Reflections on Faces

I just returned from the ANA symposium a couple of days ago and am feeling very inspired. The event was great - from an educational standpoint and, even more, from a personal standpoint. It was such an amazing experience to be gathered with so many other people who share this rare diagnosis. There were people there who were recently diagnosed and those whose treatments are long done, and those who are "watchfully waiting."

One of my personal goals for the symposium was to learn more about possible treatments for facial palsies/paralysis. I certainly came away with much to think about, from botox to bang-tox to surgery. I have not mentally sorted through all of it yet, but I have been giving a great deal of thought to the whole issue of how much of our self-perception is tied up in how we think we look. So, bear with me while I "think in writing"...

I attended a dinner the first night specifically for people with facial issues. As I looked around the room (there were probably 50 or so people there), there were very few who I would immediately identify as having facial complications. But as I talked to people, I realized that many people really struggle with the fact that they (we) look "different" than they(we) did before. I listened to one woman who was clearly depressed who felt that people stared at her when she was in public. And, yet, when I looked at her, all I saw was the tiniest bit of asymmetry - nothing that I would ever notice if I didn't know what I was looking for.

And that got me to thinking about myself and my own self-perceptions. I know I don't look quite like I did before, but I also know that no one is staring at me in horror and running in fear. In fact, I have concluded that people who don't know what to look for wouldn't know anything is wrong. Like many of the people I met at the symposium, my mouth pulls to one side a little when I talk, and I have a weird dimple on the right side of my chin when I smile, and one corner of my mouth doesn't smile quite as big as the other side, and one eye squints up just a little sometimes. But seriously, have you ever seen Cat Deeley on "So You Think You Can Dance?" That woman is drop dead gorgeous, but when you look at her face - her smile is totally crooked, one side of her nose pulls over, one eye squints a bit ... And I suspect that is just the way God made her. (The fact that she is tall and skinny doesn't hurt, but still ... she's beautiful!)

Hm, it gets you to thinking, doesn't it? And, then I got to thinking about the people who have more serious facial issues and have gone through multiple nerve grafting surgeries to get a small amount of movement - and I have to think "Damn, girl, you've got nothing to whine about." Which is not to say that I won't occasionally feel sorry for myself or miss my "old" face a bit, or that I won't consider options for improvement. But I will also recognize that most people who look at me won't see anything wrong.

A lot of the aftermath of acoustic neuroma surgery is invisible to the outside world - deafness, equilibrium issues, numbness, blurry vision, fatigue. Which doesn't make any of those things less real - it just makes it harder for other people to understand.

And as my beautiful friend Kay would say - "When life gives you lemons, squeeze it in someone's eye and haul ass!"