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.