In Angelina Jolie's shoes, overnight!
Radhika Bhirani
rbhirani@gmail.com
There I was flashing the dimples, decked up in a satisfactorily pleated seedhe palle ki sari on Karwa Chauth, trying to drive away the seemingly endless, and all-pervasive blues brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic in my own way. Three days later, the smile was gone. And I'm still waiting for its return.
The morning was usual. Waking up. Throwing the blanket away. Getting out of bed. Slipping the feet into the slippers. Heading to the restroom. And there, right when I looked into the mirror and yawned, something seemed amiss.
I'd usually look no less than a roaring Lion King. But here I was, trying to make sense of a face that had turned droopy, lopsided, crooked, and whatever else you can find to go with those in the English thesaurus.
A sense of panic gripped my mind and heart. What could have gone so wrong, so suddenly? The fear of this unknown, unexplained and unexpected visitor was palpable as I tried whatever I had recently learnt of stroke response techniques.
The big S was the first that came to mind since it had just been months that my father-in-law faced a similar facial deviation. It was the first sign for worry, and we had headed straight to a hospital's emergency wing. He had had a Stroke. But did I?
I could smile. I could wink. I could cringe my nose. I could raise an eyebrow. But only from the left side. On the right side, I seemed... well, stone-faced.
The husband had to be woken up with a worried voice. "Something's wrong..."
A quick assessment later, a quicker call was made to a trusted neurologist. The cat came out of the bag: Bell's Palsy. Some people even said it was Ramsay Hunt Syndrome. To me, it all seemed the same until several Dr Google checks later.
Who knew that in the battlefield of Covid-19, the blues of Bell's Palsy will come knock, knock, knocking...on my face!
It's a condition I had read about first some three years ago when Hollywood star Angelina Jolie opened up about her ordeal in a Vanity Fair spread. In good company, I'd say!
It's been no laughing matter, really. But humour has been, I have to say, my best bet to deal with the changes and challenges brought on by this strange overnight occurrence.
Worried family members and friends tried to decode plausible reasons. Are you stressed about not having a job? Don't think much about it. What are you stressed about? You don't care about fitness. You are unhealthy. You should watch your anger.... Bam, bam, boom!
Jolie had said of her diagnosis back then: “Sometimes women in families put themselves last... until it manifests itself in their own health."
That may be a mirror for a lot of women out there, but not so much for me.
The signs were there. I was just naive to ignore.
The fateful morning was preceded by an evening and night of a strange pain emanating from behind the right ear, spreading to the jaw, and reaching the temple.
I played the blame game on the smell of freshly coated paint, which had already left my mother-in-law and husband in discomfort. I simply assumed I was in the same boat. But here, I was on an altogether different river, ride and tide.
On heading straight to a nearby hospital, where the emergency doctors directed us to the neurology department where then billing took close to 45 minutes before we could enter the doctor's room, the neurologist seemed annoyingly calm as a toad.
Like a school teacher thereafter, she explained in medical terms how Bell's Palsy is a result of an inflammation or viral infection that affects the seventh cranial nerve which controls the muscles of facial expressions. The trigger? Could be anything -- weather change, dietary changes, stress, reaction to a virus. Besides, it is age agnostic, I was told. It is also something called the Ramsay Hunt Syndrome (as scary - or not - as the Ramsay Movies, I'm not sure). And the only two reasons for solace -- it mostly happens only once in a lifetime, and is curable.
A course of steroids and anti-viral medication took my two months of diet, fitness and 4 kg weight loss, for a toss. For all that it lost, my face also gained a feature -- the dreaded double chin. But hey, nothing lasts forever, does it?
And so, it is with this positivity that I decided to face this with a laugh and a smile... Half or full, who cares!?!
Physiotherapy sessions have involved going back to school days to say vowels out loud. The O and U remain problematic. To try and pout like the KJos and Kareenas of Bollywood. To raise my eyebrows. To attempt the Angry Bird look. To go through electro-therapy sessions which involve electrical muscle stimulation on the face. One of these felt like the cliche courtroom scene of a furious judge hitting a heavy gavel against a striking block. Except of course, the striking block happened to be one vertical half of my own face here.
More interestingly, at a time when masks are the newest accessory/necessity on the block, I got my own unique face mask... one that my superhero fan friends felt would make for great inspiration for Marvel Cinematic Universe or DC Comics! Or for our very own 'iSpiderwoman'! I got a red one at first... a kinesiology tape split into five, each pulling back one vital feature of the face to keep it in place. On a new day, I asked for a new colour. Pink it was then.
On the brighter side, I've never been one too good a patient, or one too good with patience either. This experience has altered that a bit, apart from reminding, like it has to many all over the world, day after day, especially in this pandemic, of the unpredictability of life as we know it today.
You're happy and satisfied with one job at a point. The next day you don't have it.
You're hale and hearty one day. You don't know what you wake up with next morning.
You're expecting something one day. The next day, you know it ain't coming.
What you can do is to just keep your chin up every day, and laugh at the shocks and surprises that spring along. Like people say... there's always a calm before a storm, I try to not forget the other reality that after every storm also, there's calm.
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