{"id":123,"date":"2003-07-25T18:28:27","date_gmt":"2003-07-25T18:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=123"},"modified":"2003-07-25T18:28:27","modified_gmt":"2003-07-25T18:28:27","slug":"too-sad-to-frown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=123","title":{"rendered":"Too Sad to Frown"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been pretty down this week. Actually, I’ve been a lot down. The Bell’s Palsy<\/a> that’s affecting the left side of my face is bothering me, both physically and emotionally.<\/p>\n

Physically, everything seems harder. Everything is a relative term, of course. Walking certainly isn’t more difficult. Neither is manipulating a fork and a knife. The easy things you take for granted. You don’t miss them unless they are broken. A lot seems broken right about now.<\/p>\n

Unmoving lips result in slurred speech. I’ve found myself actually holding my mouth with my hand to help correct this. Eating is a challenge. My lips just won’t get the hell out the way of my teeth, much less serve as a good gatekeeper. Once it’s in, you want it to stay in, a problem that rears its head when drinking too fast.<\/p>\n

An partially blinking eye means those long nights in front of the computer screen may become more a thing of the past. Eye drops are an hourly reminder of my problem. The last thing I need is something else to go wrong.<\/p>\n

Emotionally, it’s a burden. There are lots of unknowns. How long will this last? Will I ever recover? Questions roam around in my brain like flies in a jar, never escaping, sometimes pausing from the exhaustion of a battered skull.<\/p>\n

I’ve become concerned about my appearance but not in the way you expect. I don’t know if I’ve ever really cared how people see me. I’ve always been personally confident. I generally care little about you<\/i> think. That said, an unresponsive face has made that confidence tumble. I think less of myself. That bothers me much more than any glare from another could.<\/p>\n

Embarrassment has become an unwelcome neighbor, frustration a looming giant. It’s all the little things that bug me. Addition in small increments is still addition after all.<\/p>\n

My treatment has been laced with sorrow. My prognosis is hope. Still what I really want to do is frown for a while — and do it with gusto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been pretty down this week. Actually, I’ve been a lot down. The Bell’s Palsy that’s affecting the left side of my face is bothering me, both physically and emotionally. Physically, everything seems harder. Everything is a relative term, of course. Walking certainly isn’t more difficult. Neither is manipulating a fork and a knife. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}