Bell's Palsy; Day Four

            Today was a watershed. Symptoms continue to increase and my face is clearly noticeable. The last couple of days, my sense was, "OK, this is inconvenient, but at least I'm not becoming a slack-faced pathetic creature."
           Today, I'm a slack-faced object of pity.

            Another breakfast appointment with a retired pastor – so someone who is very sympathetic. This time I did not bother to eat the English muffin that I’d ordered. I realized that I could not - at least, not in front of people - eat: even with my friend.

            It was my regularly scheduled day for a spiritual retreat so I drove up to the place. That was rather challenging. I was able to drive effectively, but it took A Lot of concentration. Once I got to my retreat site,  adjusting the eye patch seemed a nearly constant thing. I realized that I was not going to get any better as the day progressed so after lunch, drove back. Driving took so much out of me that I napped for two hours. And I’m the guy who loves to do long distance driving.

            I realized that I’m now grounded.

            A couple of weeks ago, I had been invited to attend a poetry reading for tonight where one of my parishioners was participating. It was going to held in the downtown area. OK, *maybe* I could make it down there driving myself, but driving back at night would be a Very Bad Idea. I sent an apologetic message via Facebook that I would not be able to attend, but then my wife said she’d drive me down. So I went and, as much as I could enjoyed the event. But I could not be sociable with anyone else there except, briefly, with our friend.

            Now I can’t travel without being chauffeured.
So I cannot be sociable  cannot converse, cannot share a meal, cannot independently visit people, I cannot preach. As a face-to-face pastor, I'm suddenly unable to do my "job." As I mentioned on Twitter. This is the first time I have had an illness that kept me from doing my job, even though I did not actually feel bad.