Bell's Palsy; Day Five

Well, today is my first day of full disability. What I mean by that is I realized I can't drive myself, I can't eat in polite company, can't speak without significant impediment, and my eye patch is no longer cool.

I would have gone to a breakfast appointment but cancelled due to my condition. As I mentioned yesterday, I just can’t eat in public – it would be too distracting for whomever I’m dining with.

My speech is noticeably slurred and it is difficult to speak. It is hard to understand me and it is hard for me to actually form my words.

I’m done with driving. I could drive in an emergency, but I now rely on my wife to take me around.

Here are a couple of thoughts:

·                     The nerve issue is a strange one. The condition is unique in that it is one of the few disease diagnosis that attacks a single nerve group. In this case, the seventh cranial nerve (hey, give me credit that I remembered that)

·                     The attack is thought to be viral – so there’s no real direct medicine that can heal, cure, fix, or resolve the matter. Just have to let it play out. The steriods merely attempt to encourage healing, not directly attack the disease

·                     The effect of the nerve attack is “valve-like.” Nerve function works one way, but not the other. Motor impulses do not get down the nerve pipe to the muscles, but sensation, feeling, and touch are not affected. Probably because they are different nerves. In any case, I can feel my wife’s kiss but I can’t kiss her back.

That valve or ‘diode’ like effect is intriguing.

Consider the analog to the human condition: we feel, but we can’t control. Much of human life is spent on the emotional, the sentimental, the relational, and the perceptive. We, even the most ‘rational’ among us, mostly “feel” our way through life. But so many things are beyond our control. We cannot make good things happen; we cannot prevent bad things from happening. Much of humanity’s sense of culture centers around our desire to control our environment and influence others. Many of our most profound thinkers suggest to us that control is an illusion. When we do, momentarily, achieve some kind of control, the satisfaction evaporates away. When tyrants achieve slavery of others (control), their souls are NOT thereby grown and made better. Yet, when we lose control, most of us lose the sense that we are fully alive. But we are still alive, because we can still FEEL pain, hope, frustration, blessing, and the like.

Feeling and control – life is tough.