08 April 2007

Bell's Palsy, The Chronicles, Part 8

As I stated in other posts, I was in Florida for a week for my cousin's wedding, which I was nervous about because I felt like I still looked weird from the BP. I'd had some progress, but my smile was still crooked and my bad eye looked like it was bulging.

When I met my mother at the airport, she kept studying my face, trying to see the BP. You know how mothers are, but I hadn't seen her since it started, so she was going by what my face normally looks like. She said that when I blinked, she noticed that my bad eye didn't blink as much. It was late at night, and my face was tired, so I decided to give it a good rest before really thinking about it.

The next day, after almost 12 hours of sleep, it was dramatically better. I don't know if it was because I was in a warm environment or what, but my eye was almost normal. My smile was another story, but the muscles were certainly strengthening. A couple of days later was the rehearsal dinner, and I was terrified. I was about to see most of my extended family and meet a bunch of people I didn't know. For better or worse, I tried not to smile too much. I wore my glasses so that a) people wouldn't notice my bad eye, and b) to protect my eye and keep it moist. Just about everyone in my extended family knew about the BP, and said it looked fine or that they didn't notice it. One of my brothers said he was expecting much worse, and told me everything looked okay. The wedding was the next night, and was much the same.

Friends of mine said they noticed a little something, but it was not ugly or disfiguring. Maybe they're a little more honest than my family? All I know is that, now that I'm back in Virginia, it seems to be regressing a bit. We had a very cold snap the day after I returned, and I wonder if that is making things worse. Maybe it's being at work again, staring at a computer screen all day. I'm not resting as much as I was in Florida, so I spent most of yesterday (Saturday) horizontal to give my eye a break. This week we're expecting warmer weather, so I'll see what happens. In the meantime, I'm exercising my smile and trying to blink my bad eye while holding my good eye closed. I may try some moist heat today.

It is day 61 of my BP.

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