Bell’s Palsy Anniversary

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of waking up with Bell’s Palsy.

Even though I’ve talked about having bell’s palsy on the blog I don’t think I have recorded the full events.

I want to also include the progress that I’ve made.

I haven’t fully recovered and I don’t know if I ever will, but I have made great improvements and I want to focus on that.

The night of June 10th, 2013 I was 8 months pregnant with Hank and started to get an ear ache.

The ear ache lead to a terrible headache.

I decided to take some Tylenol, go to bed and see how I felt in the morning.

When I woke up I didn’t think much about how I felt the night before.

Instead I went to the kitchen and poured a bowl of cereal.

When I took a bite, the milk ran all over the place and that’s when I realized my mouth wasn’t working.

I went to the bathroom and noticed my face was really droopy and my cheek and ear felt numb.

 

{One of the last pics of my smile before the bell’s palsy, 7&1/2 months pregnant with Hank}

I called Jared who had left for a week long scout camp that morning and told him what was going on.

From what I told him he said it sounds like I have bell’s palsy and that I need to get into the Dr. right away to make sure it wasn’t a stroke.

Coincidentally, Jared has bell’s palsy twice in his life, each time lasting three weeks so he knew that it was a possibility when I described my symptoms.

I called my OBGYN (since I was pregnant) and they wanted me to come in right away.

On the drive over, my eye kept watering like crazy and I had to keep wiping it with a tissue.

Once there they did some simple nerve testing to determine it was in fact Bell’s Palsy.

They said I could go to the ER if I wanted to do more thorough testing, but I nixed that idea.

They said that women are three times more likely to get bell’s palsy when pregnant, but they have never had a case come through their office.

Lovely.

I sat and waited while they researched and called other offices to see what the best course of treatment would be.

By this point, my eye was really bothering me and the whole right side of my face was numb, including my ear, right nostril, right eyebrow and half of my tongue.

They gave me some prescriptions to get filled and said that it was just a waiting game for it to come back and that hopefully after the baby was born it would return.

The cause of bell’s palsy is unknown, but they say it can be related to stress. (I was pretty anxious during my pregnancy after the loss of Ruby).

A lot of the time a virus that lies dormant in everyone’s body decides to attack the facial nerve for some reason.

Everyone I talked to thinks that the combination of being pregnant, along with the anxiety I was feeling about the arrival of Hank probably caused the virus to attack.

By the time I got home I couldn’t blink my eye at all and it was getting really irritated.

My mom came over to help with Luke and two of Jared’s brothers came to give me a blessing.

Since my eye wasn’t blinking I had to start wearing an eye patch and ointment to keep it from drying out.

I would have to manually blink it on a regular basis and tape it shut at night while I slept.

That eye ointment became my best friend for the next 4-5 months.

Over the next few weeks I met with doctors including a neurologist who confirmed I had bell’s palsy and that I was getting the right treatment.

She also said that it would just take time and that it would eventually come back.

I was hopeful.

Within a week or so I got use to driving while only being able to see out of one eye.

 

After about 4&1/2 months without seeing any sign of improvement I took the advice of a high school friend and booked an appointment with a Chiropractor to see if he could help.

He started doing a red light therapy along with nerve stimulation and after 3 appointments he had my eye twitching.

Yay!

And by the 5th appointment my eye was blinking enough that I no longer needed the eye ointment or patch.

Which also meant I could finally wear eye makeup again.

Another yay.

 

I was just wishing I had gone to see him earlier!

He also helped the muscles in my jaw so that I no longer had that “I’ve been to the dentist all day” type of feeling.

My face started to tighten up and I didn’t have the droopy look anymore.

After about 3 months of treatment with him I started to plateau in my progress and no longer was seeing any results.

Although I was extremely grateful for the progress he had given me, I decided to seek out other options.

I went to a energy healer for about 6 weeks and unfortunately didn’t see any result with that.

I also tried another chiropractor that did acupuncture.

I didn’t see huge results with that either but I think it did help a little.

So after a year with bell’s palsy here is a list of my progress:

-can blink/twitch my eye enough to keep it lubricated without ointment

-can lift my right eyebrow ever so slightly

-can flare my nostril (awesome, I know)

-can lift the right corner of my mouth ever so slightly when I smile

-no longer have an ear ache

-no longer have jaw pain

-the metallic taste in my mouth is gone

-can drink out of a straw if I use the left side of my mouth

-can chew gum on the right side of my mouth

Yay for progress.

I never in a million years would have thought that I would still have bell’s palsy a year after the onset.

I was so hopeful it would go away after Hank was born.

However, I have made great strides with it and I know it could always be worse.

I have struggled the most with my smile.

I can’t smile like I use to and every picture I see of myself looks funny to me.

Everyone is always so encouraging that I look great, but when I see my half-crooked smile I don’t see me.

I have a hard time thinking that my kids will never know me with a smile.

It has been hard some days.

In the beginning it was really hard.

I felt awkward and embarrassed talking to people with a funny looking face.

A few weeks ago I started listening to the Mormon Channel every morning while getting ready for the day.

I have loved a series they have called Enduring It Well.

They interview someone that has had a certain trial or difficulty in their life and how they are handling it.

The guests range in trials from someone who lost their arm & leg from a spider bite, infertility and child loss, cancer, burn victim, a child in jail, accidentally overdose and so on.

Oh boy has this put my trial into perspective.

Even though it is hard to imagine what some are going through, it really is an uplifting message.

It has been helping me see things differently.

I have a great life.

Beautiful children, a loving husband (who has been a huge support through all of this) and a healthy, capable body.

So I can’t smile like I use to.

That’s okay.

Yes, I will need to keep reminding myself of this, but I really have been blessed.

Small miracle and tender mercies show me that I can handle this.

I could be dealing with so much more and yet I’m not while other people do.

Maybe I’ll get my smile back someday and maybe it will never come back.

Slowly, but surely I’m getting use to my new face.