I had a conversation at brunch the other day that brought back some very bad memories. I just thought I'd share with everyone if for no other reason, than to just make people think twice before judging or making fun of someone with a physical deformity.

I'm not sure who knows, but the night I brought Lyla home from the hospital, I discovered I had Bells Palsy. I'm not exactly sure when it started because I was so tired at the hospital I wouldn't have noticed anything different. By the time I got home from the hospital on Tuesday I was so tired. I probably had at most 2 to 3 hours of sleep in the last 3 ½ days. My eye wasn't really blinking the way it normally would but I attributed it to exhaustion. That night while eating dinner something seemed weird about the way I was chewing. It came on very quickly. I mentioned it to Dave and we did a smile test. We discovered that my face didn't look right. When I smiled, one half of my face (the left side) wasn't moving as much as the right side. I paged my ob/gyn and started to explain my symptoms. When I mentioned the eye, she said it was probably from exhaustion, however when I brought up the smile, I got an "ohhhh..that sounds like something entirely different" and told me that I most likely had Bells Palsy.

Bell's Palsy is a form of facial paralysis or weakness resulting from inflammation or damage to the 7th (facial) cranial nerve. Needless to say, I was totally freaked out. Of course I started searching all over the Internet and getting more and more paranoid. Here I was with a newborn baby and now I was worried that my face was going to be paralyzed. My doctor told me to come in the office the next day. By the time I went to the office the paralysis was really severe. One side of my face wouldn't move at all and my eye wouldn't blink. He said that it happens sometimes in pregnancy and they don't know why but usually when it happens due to pregnancy it goes away rather quickly. This made me feel somewhat better but I still was freaked out by the chance that it might not go away after reading horror stories on the internet. People get it for many reasons, but nobody is in complete agreement. There are some that think it's caused by a virus or by cold air blowing on the face. For some reason, some get it during pregnancy. They're just not exactly sure why it happens.

I went to a neurologist. He prescribed high doses of prednizone and acyclovir. Acyclovir is an antiviral. Even though mine seemed to be related to pregnancy, it could have been in conjunction with a virus. Since they don't know why it happened they wanted to cover all bases. Apparently, the sooner you treat it, the better your chances are for a full recovery. He told me he couldn't say for sure when/if it would go away, but to come back in a month. Based on what I read on the Internet, I could expect it to go away in two weeks or two years, or possibly never in rare cases.

It was really awful having this condition. I had to wear a band-aid over my eye because it wouldn't blink and eye would dry up and would hurt badly because of air and particles blowing into it from the street. One day Dave and I were outside without a covering and I started freaking out because it hurt so badly. It was also awkward to do things because since I couldn't see out of one eye due to the covering I felt off balance. I also felt like I couldn't express myself or be social because when I smiled or spoke I felt like people were staring at me funny because of the way I looked and I was really embarrassed. The worst was that I had a newborn baby and I wanted to be able to smile at her. They also say you should rest to speed up the recovery which was the last thing I was able to do with a newborn baby.

Anyway, it eventually started going away. I'd say I started to see a little bit of improvement at around two weeks and it improved each day until it was gone completely in 2 months.

It was just a really tough experience for me. I really was concerned that I would look that way for the rest of my life and at the same time felt guilty for being so vain that I cared so much about my looks. I'm also a little nervous about having another baby. Obviously, there are worse things that could happen but in a looks obsessed society it's really hard to live with a physical deformity.They say there is no reason for me to think it will happen to me again, but I don't think I'll try for another child until I've spoken to many specialists. My concern would be that I would get it during the pregnancy and not be able to treat it, which could hinder my recovery.

I just want people to be aware of this condition because it's really hard for people that have it. I know people sometimes see a physical deformity and react strangely to the person because it makes them uncomfortable. It's even more uncomfortable for the person who has the problem. I can't imagine if I had it permanently.

Luckily my husband was really supportive and sweet about it and kept my spirits up. I came home one day from the doctor crying because some child on the subway yelled to his mom "Why does that lady have a patch on her eye?" When I told Dave what happened he said I should have said "I got stabbed in the eye on the subway!" He made me laugh which was the best medicine for me.