about what was going on. She created a friend-like report. She prescribed steroids and an antiviral (a popular cocktail from what I've read so far) giggled at me a bit (it was provoked) and sent me on my way. Before releasing me, she brought me a data sheet on Bell's Palsy. She was a cool doc and waived her hand over most of the sheet and said "blah, blah, blah." She came to a pause and rested her index finger on the part of the data sheet that mentions possible complications. She pointed to the bullet point that said "Emotional Distress" and made a sarcastic "boo-hoo" gesture. I picked up on her cue and began laughing at the thought of me, mr. smiley funny guy, being effected emotionally by this....after all, it's temporary...