Your name is Gimpy! No! Kunta Kinte!

I'm tired, and I want to watch movies and snuggle with my wee family. So, I give you an oldie but a goodie.

May 3, 2006

I had a few questions about a blog where I mentioned my run-in with Bell's Palsy. Yes, I am afflicted with the palsy of bells. Otherwise known as peripheral facial palsy. It is a partial paralysis of one side of the face, the result of inflammation of the nerves entering the skull. It started the summer after 8th grade. I tried to brush my teeth one morn, but ended up squirting water all over the mirror while I swished the water in my mouth. I though, huh, that's odd. Then it happened again. Then, I was reading a book, and my vision got all funkified. Eventually I noticed that the right side of my face was not responding. I smiled, and only the left side of my mouth would go up. I blinked, and I was winking.

Crazy stuff, man. My mom thought I had a stroke. I couldn't even taste food for awhile on the right side of my tongue. We had hamburger the first night of my affliction. On the left side, my tastebuds said "Yummy yummy burger!" On the right side, cold cream.

I had to do all kinds of funky facial exercises to get my muscles working again. It was a fairly traumatic experience for a 14 year old girl entering her first year of high school. My father, attempting to be funny, called me Quasimoto.

I had never heard of Bell's Palsy before, but apparently lots of folks get it. The unlucky ones sometimes get it on both sides of the face - stonefaced, basically. I heard that a local San Antonio news anchor had it, too. I wrote her a letter to try to get some kind of comradery and to quell my fears, but she never responded. Damn you, Blanca Santos!

It was definitely no fun to have it in school. I started high school marching band a month before school began. I had been first chair clarinet most of junior high (alright, it was a battle of 1st and 2nd between me and the Scharf throughout junior high, but she switched to percussion eventually, so...I won! Haw haw haw haw!). I had to explain to our band director that I was unable to play most of the notes, but I could play the upper register and some lower notes by holding the clarinet and playing with my left hand, while I held my mouth tight around the mouthpiece with my right hand. Try to imagine that, folks. Ol' Gimpy tootin' on her horn, only playing the notes in the songs that could be played with the left hand. Oh, and I squinted mercilessly when I played. I looked like I was about to pass out or I was really constipated.

The majority of the effects went away within 6 months, but I have some residual effects left over. When I try to do a full smile, my mouth doesn't quite do it. I can't pucker up and leave a pretty lipstick mark on the mirror. Sometimes my nose or undereye area will twitch when I'm tired or angry. But, the worst effect that bothers me constantly is the drippy right eye. My doctor said that surgery won't fix the drain in my eye that is supposed to drain the tears. So, I drip, and people think I am weepy. Argh. Ah, and when I try to play the clarinet, I am still Squinty McGimpy.

In the 9th grade I had to sit last chair in the clarinet section as much worse players sat ahead of me. It was so degrading, I thought. The band director was not going to give this gimp a leg up. Eventually, I moved up and up. I finally worked my way back to first chair and could play with both hands, control my mouth, but still squint. It was a proud moment for me. I still would get deathly embarrassed when people would stare at my squinty face and ask if I was alright. Also, sitting first chair meant that no matter if I was on the second row of the orchestra with the rest of the clarinets or on the first row with the flutes, I was always the first chair on the right side of the row - with the right side of my face toward the audience. So, unsuspecting audience members would get a full glimpse of the freak on the end of the row who really seemed to need to take a shit. Argh. This is the main reason I didn't go on to play the clarinet in college. I couldn't take a whole new crop of people interrogating me about my shit face.

Having Bell's Palsy was a huge dent in my self-esteem. People would tell me what a pretty girl I was, but I would cringe and blush, hiding my mouth with my hand when I laughed. I acted like a shy Japanese teen. It's still hard to take compliments, but now I laugh with a gaping maw. If you get a load of the palsy mouth, well, you're just going to have to stare at it. I'm not hiding it anymore. Most folks now say that they can't tell that I have it, so I give them the palsy grin or palsy pucker.

Years later I found out that the likely cause of my Bell's Palsy was a head injury. I did, in fact, have a concussion in the previous spring from a bad fall during track practice. It prevented me from going on to become a record setter for the school and an eventual Olympian. Maybe? Maybe not. I was also told that I should have had a brain scan because the palsy can have damaging effects if not found right away. Huh. I guess that explains a few things, eh? Stress is a big factor as well. I was also an extreme overachiever in school, and the last few months of the 8th grade, I fought to raise my grades so that I could be valedictorian at my junior high graduation. I was salutatorian instead, despite the stress and hard work I had placed upon myself. Palsy face ensued. Have I mentioned I'm a big nerd? I guess you didn't need to be told by now.

I will need to be careful if I ever get pregnant, as Bell's Palsy has the nasty habit of popping up more frequently in pregnant women. I'll have to watch my stress levels and try to not bop my cranium again. Many people do have reoccurrences of Bell's Palsy. Fun for me, eh?

One of the interesting things that came from my time with Bell's Palsy is that I have a very expressive face. People always tell me how interesting it is to watch my facial reactions as I speak. It turns out that George Clooney had it, too. Watch his facial expressions in Oh, Brother. Where Art Thou? and I think you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about. Huh. I guess I should have been an actor.

So, now you can add me to your list of people with Bell's Palsy. Raymond Scott, Sylvester Stallone, George Clooney, Ralph Nader, Roger Ebert, and me. What a group.

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I did not have another bout of Bell's Palsy when I was pregnant, just to let ya know.