Bell's Palsy: Because Just Being Pregnant Wasn't Hard Enough By Itself

No cutesy intro to this one.

Friday morning, I woke up with a rather irritating pain in my ear, along with a tingling sensation across the left side of my face. My tongue was numb as well, but I chalked that up to the delicious leftover gyro I had for breakfast that I heated for far too long in the microwave.

Oh, yummy gyro, why would you burn me when all I want to do is love you?

Grey's parents were visiting from Nebraska, so I decided to try to not make a big deal out of it. I had been clenching my jaw while I slept, which I have never done before, so I figured that's where the weird face feelings were coming from.

It being the 4th of July, we hopped in the car to hit up the beach. The entire time I was getting more and more anxious, since I was beginning to lose the ability to wink in my left eye, and it seemed like I was talking more heavily out of the right side of my mouth. When we posed for a picture at the beach, I noticed that I actually could not smile with the left side, at all, which was horrifying.

There are several things on Friday that I would have done differently, and this moment was one of them. I did not go to the ER right when I noticed that I had lost complete control of half of my face. I didn't want to ruin the day out, and since my face did not appear to be drooping at all, I pretty much brushed it aside and tried to ignore the problem, hoping it would go away. It wasn't until about three hours later that I finally insisted on going somewhere to get looked at. Since it was Bell's Palsy, there wasn't anything that could have been done within those three hours to have really made a difference, but if had been something worse, I may have caused myself more harm by not wanting to be a drag on the day.

I was making myself sad, so here's a kitty.

However, I did end up doing to the hospital, where I got diagnosed with the fun affliction known as Bell's Palsy. Wheeeeeeee.

What is Bell's Palsy, you ask? Well, since I am now a lot more learned about it than I was just a week ago, allow me to learn you all a little something.

Bell's Palsy is a disorder that goes after the nerve that controls your face. This leads to weakness, or in my case, complete paralysis of one side of the face. No one is quite sure what causes it, though it is guessed that it is caused by a variant of the herpes virus, which means there is a good chance I have herpes in my face, which is gross. It's also much more likely to hit people who are diabetic, or, lucky me, women in their third trimester of pregnancy.

Wheeeee.

Another "fun" fact regarding Bell's Palsy; there's no real method of curing the disorder. It comes as it pleases, and leaves the same way. A good chunk of people who have had it being to start seeing recovery within two weeks to a month, but some people don't see real improvement for six month to a year. A few don't even recover at all, and there is really nothing you can do, medication or therapy wise, that is proven to be effective in all cases.

Now, me being the over-researcher that I am, found that a round of steroids has been shown to help at least improve your chances of recovering quickly and completely. I did not receive those from the doctor I saw on Friday, since she was afraid of what it might do to the baby.

This leads me to the second thing that I would have done differently; if you are pregnant, and at the the ER, INSIST that they call an OB to get an opinion. The person I saw was not a trained OB, and knew so little about Bell's Palsy that she left the room to go read an article about the disorder. An OB would have been able to tell her exactly what to do and what was safe for the baby, since this is something that they do see on an occasional basis. I almost missed my window of opportunity to take the steroids (you should begin the treatment within 72 hours for it to do any good), and all because I saw someone who didn't think to ask an expert who would have easily been on call.

Oh, and steroids are totally fine in the third trimester, by the way. I went in again to the ER on Sunday, determined to get some medication, and the doctor I saw actually had the sense to check with the OB on call. So wooooooooo taking lots of pills that don't affect my baby, but hopefully do fix my face.

What with hypermesis gravidarum and now this joyous experience, this is kinda what breakfast looks like now.

Side note. If you are doctor and someone comes in with half of their face not moving, that is an inappropriate time for jokes. I mentioned that I didn't have a new driver's license for Michigan yet, and would probably be waiting until the Bell's hopefully cleared up before going to get a new one. His response was, "Well, at least you'd be easily recognizable if it does stay that way."

What I should have done. Instead, I just burst into tears, which was actually just as effective.

So yeah. Bell's Palsy.

....

Man, guys, this sucks so freaking hard. Like, really, this pregnancy has been really goddamn hard. I throw up all the time still, I can't poop, my heartburn is barely in check, I can't sleep, but I could deal with all of that, especially since Ripley is doing so well. It was manageable, and there was a light at the end of the tunnel and I was so close to it. Five weeks, and I could switch all that out (except for the sleeping bit) for a little mini pooping human.

Now this.

I am trying really hard to stay positive, though. It doesn't do me much good to get super depressed about this, and as much as I would like to stay inside and just hide until I am looking a tiny bit more normal, that just isn't an option for me.

The outside world is where you go to get slushies, and slushies are too delicious to deny.

Plus, I find myself thinking about the type of person I want my kid to see me as. If I hide away and allow myself to get completely swallowed up by this, what does that show Ripley about strength and determination? It's okay to cry, and it's okay to be sad, but I don't want her to think that the best way to get through a bad time is to sit and be consumed.

So, I'm going to get up every morning, take my giant handful of pills, put on eyeliner even if my left eye is not cooperating, and keep living, not just for me, or Grey (who has been amazing with all my emotions and hormones and crying at least three times a day), but for the person we're bringing into the world.

Also, the cats wouldn't leave me alone if I stayed in bed all day being sad, because that would mean a possibility of an empty food bowl.

Pictured: Cat hell.

On the plus side, I can use this as my smiley face emoticon now ----> :/







Oh, and I made a video on YouTube for this as well, which can be found here.

Oh oh, I have a Facebook page for the blog too, so you can like that too, if you want.