My Story...

            I awoke to a crisp September Saturday.   I’d overslept and rushed to get dressed then poured myself a bowl of cereal.  It was too late and the doorbell rang.  It was my friend Bob.  He was here earlier than I’d thought with the concrete truck ready to help us lay concrete on the side of my home.  My now ex-husband, Mike, went out to help while I rushed back to my bowl of cereal knowing that I’d need the sugar boost from my sugar coated cereal if I was to be any help that day.  I lifted the spoon up to my mouth and put the spoonful in my mouth but spilled all over myself.  Frustrated that I really didn’t have time to be a klutz, I grabbed a napkin.  I sat back down and scooped another spoonful to my mouth and it happened again!  I thought it was odd that I was such a ditz but after spilling, I tried again.  After I had cereal fall out of my mouth again, I realized that something was wrong.  I went outside and told Mike that my face wasn’t working.  He told me to call my mom, who’s been a nurse for 20 something years.  I gave her a call at work and explained my predicament.  I went and looked in the mirror and noticed that my smile was broken.  My mother talked to a few of the Doctors in her unit and told me to drive up to the University of Utah Hospital and come to the ER.  The doctors were worried that it was Ramsay Hunt and I would need to be seen right away.   Mike drove me to the hospital and I was in the ER for a few hours being their lab rat.  The U of U is a teaching hospital, so every intern, med student and doctor who had never seen Bell’s Palsy came to look at me.  As they asked me to raise my arms, look at the little light, and stick out my tongue for the 13^th time, I got annoyed and wanted to go home.  They gave me a promising prognosis.  Typically the paralysis would be gone within a few weeks.  They put me on Acyclovir for a week and set up a follow-up appointment with a neurologist the following week. 

                During the next week, my “condition,” for lack of a better word, worsened.  The left side of my face felt like the biggest, strongest man in the world had taken a two by four and smacked it across my face.  The pain was excruciating.  I’ve birthed babies, had my appendix removed because it almost burst, had my fallopian tubes rupture because of tubal pregnancies and all of those things paled in comparison to the pain I felt radiating in my face.  My face was numb, tingly, my eye socket hurt, around my eye hurt, my forehead hurt, and all around my left ear was pain.  It was as if there was a bilateral line drawn down my face so that a mirror of the one half of my face that didn’t hurt, could laugh at the other half that could no longer smile and was in pain. 

                My left eye would not close on its own.  To avoid damaging my eye, I had to use my hand and physically close my eye to try to keep my eyeball moist.  You don’t realize how many times a minute you blink to lubricate your eye until your eye no longer closes on its own.  I used eye drops and ointment to keep it moist.  At night I put on a pirate patch and stuffed gauze inside to fill the gap between the patch and my eye to keep my eye closed and protected.  My son was really into pirates and he loved it.  He thought I was playing dress up with him, until I cried.  Then he’d lay his little 5 year old head on me and tell me that it was ok. 

                My son had just started kindergarten and my daughter was 10 months old.  I couldn’t take care of them.  It was like having the worst migraine you’ve ever had in your face and head, every day.  I had no relief and didn’t know when it would end.  I took a few left over prescription pain pills I had lying around and they didn’t relieve me from any pain and only put me to sleep.  I took more of them with Ibuprofen, Advil, Excedrin, Tylenol and nothing worked.  I couldn’t understand why.  When I told the Doctor at a follow up appointment with tears in my eyes of my pain, he told me bluntly that it was nerve pain and that nothing could be done.  I told him of the shooting pains that had just started going down my left arm and leg.  The Doctor told me that they had nothing to do with my Bells Palsy and he didn’t anticipate needing to see me again, that it should all clear up very soon.  Really?  Thanks for your concern. 

                I didn’t make any effort to see him or any other doctor about it again.  Instead, an acquaintance suggested acupuncture.  I was not someone who believed in any sort of natural medicine but I was desperate.  The acupuncture was amazing!  The needles don’t really hurt going in because they are very tiny.  Every time I had acupuncture my face hurt worse and I got really tired.  I often fell asleep in the car on the way home, I wasn’t driving of course.  But several hours later, I had relief from the pain.  The pain never went away but it was diminished for a few days. 

                I realized that nerve pain is different than our aches and pains we get in our body.  I couldn’t take any medicine to make it better.  I cried a lot.  I prayed a lot.  I used cold packs and hot packs for comfort.   I wasn’t sure how long I could live with the pain. 

                 I was very sensitive to sound.  My magic number on my TV was 11.  If the volume was turned up past 11, it hurt.  It’s still that way when I get really bad headaches and migraines.  The nerve pain and droop lasted about 4 weeks.  It was the worst 4 weeks of my life.  I know that sounds dramatic, but its true.  I had a lot of help those weeks with my kids and I’m very grateful for it. 

                It’s now been four and a half years since I got Bell’s Palsy.  My smile is still crooked and I can always feel that the left side of my face is there.  Most people aren’t aware of their cheekbone or left forehead, but I can always feel mine.  Like a warm, slightly painful glow.  Almost like someone smacked me.

                 I have good days and bad days.  The good days, I’m just aware of my left side of my face.  The bad days, I feel like I’ve been hit with that two by four again, my teeth hurt like I’ve got a mouth full of cavities (of course only on the left side), I have a horrible headache, my eye won’t close all the way when I try to sleep, and sometimes I even have pain under my ear.  I’ve come to realize that my memory has worsened too.  If I have a bad face day, as I call it, aka a bad Bell’s Palsy day, it seems that I have scattered thoughts.  Some may say that’s just because I have kids, but it got a lot worse after the Bell’s.  I forgive very easily because I forget so quickly, and even quicker when I’m tired.  I’ll remember that I’m mad at my husband the next day about something, but I can’t remember what.  Lucky him, I guess.