Prior to facial paralysis, I was a really expressive person. I mean, I was animated. I was able to display the most subtle of emotions through my eyes, for example. Life wasn't easy as I had already dealt with life altering injuries but, as challenging as other physical injuries were, I had access to the same personality, the same emotional expressiveness, the ability to produce happy chemicals and easy non-verbal human connection. My face allowed me to meditate, to feel peace, to laugh, to sing and to be playful. It allowed me to drive, to feel the wind on my face, to brush my teeth and swish water, to blink -- oh God, to blink. Blinking: it's a magical thing no one ever thinks about. There's a reason why we've heard about people being tortured by having their eyelids forced open. 

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I developed facial paralysis in March, 2018. I thought it was going to be temporary and I ended up being fully paralyzed for three months before regaining some movement. Between three and six months post onset, I had big hopes that my face was coming back to a more normal state. By October, I knew it wouldn't. Something worse than paralysis seemed to be forming: synkinesis. I was at a loss to fight it as it took on a life of its own and contorted my face into something as unrecognizable to me as the paralysis itself. It came with the knowledge that there were muscles I would not be able to access like before, not only because of synkinesis, but because of paresis. Paresis is partial paralysis rather than full paralysis. Some things just didn't come back online the way they had been online prior to the facial nerve injury.

 

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