366 days ago today, my body reminded me of who is in control. I’ve told close friends. family and employers of what occurred; but I think its time to “go large”.

Slurred Speech

On the 25th April 2006 I woke up, and my face felt funny. Droopy, and numb. Having had a sinus infection for the previous few days, I thought it was just a side effect. The 25th of April is a holiday in Australia (ANZAC day) so resting was easy.

Technically, I was on sick leave from Adobe for a few days at the end of a 2 week holiday. There was something inside that said I really didn’t want to go back to work.

By the mid-afternoon, I was slurring my speech, and my left hand side of my face ached like nothing else, whilst also being numb. I couldn’t taste on the left side of my tongue, and there was a loud ringing in my left ear. Oh, and I was drooling from the left side of my mouth.

Avril saw me in the afternoon and was not happy. The first thought, especially with slurred speech is “stroke”. For some reason, I was in a haze of pain and had not really thought through what was going on.

A quick “home stroke test” showed that whatever it was, I hadn’t popped a brain vein. Yet. We went off to our local Doctor’s clinic, seeing the locum who was working on the public holiday. All I remember of that visit was “thanks for coming, you’ve made my day as Bell’s Palsy isn’t all that common.”

A quick course of Cortisone tablets on the 25th were administered to “shock” the body into recovery. Cortisone causes the adrenaline gland to go into overdrive. A nasty side effect is that it doesn’t cure the pain, just makes you stay awake to feel it. From memory, I slept for 4–6 hours in total over a 4–5 day period. sidenote: JFK was reported to have multiple cortisone injections per day, as he had Addison’s disease. How he got through daily, I do not know. This drug’s side effects are not good!

Further investigations with the Doctor on the 26th with a CAT scan showed that (a) I do have a brain and (b) no blood vein damage/clots could be found. So, no stroke.

The diagnosis is by a process of elimination. The pain on the side of my face indicated Bell’s Palsy.

Picture: taken 26th April 2006 by Liam. This is me attempting to smile normally, you will notice that your right (my left) is not moving up normally.

Bell’s Palsy

Bell’s Palsy is an infection of the Seventh nerve of the face. This nerve runs from the top of your cranium into your ear and across your cheek bone ending in your eyelids, nose, lips, tongue and chin.

Side effects from Bell’s Palsy are numerous: ringing in the ears, soreness/aching of the face, loss of sense of taste, loss of sense of feeling on the face, watery eye (cannot fully close the eye), inability to control the effected side of your mouth (you drool over yourself)

To others, the most visible side effect is the droopiness and “unbalancedness” of the face: your face drops on one side as the muscles no longer get instructions from that 7th nerve.

Now having suffered this, I look at faces much closer and can see the difference left-to-right of people’s face. Bell’s is more common in older people. A famous sufferer was George Clooney. Repeated questioning of medical professionals indicated I would not look like George after Bell’s. Bummer.

Bell’s Palsy and a bit of history is at the link. Well worth reading

Bell’s Palsy is the effect of a weakening on the VII (7th) Cranial Nerve. The most common to least common: viral infection of the nerve, and in my case it was a simple infection that “appeared” sooner with the pain at the top of my skull: which was thought to be a simple sinus infection.

It looks like there is going to be residual pain for some time: which is manageable.

Getting Better.

The best cure for Bell’s is complete rest. No stress, no work. And that’s what I did. It took 3 weeks for the physical visible side effects to go away — that is, my face muscles moved normally; my eye could shut and I could talk without slurring my speech.

However, the long term effects of Bell’s are still with me today: aching left-hand cheek and ringing in the left-hand ear. Over the past 12 months, these side effects have lessened to a point where I can live and work with them comfortably — and know the best way to manage the reduced energy levels that accompany the pain. The muscles on the left hand side of my face are wired differently. It takes a different “control” to smile normally, so I just smirk from the right side as it takes less effort. You cannot explain to people how its changed, it just has.

I returned to work in early June, having not been at work for April and May 2006. By mid-May, Avril and I had decided that to fully recover, decompress and not have further valves go “bang” in my body — it would be best to make a mid-life course correction.

Taking the Bell’s as an indicator of inner body health has probably added multiple years to the end of my life. Stress, a much used work, shows itself in funny ways. Essentially, I was a work-aholic in a job that I hated. Double bad.

The Work Thing

Not sleeping much during this episode, I had plenty of time to think. Thinking and time are a dangerous combination.

I was not happy with the job, position, stresses and many other things as Channel Sales Manager at Adobe. Even more dangerous, I wasn’t hungry enough — or had the energy level to do what needed to be done. I was out of juice. The company’s local culture was changing; and it just didn’t suit me.

Returning to work part-time, I offered Adobe my position back, and asked for a Leave of Absence for at least 6 months, unpaid and with no benefits so I could fully mentally and physically recover. Also, I would use this time to “re-educate” myself to go back to what I really loved: doing technical stuff with end-user customers.

Due to various “shenanigans” with Adobe HR, the Macromedia ‘merger’ and other legal guidance it was recommended that I resign. It was easier for Adobe this way.

So I resigned.

That felt so good.

Recovery

I didn’t feel 100% until mid-September-ish. That is, I could do a full-day without getting too tired. Now, if I go too hard for too many days — I get the same aches in the face; but know how to manage the pain and the associated tiredness.  Essentially, when I am not tired I work at 125+% to be 100% productive. Finding an appropriate, and less-stressed and probably less financially beneficial job was my goal.

By this time, Adobe had nothing on the plate for me fulltime, so I started looking elsewhere for stuff to do. A small gig for Adobe came, I took that and completed that contract.

What you will read in my posts of that time: I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my working life.

This “Enthusiast Evangelist” job at Microsoft appeared. Knowing Frank Arrigo through Mike Seyfang, thanks to http://linkedin.com, I applied and the rest is now history. It’s the first job that I saw that I really felt I wanted, and would be at >100% at.

So, that’s the story of the last 12 months. Some people heard that I was “seriously ill” and just experienced me not being at work all of a sudden. Speaking to these people since, it was if I had fallen off the face of the earth.

Not quite, just my face had fallen, that’s all.

I hope this post helps someone else in the future. There is life after, and with Bell’s. It will just be all different.

Update 2nd June 2007: strange cramp in the left-hand side of my neck/face today. Resulted in a slight dipping of the nerves around my mouth and soreness. The muscles seem out-of-place and aching along my cheek-bone.