Heartbreak Warfare

Drop his name. Push it in and twist the knife again. Watch my face as I pretend to feel no pain, pain, pain. 

I have Bell's Palsy. It started eleven days ago around noon with intense ear and jaw pain on my left side. I thought maybe it was an ear infection, perhaps a dental issue. I didn't eat lunch because I couldn't chew, but it wasn't until I was leaving work a few hours later that it occurred to me to take a look at what was going on. One glance in the mirror was enough for me to see that my mouth just didn't look right. I couldn't say for sure what was different, but it didn't look like my mouth.

If you've ever wanted to feel like an idiot, just get Bell's Palsy, look in the mirror and then try to remember what you normally look like. I've spent more of my life than I care to admit worrying about my looks, and when they change, I can't even remember them...

Fortunately, having a few friend's who've had it before, I had a good guess as to what it was that was causing my lip to droop into an unrecognizable form. I got myself to the clinic, where it was determined that I was in no imminent danger, and I scheduled an appointment with my doctor the following day. Sure enough, a day later when I had progressed to the point of resembling Popeye, the doctor took one look at me, smiled and said, "Bell's. When did the droop start?"

For those who don't know, Bell's Palsy is a form of temporary facial paralysis caused by compression on a nerve near your ear. That nerve controls the muscles on the side of the face, from the eyebrow down to the chin. When compressed, things don't flow; when things don't flow, muscles don't move. So, they droop. It can affect the entire side of the face or, as in my case, just part of it; mine has stayed between my mouth and my eye, leaving my forehead working just fine. When the whole side is paralyzed, one can't even wrinkle their forehead. Your eye might not close without force, often leaving it a bit dry, blurry and irritated. And mouths look plain old silly. It resembles how a stroke victim might look, except that it's exclusive to the face. There's really no danger to it, and it's not life-threatening. It's incredibly rare for it to occur bilaterally, or on both sides at the same time. Nearly 80% of cases clear up completely within six months, often starting after a few weeks. There's not much to do about it beyond manage the discomfort, and it does help to be proactive with acupuncture, which basically is voodoo magic that makes bodies work drastically better. 

It's fairly uncomfortable. My ear hurts. My face hurts at times. My Elvis lip on the non-BP side has gone wild, I think to compensate for the weight of my face pulling down on the BP side. My right eye is a bit blurry from popping open just a tiny bit on its own while I sleep. I've had some headaches, but it's nothing an Advil won't clear up. Acupuncture has been MARVELOUS, particularly when it came to putting my jaw back in the spot it's supposed to be in. I had a hard time remembering how my lips normally look, but it was no challenge at all to note that my jaw had moved about an inch to the right when I was pretty certain that it should fall more or less directly under the rest of my face. In fact, when I first went to the clinic, my best description of my symptoms was:
- "I feel like I went to the dentist, except I didn't go to the dentist."
and
- "My mouth has looked one way for 30 years, and this is not it."

Genius.

It's not clear exactly what causes it, and it can vary from person to person. Often, as I was diagnosed, they believe a virus somehow results in compression of the nerve. That might be what's showing up physically, but that's not where the Bell's Palsy stemmed from in my case. What's ailing me is nothing more than heartbreak. 

I wear my emotions on my sleeve, but I wear my heartbreak on my face. *wink*

Sorry, bad joke. But seriously, I'm very clear and can state with unabashed certainty that this, among several other physical ailments and challenges, is a residual impact of the trauma of Mark's suicide. I couldn't have known this before, even when people kept reminding me that it was okay to not be okay after going through such a TRAUMA. 

Everyone else in the first several months after Mark died:
-"Death is one thing, but you went through a TRAUMA!"
-"Remember, what you went through was TRAUMATIC. Take care of yourself."
-"Give yourself time to heal from the TRAUMA."
Me, completely in shock and enjoying the cushion of denial:
-"What is trauma?"

I truly had no concept of what 'trauma' is. Drama, yes; but trauma? No way. I, like most people, though trauma was something that only service members experience during wartime, likely to then return from a deployment with PTSD. That, and maybe something that went down in a hospital like on Grey's Anatomy, but I only knew that because some of the doctors are called "trauma surgeons". Did I know what that actually meant? Heck no. It just sounded badass. But trauma sucks. It is anything deeply disturbing or distressing. ANYTHING. I thought that because I wasn't there to witness Mark's suicide that I hadn't actually experienced a trauma, but I know better now. Suicide survivors are among those who most commonly develop PTSD. 

I KNOW this because I've done lots of research and study as part of my recovery, but I just got it in a whole new way, like a light bulb just turned on. Suicide is disturbing. NO WONDER I'M TRAUMATIZED! 

I've had the fortune of being treated to some incredible seminars and programs specifically for military families in the wake of the death of their service member, and these have included group sessions with some of the leading minds in the fields of trauma, grief, PTSD and suicidology (Yes, that's a real thing.) I now know an absurd amount of information about suicide and grief, but that doesn't even come close to what I can offer having been through the tragedy of losing my husband to suicide. The knowledge and experience together have taught me a lot, and one thing is for sure: trauma leaves traces. And sometimes they show up twenty months after the trauma in the form of Bell's Palsy. Who knew?!?!

I could say a lot of things about my PTSD, and have even considered writing a book focusing on just that, but here's where I really want to go with this: I am in a fight for my life. I don't know how to say it any other way. Something about the whole Bell's Palsy thing had me slow down and reflect.

Maybe I was just so exhausted from the mystery virus that I had nothing better to do than slow down...

Maybe. I have been quite tired, and I've spent most of the last few days sleeping. But it really was a choice to pay attention to all the signs telling me that it's time to heal. Sure, I'm treating the Bell's and recovering from the virus, but I'm not stopping there. I really do want to heal, and I don't think I've actually wanted that until this week, at least not in such a way that I would use the word "heal". I have maybe wanted to "get better", but what does that even mean? I have barely been able to look more than a few weeks into the future at a time, and I generally imagine myself the same as I am in the present. For a while, I held on to the certainty that the only constant is change. It really didn't matter what was next; I just knew something would shift at some point because things always shift. Sometimes it would be for the worse, but after months and months of anger, depression was a nice break. Intense anxiety then became a vacation from being miserable. I haven't much cared what phase is coming next, just that it's coming. And that, in its own way, has empowered me through... dare I say it?... the grieving process.

I do admit that I'm a big fan of whatever this phase is. You can't have a breakthrough without a breakdown, so I'm sort of grateful for the Bell's Palsy. It's like the universe's way of telling me to take care of myself. It's not my first ailment since Mark died. For months, I was healthy as a horse, which I credit to the copious amounts of alcohol that I was consuming.

The alcohol killed all the germs, you see...

Then it got weird. I had a kidney stone that was not a kidney stone, but instead was a horrible pain in my side caused my nothing more than stress, grief and repressed anger. Truly, I thought my side was going to burst. It took two trips to the ER without a diagnosis for me to realize that perhaps it wasn't my body that was hurting, but my mind. Then I thought I was crazy. Perhaps an emotional outburst would've done the trick. Shortly after that was when I went into a sort of hibernation, which was really depression that loomed for most of last year. In short, I was exhausted; I needed a break, and my body forced me to take one. The heartbreak progressed by stripping me of an immune system during the worst flu season in the history of ever. I was the first person in my workplace to get the flu. A month later I had a sinus infection that took me out for a week. A month later I had some joyful feminine issues. Oh, and I forgot the trip to the ER to find out that I have carpal tunnel syndrome from all this typing. I'm otherwise quite healthy. Except for this heartbreak...

But the way I see it, if I can at least say and acknowledge what's going on, I stand a chance. And if I have a chance, then I can fight. I don't know why I have spent so long resisting anything expressing how heartbroken I am over Mark's suicide. I can't come up with any reason other than I don't like to look vulnerable. I had a chat with a dear friend a couple of weeks ago about how much I don't want to be around people because I don't want to get close and risk losing anybody else; I don't think I could handle another heartbreak. I cried through our entire phone call, the sole purpose of which was for that friend to make a difference for me. I hate being vulnerable. But that one conversation that I dreaded having and all those feelings that it repulsed me to admit has now turned into me blogging about it hoping that others actually read about all my feels.

This feelings stuff isn't so bad. 

So, I guess my point is, I'm healing. I'm recovering. I want to. It's not easy, and it's not fast. But I kind of like it. It is my own trauma and my own recovery. I wouldn't want anybody else's. This is what I got, and I have a real opportunity to turn this mess into something beautiful. I don't remember the last time I felt this upbeat or positive, but even the little voice in my head that reminds me to play it safe and not get my hopes up, that voice doesn't have all that much to say right now. It's nice to feel good.