Bell's Palsy: Diagnosis Story

As I observed students puzzling through an intense experiential-learning activity with lots of steps and cranky technology, I became vaguely, and then acutely, aware, that my right eye was…pulsing? Tingling? Tulsing?  The sensation, whatever to call it, was not normal  And it was among the many other not normal sensations I had been experiencing: 

1. Exhibit A: An earache and sore throat, distinctly located on the right side of my head.  Developed midweek the week before. 

2. Exhibit B: A shape-shifting headache, also developed the week before.  The COVID-headache kind, without the COVID.  It had been a dull pulse above my right eye; then a band around my whole head; then a headache of the worse sinus infection variety.  By Monday drugs were not touching it.  Stabbing pains would wake me.  A dream in which I got shot in the head four times woke me up–the bullet pains were real.  Thank goodness the bullets were not. 

3. Exhibit C: The eye.

Now, I am Scandinavian.  I am a Minnesotan.  We are hardy souls.  

I am also diabetic. I have been diabetic longer than I was not diabetic. I truck on through due to necessity, temperament, and sheer stubbornness. 

So maybe I had been a little slow on the uptake that I should go to a doctor? 

My eye's disco beat rhythm decided that fact for me.  

Yesterday, there was no question. 

4: Exhibit...C 1/2: The eye, continued.  It still felt “funny.”  And…my eyelid would close but it was a struggle. 

And as if I needed encouragement: 

5. Exhibit D. For DANGER DANGER DANGER. My mouth.  I could not (as I apparently have the habit of doing) nibble my top lip while pondering deep thoughts, like "why is my honey so much at at Wordle than I am?"  

And when I put my lipstick on, I could not rub my lips together. 

I SOSed the Doc at 8 a.m., while schlepping my stuff up the hill to my office. I am so thankful for him and his staff.  They got me in for 3:00. 

I arrived at 2:45, and suffered through the most obnoxious toddler meltdown I have ever witnessed.  I felt for the mom, but my head (which had been pounding for a week) and my fears made me have to be a BIG GIRL and not join the toddler in her hysterics.  I DID IT!

My Dr. listened, asked questions, did the checklist thing, and even called a neurologist, because my symptoms seemed asymptomatic.  The headache did not fit...or maybe it did. It is a symptom, but I also had the possibility (and still do) of Lyme Disease. And, of course, COVID. (Which, guess what? I have as well. What, me? An over achiever?)

The Doc prescribed steroids, and instructed me to call my eye doctor.  For those even more new to Bell's Palsy than I am (meaning, as of October 26, 2022, less than 24-hours old in this misadventure): when the right side of your face does not work, your eyelid cannot close.  And your eyelids do the important work of blinking, to keep the eyes moist and protected.  Within the one hour I was at the doctor’s, my eye went from closing from ½ way, to ⅓, to not at all.  So despite the fact that I called the eye doc while waiting to wrap up at my current appointment, I hightailed it over for some eye protection. Then, the pharmacy.  Then home.  It was a full 2 ½ hours, to be sure.  And there was so much that I did not know I did not know (and so much I have learned since!)  Some of it is good, some of it not.  A lot of it is hard.  And it is all 24 hours old.