Personal Experiences with Bells and Facial Palsy
It was a dark and stormy night, not really I just always wanted to start a story like that. This is a tale of my experience with Bells Palsy; at least most of it, there�s always so much I can�t remember, the getting older thing. June 1998, the weather was great, and we were putting astro turf on the front porch, to jazz up that grey concrete. The next two days I didn�t feel very good, and started getting terrible shoulder and arm pain on my right side. To beat all, I had an eleven hundred mile trip to make to attend my younger brother�s wedding. Well, it sure made for an interesting car ride, I kept my arm either over my head or hanging out the window to try and be comfortable. I made it to my parent�s house, pretty worn out and sore, but so happy to see everyone. The night before the wedding, my youngest brother and I decided to go out for a while, say hello to old friends, and have some fun. As the night went on I found myself doing a lot of winking, which I am a winker by nature, but not this much, I was losing wink control. Being quite excited about seeing my family, friends, and the upcoming wedding I didn�t pay that much attention to it. Then came morning, as we gathered for breakfast, I noticed I felt very strange, to the mirror I went, and there it was, the droop, the eye not closing, something was definitely wrong. None of us had ever heard of BP, so we were all in shock. My mom kept telling me nothing was wrong, my eye was fine, this cannot happen today. After some reading in the family medical book, I found BP, the symptoms were the same, so I announced I had BP, nothing to worry about, we had a wedding to attend, of course I was not near that confident or secure inside. No one really noticed at the wedding, and afterwards I stopped at a friend�s house, before going to the reception, she told me I needed to wear a patch to protect my eye. So away I went to the reception, dressed all up, in heels and a nice black eye patch. Part of my wedding gift to my brother and his bride was a poem I wrote and framed, that I was to read, up on stage, in front of quite a few people. This proved to be challenging, but I got through it. Eating was impossible, by the time dinner arrived, I was a breaking point, the food went in one side and out the other. I lost it, so I grabbed my plate and went out to the car, where I sat on the hood and ate, or tried to eat. My mom, being the wonderful woman she is, also brought her dinner out and kept me company through my attempt at fine dining. Thinking back now, I can laugh, but at the time the worst part of the whole night was when my brother asked me what I was trying to pull, words to that effect. I have always been the big cut up and jokester, and I guess he figured I was wearing the patch to be funny, I believe he used the word pirate in there somewhere. I was devastated inside, wondering how could he think I would do this on purpose, I was scared to death, having no real idea what was going on with me, I had put it all aside for him, for his day. Like I said, I can laugh about now, he didn�t know, we hadn�t had a chance to speak before or after the wedding, and I was the clown. So the next day was spent at the emergency room, getting my eyes checked, my heart checked, nobody even there knew what was going on. Finally the diagnosis of BP, steroids, antivirals and a lot of pain pills were prescribed. Next was the eleven hundred drive home, with the eye patch, and all the other misery that goes with BP, I was so thankful that I didn�t have to do the driving. It took a couple of months but I recovered one hundred percent. But, back to the beginning of this tale, the astro turf, a year later we were putting a piece of that same green stuff in a camper, I went and helped, sat around talking, a lo and behold, Bells again a few days later!!! At least it was not as scary this time, it hit on the other side of my face, twice in twelve months was too much! More steroids and antivirals, better ones this time. I healed again, in a shorter time span than the previous bout, and figured that�s that! It was for five years. After having the flu for the last several winters, really bad, I decided to get a flu shot, ten days later, neck pain, shoulder pain, and a 24/7 headache, the worst I�ve ever had, this lasted for more than a week, then came my old enemy BP back for a visit. The trips to the doctors started getting complicated, mention of possible brain tumor, MRI being ordered, trips to a specialist, all I wanted was my antivirals and steroids, and oh yes, pain pills, because this really was the worst pain I ever had. After all that and many dollars later, the MRI showed no brain tumor, BUT, there�s always a but, a possibility of a neuroma on the facial nerve. Back into the medical books I poured, I didn�t have a computer then, and I started asking questions. I was told that BP causes inflammation on this nerve, which I already knew, but they couldn�t really tell if it was inflammation or a neuroma, because I had BP. Well, I thought to myself, why did we not wait to do the MRI after the BP had cleared, which they suggested another specialist and another MRI in a few months. I have had BP on both sides of my face, I am not a doctor, but it made no sense to me that a tumor on my facial nerve could cause BP on both sides, and why was I getting better? The options didn�t sound very good either, if I had one, and had it removed, the nerve damage would be permanent, which meant I would be paralyzed for good, if I didn�t have it removed, I would probably end up permanently paralyzed, and there�s no way anyone is cutting into my head on an exploratory mission. It was a very rough couple of months, both mentally and physically, I�ve always been so tough and this was starting to break me down. So after a lot of thinking and talking to loved ones I made a decision, I was not going back to the doctors, there is nothing in my head, aside from what�s supposed to be there, and no more feeling scared. It�s been four months, I�m pretty much back to normal, all movement is back, just some twitching and pain hanging around, but it�s nothing I can�t handle. One thing I realized, is that I must face the fact, that there is probably a chance that after three times, old BP will probably look for me again, but I�m not scared, I�ll be ready, and thanks to the people on the BP site, I am armed with even more knowledge now, and knowledge is POWER. BP won�t ever pull the rug out from under this ole gal�s feet again. And I lived happily ever after, always wanted to end a story with that too!
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