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| Your pal-sy, Horatio the half-smiling hombre. |
Bell's Palsy. It's palsy-ble that I have it.
Ha
Starting off the post with a horri-Bell pun just so to dim the lights to a less intimidating ambiance. Now that the serious socks are off, grab some gummy worms, sit back and delve digitally into my lame, literary lash-out on this particular patch that's presently plaguing a part of my pirate-faced phase.
Bell's Palsy is the partial (or in rare cases, full) temporary weakness or paralysis of the face. This happens when the nerve that controls your facial muscle is inflamed or compressed. The cause is unknown.
You better Bell-ieve it.
You better Bell-ieve it.
As for my case, it's the right side of the face that has become unresponsive. Someone held a remote to half of my face and pressed "pause" and threw the remote into the oceanic abyss.
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| Look how one side is saying "Cheeeese" while the other is just "Oh..geez" |
This is how it all began ;
It was about one week ago , I was having lunch and wanted to go for a sip of a drink. I started noticing my frail facial fault when I was sucking through the straw, trying to quench myself with the goodness that is teh o' ais limau.
"Wait a stinking minute"
I stopped and realized that something felt off there. Optimum liquid suckage was not achievable. You can't seem to direct the airflow going through the straw.
You suddenly suck - at sucking.
Something's rather straw-nge.
What a mon-straw-city
Someone please straw-p this man
I didn't put any considerable amount of thought into this yet as I assumed I have slept too hard on one side of my face the night before.
There's always the reassurances. Always, the reassurances. The safety strap to stabilize one's sanity. The precautionary protocol to preserve one's perseverance to probable pain.
Days gone by and the right side of my face feels weaker and weaker. Up to a point where zero movement could be made (it was just weak at first but I could wink. Now it's totally frozen). It feels weird, channeling your inner mental strength to nudge the cheek but it just won't...budge. Signals are as unsent as a one-ticked WhatsApp wonder.
I bet everyone has tried moving an object with your mind after watching an X-men movie. Or any scene that involves telekinesis. Don't tell me you've never stared at a lone lighter on a table and have your eyebrows twitch and your eyeballs bulge thinking this will, out of some cosmic fluke, lightly rattle. Yeah it feels somewhat like that. The unseen effort felt like that. Brain was sending waves but my nerves were on airplane mode.
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| I'm actually mentally tickling the neck of the spoon |
I gathered my strength and what's left of my self-esteem to look into a mirror and tried to muster the biggest smile I could stretch and...
N O P E
Negative, Navigator.
No sir.
I look like straight up Two-Face.
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| Ramen-iscing the better times |
If I wore an eyepatch and have a bandanna-clad parrot perched on my shoulder, I'd definitely look like I sail the seven seas and reek of gunpowder.
ARR
Arguably, the hardest part of this whole ordeal is the inability to taste. For a dude who loves his food, this is a GARGANTUAN deal. Bell's Palsy closed the lights to the party that is my mouth. The primal link that connects man and food has been severed. The only part of my tongue that could taste is a small strip of surface on the left side and that's it. It's like throwing a party for twins, but only one twin gets the cake while the other gets mushy batter and tasteless paste. I now see mouth-watering food adverts online with violent envy and despair.
The little things, NEVER take them for granted my dudes.
Another thing to not take for granted is freaking BLINKING. Yes, BLINKING. The bodily process that is as natural as breathing. The act of flapping your eyelids to prevent your eyes from drying up. You don't really notice how subconsciously significant it is until a streak of tear trickles down from the corner of an eye that has been left unblinked for an extended period of time.
I am deeply sorry if ever this has made you consciously aware to the act of blinking thus making you blink manually.
He-he.
If I were to subconsciously blink, only my left side closes whereas the right remains creepily open. This is particularly, socially dangerous. If I am not careful, I might unknowingly wink continuously at a random bystander when the peripheral radius of our vision crosses.
Wink about how awkward that might be.
Naturally, it affects my sleep too. I can, by conscious command, close my right eyelid if I try to but it doesn't shut as tight as it should be. It feels less like an eye-lid but more of an eye-instant-noodle-cup-flap. But maybe, slightly sturdier. If I take a shower, water will still slush into my right eye despite being somewhat closed. Not up to the point where I can't sleep at all, it just takes a pretty long time. Seeing sun blades, slashing through night's end, slicing through my curtains' slit before I get to drift to slumber is a common affair.
It's particularly painless tho. So, I can chill with that. I still can look this Bell Palsy-bugger in it's drooping eye and say : "Hey' you're not so bad" and offers it a gum. But it ain't picking the flavour.
But you can't stay, sorry. I want to experience the full glory of sashimi melting on my taste mounds again.
I have gone to the doctor about it, twice. To two different doctors. It is confirmed that it is Bell's Palsy or as I'd like to say it - Vphell's Phalcy. Not because it sounds cooler or because it sounds like an extra-terrestrial villain - but because my inability to say certain alphabets properly.
I took Prednisone for three days and now I'm taking Neurobion (or vitamin B complex) to help the facial failure to firm up if anyone's asking. I was also advised to chew gum to exercise the facial muscles and I do actual facial exercises too.
I might have to do a CT scan soon to make sure this isn't a stroke or anything worse. I will keep you guys updated and in the meantime ;
Sanitize and stay sane.
