It was a Thursday morning and I was brushing my teeth getting ready to bring Lil B to school. What seemed like the normal day routine for me was about to go completely south. As I began to scrape my tongue during brushing, I noticed, it was crooked. I wasn't doing it intentionally but every time I stuck out my tongue, I saw the same thing. I proceeded on with my day, kept looking in the mirror to see same thing and just felt off. This was the beginning of a two day process that landed me in the ER the day of Lil B's graduation from pre K.
Fast forward to Saturday and my house was filled with family celebrating Lil B, I still felt off and overly emotional. My speech felt odd, like I was grinding/gnashing my teeth when I spoke. When I ate, food would get stuck on side of my teeth and I just kept feeling this dreaded feeling. My sister in law encouraged me to go to the ER. Off my mother in law, sister and law and I went. Once we arrived, they went over my vitals and took one look at me. By this time, as I smiled, my left side of my face didn't lift. The nurses were sure Bells Palsy but my crooked tongue made them question if I had a stroke. I was 38!! Please Jesus don't tell me I had a stroke !
I was pretty scared, my sister ended up coming and then my in laws switched off to have my husband there with me too. Because the doctors weren't sure if I had a stroke they wanted more testing... cat scans, x-rays, blood work, and then more puzzled doctors later then confirmed Bells Palsy.They gave me heavy doses of medicine to take to help and told me to follow up with a neurologist.
The scary thing with Bells, is they don't exactly know where it comes from if it's not connected to Lyme's Disease. Most doctors won't connect it to stress either. But I knew, it was stress related. I was scared and knew my life needed to change drastically, but at that moment I didn't realize just how much change was about to happen.
All I could think of was Lil B and Mr B... how on earth could I get sick and what if something more pressing was wrong? The week between my diagnosis and the neurologist appointment, I took pictures of my face, sent photos daily to my mom and husband, sometimes 3 or 4 at a time showing the progression of my face. By the time the neurologist appointment came on Friday, my face and tongue were some what back to itself.
After the week was over, I fell into a deep depression for about a month or two. I was really low. I knew that what had gotten me to this point was stress. I had been dealing with a 6 month process of setting Lil B up for his upcoming school year in regards to his allergies. After months of research, paperwork, phone calls, meetings, time off from work... I think I just "cracked." I knew I needed to alleviate stress and make new strides on my own.
This forced me to make changes, some I may not have been ready to make on my own. I began to diet, I began to exercise, and I removed people in my life that I knew I could no longer keep. I realized who had my back and sadly, who did not. This was tough. This hurt tremendously. But I knew I had to do it. I knew I had to reevaluate many relationships I was in that I may not have been a priority at all. I made my "tribe" smaller and I realized exactly who mattered.
A year later, it still is an emotional memory for me. But I am happy it's a memory and I am happy I am a completely different person than I was then. Honestly, it was pretty therapeutic to write this. Maybe someone out there will find it going through Bells and find comfort. I know when I had it I searched the web for people with similar experiences too.
I am not sharing this because I want anyone to feel bad for me, I am sharing because I want people to see that in darkness, we can become better and stronger. I did. A girl who is extremely afraid of change, did it.
We all have our things that pull us down. But what we do when we are down there is what matters.
Fast forward to Saturday and my house was filled with family celebrating Lil B, I still felt off and overly emotional. My speech felt odd, like I was grinding/gnashing my teeth when I spoke. When I ate, food would get stuck on side of my teeth and I just kept feeling this dreaded feeling. My sister in law encouraged me to go to the ER. Off my mother in law, sister and law and I went. Once we arrived, they went over my vitals and took one look at me. By this time, as I smiled, my left side of my face didn't lift. The nurses were sure Bells Palsy but my crooked tongue made them question if I had a stroke. I was 38!! Please Jesus don't tell me I had a stroke !
I was pretty scared, my sister ended up coming and then my in laws switched off to have my husband there with me too. Because the doctors weren't sure if I had a stroke they wanted more testing... cat scans, x-rays, blood work, and then more puzzled doctors later then confirmed Bells Palsy.They gave me heavy doses of medicine to take to help and told me to follow up with a neurologist.
The scary thing with Bells, is they don't exactly know where it comes from if it's not connected to Lyme's Disease. Most doctors won't connect it to stress either. But I knew, it was stress related. I was scared and knew my life needed to change drastically, but at that moment I didn't realize just how much change was about to happen.
All I could think of was Lil B and Mr B... how on earth could I get sick and what if something more pressing was wrong? The week between my diagnosis and the neurologist appointment, I took pictures of my face, sent photos daily to my mom and husband, sometimes 3 or 4 at a time showing the progression of my face. By the time the neurologist appointment came on Friday, my face and tongue were some what back to itself.
After the week was over, I fell into a deep depression for about a month or two. I was really low. I knew that what had gotten me to this point was stress. I had been dealing with a 6 month process of setting Lil B up for his upcoming school year in regards to his allergies. After months of research, paperwork, phone calls, meetings, time off from work... I think I just "cracked." I knew I needed to alleviate stress and make new strides on my own.
This forced me to make changes, some I may not have been ready to make on my own. I began to diet, I began to exercise, and I removed people in my life that I knew I could no longer keep. I realized who had my back and sadly, who did not. This was tough. This hurt tremendously. But I knew I had to do it. I knew I had to reevaluate many relationships I was in that I may not have been a priority at all. I made my "tribe" smaller and I realized exactly who mattered.
A year later, it still is an emotional memory for me. But I am happy it's a memory and I am happy I am a completely different person than I was then. Honestly, it was pretty therapeutic to write this. Maybe someone out there will find it going through Bells and find comfort. I know when I had it I searched the web for people with similar experiences too.
I am not sharing this because I want anyone to feel bad for me, I am sharing because I want people to see that in darkness, we can become better and stronger. I did. A girl who is extremely afraid of change, did it.
We all have our things that pull us down. But what we do when we are down there is what matters.
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