Would you Rather....?

 

"I would rather have diabetes than I would Bell's Palsy," I cried to my husband last night. 

It hurt to cry, because the left side of my face has to carry the weigh, and everything twists and contorts. 

The indignities are multiple. The first of these is how it seems so many people refuse to understand the human, absolutely devastating elements about BP.  Especially the medical field. 

So far (as an "expert" two days in) it feels like BP is generally recognized as a cosmetic thing, a minor thing.  Almost no-thing.  Sure, the person will look a bit different, but it will (mostly and maybe and sometimes or never) go away.  

So what's the big deal?  

Well...most of the indignities come down to basic human functions and habits, that are suddenly not-so-basic.  

Brushing Your Teeth
Brushing my teeth triggered my melt down.  It's a little harder to manage the toothbrush, but it's a LOT harder to spit out the tooth pace. It splatters to the left, only with great effort.  And when you fail spitting, as I have been doing, you feel pretty inept and worthless. 

Eating 
Your mouth doesn't work the same.  Food dribbles out.  You find that you can't chew properly, or at all.  Some foods--don't even try.  So far, I am finding air is the best for my emotional state. 

Food gets trapped on the right side, and there is no good way to sweep in there and get it out.  If it's not okay to pick spinach out of your teeth, it's really not okay to go mining for food in the culvert between your lips and gums. 

There are tapes, and tricks, etc. to help--but I am not there yet. 

Drinking 
Drinking relies on the ability to make a vacuum with your lips.  And this relies on both sides of one's face working together, in harmony, like Ebony and Ivory. 

That is not happening. It's less awful than the eating, but still a challenge. Sometimes a straw works and sometimes it doesn't.  My hubby did a straw run Tuesday night, and I did some Wine Wednesday side-by-side tasting practices: wine with.a straw (cleverly rigged by hubby), and wine without a straw.  The verdict: neither was great.

Choosing What and When and Where to Eat

The "what" is overwhelming, not only because of what I said above, but because a lot of the "good" choices for BP are the "bad" choices for diabetes.  For example, mashed potatoes are squishy and easy to chew--but certainly not a good carb choice for my vacationing pancreas.  Ditto for noodles, which I soon proved with a very high blood sugar after supper (exacerbated by other factors as well). 

Sheer mouth maneuverability is another issue.  Last night, wracked with steroid-induced high-blood sugar naseau, I headed for the pretzels and salt.  And I walked away, and chose--yup--air. 

Choosing What and When and Where to Eat is already a big part of my life as a diabetic.  It is often annoying--depending on the whims and flexibility of others, or on limited menus.  But what I did not have to figure in was the self-esteem and social component.  And this, honestly, terrifies me beyond....anything.  

It's one thing, as a professional adult, to make a mess shoving my face with salad in my office. It's another thing to sit, for instance, at a catered meal with other professionals, having no choice in the meal except to 1)  eat it and feel like everyone is watching and that I am embarrassing myself (because I will) or 2) simply feed off the smells and enjoy a meal of safe, low-cal oxygen. 

I am not usually a fearful person. And I know from long experience testing my blood sugars and taking insulin in restaurants that no one notices anything.  But the anxiety about eating in public at times breaks me.  So, for the above catered meal (upcoming this week) I talked to the host to find out the menu.  It actually had good options for chewing.  Except for the salad, which is almost impossible, with the disparate textures and shapes.  Hard to get in the mouth, and hard to remove discretely when it wanders into the corners.  

In my pre-BP days (as in, three days ago) I already was something of food calculator, considering things like insulin, menu, carb, stress, exercise: "if I eat X and do Y insulin, I can skip the treadmill," etc.  But now there are more calculations: "If I get red wine, will I end up wearing it?" "What if...."?  

Regarding the catered dinner, above, I am grateful to have COVID.  I'll probably be in the "mask" phase by then, but it's still a great reason to sit this one out.  But there are so many others.  Each time I think of eating in public, I cry. Each time I eat--or brush my teeth--I cry.  It just happens.  I am not trying to be a wimp or self-pitying.

And--funnily--I have not actually eaten out yet. I am doing the thing I tell my students not to do: worrying about scenarios that have not happened. 

All of this is so raw and new.  I am sure that I will learn to adjust.  That is what humans do, and some day Bell's Palsy will just be a part of me and my routine, just like with diabetes.  It's just a thing I do, and sometimes get annoyed with, but it's also just routine--the same old, same old, for over 30 years. 

Diabetes only took my pancreas.  Bell's Palsy took my face.