update: I'm completely healed! Thanks everyone for your prayers and support -- praise God!

Valentine’s Day Fun with Wacky Facial Palsy

To further my reputation as the madcap “issues” guy, I woke up on Monday unable to move the left side of my face.

When I went to work that day my coworkers had a nice laugh at the novelty of my predicament. Even after I went to the doctor my spirit was light; I promised myself as compensation a dark, bitter, dense, heart-shaped chocolate cake for Valentines Day, both because of my love for dark, bitter, dense chocolate, and for the fitting metaphor. 

It was suddenly less funny when I went home and searched “Bell’s Palsy” on the internet. Bell’s Palsy is a disease wherein the nerve that controls the facial functions is compressed/damaged and therefore is unable to send signals to the muscles in the face.

The typical healing process can take anywhere from a few weeks to a year.

inconvenient.

15% of cases will suffer permanent effects of paralysis.

oh.

My doctor was being optimistic. I’ve since been to other doctors throughout the week, and their conclusions were consistent:

The cause is unknown -

The treatment is controversial -

Recovery is not guaranteed.

I took the next three days off work.

The mornings were hard: I would wake up shocked to find a piece of masking tape fusing my left eye shut, and then I would remember and the burden would return. I would steel myself and go about my day, rushing to catch doctor’s appointments, stocking my fridge with supplements to compensate for my medication, distracting myself with DVDs of healthy people in humorous predicaments.

The nights were hardest: I found myself always at my computer, Chopin’s "Tristesse" spilling softly from the speakers. It was both completely clichéd and entirely appropriate for the self pity, fear and loathing that ensued as I vented my frustrations. No matter how steeled I was during the day, somehow, my nights end always at the same, pathetic, catharsis.

Throughout the week I discovered new debilitations, and each would trigger in me a frustration that was a metal spike through every porcelain mask of courage I moulded:

-I was the face of asymmetry

-It was hard to enunciate

-I couldn’t spit out mouthwash

-Shampoo would get into my left unblinking eye, every single time

Today I decided to return to work. I decided to be light and confident and self-deprecating; however, despite my best efforts, the tone there this time was not of 4 days ago. Comedy was replaced with Concern and Unease. “How are you doing” was much harder to answer than I had thought. I “wished” myself invisible on several different occasions.

Tonight is here, and once again I find myself at my computer, Chopin’s "Tristesse" spilling softly from the speakers. Tonight, like all the nights before, I wallowed in my circumstance:

-food could not be inhaled; I could barely chew

-spastic, pulsing nostril flares were one-sided and clumsy

-squinty, unabashed grins were partial and hideous

-the song from my lips was forced and slurred

And then, unlike all the nights before, epiphany came as a logical algorithm:

Those things, the inhaling and the flare, the grin and the song, they define my heart--my core--my epitome. If I don’t have those things I am no longer me.

And that is why I know I will not remain this way.

God knows my heart. He knows my core and my epitome. To deny me what defines me would be to destroy me.

Therefore, it follows that He will not forsake me.

It’s deeper than faith.

It’s logic.

Tonight I realized I would be healed.

And yet--

Somehow,

My nights end always at the same, pathetic, catharsis.

Hurricanes

On most days I count myself lucky to enjoy the freedom of living alone.

Today however, as I was once again bent over my desk--once again another exam--quite productive actually--a tiny voice crept into my thoughts.

And as both entertaining and creepy it would have been had said voice exclaimed, “Kill, kill,” it instead asked me a simple question:

“Why?”

And suddenly that soft and simple question became the elephant of my thoughts.

Why here, right now, once again bent over my desk, killing myself over how this number adds to this one, how this A leads to these X and Y’s.

I’m studying hard for this exam, I might even rock it. What is certain is at some point, the tension will build until I lay wide-eyed the night before and then the test will come and it will climax—every muscle strained, my entire body—my entire being—wrapped around 50 sheets of paper for 5 hours—I’ll slaughter the pages with violent strokes of my pen, leave, exhausted and euphoric.

And then what?

I’ll be home, giddy at the opportunity to actualize everything I’ve been dreaming of while busy and unable, only to stand, alone, in the middle of my house, grasping at an abstract and ideal activity.

The hurricane in my head has pushed everyone away. If not a client file then an assignment, if not that then an exam, I’m never really there. The debris rarely settles but when it does I awake to reality only to find myself once again alone. There is no ideal.

None of it has an iota of meaning. I’ve put out various fires for over a year; friends and family have gone and come and gone again and I’ve been busy spinning in my hurricane.

I realized today what it really meant to have my family littered across the globe. I realized today that if there was a disaster in any of our cities—an earthquake in Vancouver, a bombing in Toronto, nuclear warheads in China, and any one of us were trapped in a pile of rubble somewhere, there would be no one to care. Were we all in the same city at least we could make an attempt to care, we could rush home through broken streets and twisted metal, claw through the debris for each other. As it stands, in a huge disaster, everyone else is clawing for their own families; no one would even think to look. Two of us would be worrying about the third, and we’d be safe, and alone, and helpless. Utterly tragic.

And in those moments, trapped beneath the plaster and wires, the alarms and the fireworks, what would it mean to know how this number adds to this one, how this A leads to these X and Y’s.

Stupid voice.

ANAL

Current Time:      12:30am

Bedtime:           11:30pm

Current Setting:   My house likens to the aftermath of a tornado.

My MP3 player is out of power, and after having dismantled the gadget into its several disparate parts, I realize upon reassembly that somehow, in between rummaging through all my bags and sifting through the clutter on my floors and desktops--searching for a fresh battery--that I've lost a tiny but integral component to my MP3.

Sh*t.

Stage One: STRATEGY

Okay breath. There are only several rational places that I could have left it within the last 3 minutes. Oh wait except I was looking for a fresh battery, which means I had pretty much toured every major mound of debris in my house. Oh right, it could also be in one of numerous arbitrary corners somewhere if it dropped on the floor and tumbled away, cause not like I would notice with the whole house being carpeted and everything. I recheck every pile, re-rummage every bag, and re-sift every desktop. Fruitless.

Stage Two: IMAGERY

I summon mental pictures of me absentmindedly leaving the MP3 component in various random places, and once the mental pictures crystallize, I convince myself that I could very well have left it there and proceed to check those areas. Still Fruitless.

Stage Three: REDUNDANCY

Acting on the assumption that I was too preoccupied to "really see" the missing MP3 component in my first sweep of my house, I retrace my steps again and reperform my search. Severe lackage of Fruit.

Stage Four: FURY

HOW IN THE WORLD IS ONE ABLE TO BE HOLDING SOMETHING ONE SECOND, AND IN THE NEXT, NOTHING? TO WHAT EXTENT DOES ONE'S MENTAL INCAPACITY REACH IF HE ISN'T EVEN ABLE TO KEEP TRACK OF ONE STUPID PIECE OF PLASTIC? IF SOMETHING THIS SIMPLE IS UNACHIEVABLE, WHAT PLETHORA OF OTHER MINOR DETAILS IN HIS LIFE IS SAID PERSON CURRENTLY UNAWARE OF FAILING?

At this point the rummaging and sifting become clawing and shovelling. No-Fruit-For-You!

Stage Five: LUNACY

I search through completely nonsensical places including the garbage bins, the sink and the fridge. There wasn't even Fruit in the fridge.

Stage Six: PIETY

"Dear God, please let me find my missing MP3 component. And yes, I am aware there could be a gazillion more important and eternally consequential things I should be praying for right now. Amen." Fruit pending.

Stage Seven: LETHARGY

Whatever, I'll just bring my MP3 to work without that stupid plastic component. I don't even like Fruit.

Current Time:      1:45am

Bedtime:           11:30pm

Current Setting:   My house likens to the aftermath of a tornado where afterwhich the tornado decided that said aftermath was lacking in chaos and so decided with resolve and a hint of glee to cut another several swaths through the vicinity.

To conclude, where is my missing plastic MP3 component?

No F*cking idea.

Wacky Run-ins with Personal Hygiene

The other day my friend came out of my washroom and asked me if I used the blueberry-lavender face soap next to my sink. She must have thought that blueberry lavender was a really, really, ridiculously manly flavour of face soap and I, being really, really, ridiculously manly, must therefore use it.

Nope, it’s my mom’s. I don’t use soap to wash my face. I wash my face with water every time I wash my hands. Apparently that is not effective. Apparently, soap is commonly accepted as an effective “cleansing agent.” Like, whatever.

So tonight I’m brushing my teeth and my wandering gaze happens to rest upon none other than the bottle of blueberry lavender face soap.

Oh what the hell, I thought.

I did what I normally do when I wash my face, except this time I had soap in my hands. Not a good idea. My first observation was that my entire face smelled like those little mint-like soaps at the bottom of the urinals. My second observation was that the soap was not rinsing off, regardless of how much more water I splashed onto my face. I never use face towels (I just use my hands) which made it harder to do anything but disperse the soap around.

Now, my eyes itch, my face is soapy and I smell like urinal.

That is unequivocally the last time I’ll ever try hygiene, ever.

Recap

It’s been a while. Most significant developments since my last entry:

1. I have a business card.
2. My brother moved to Toronto for a promotion to become a bankruptcy auditor.
3. I committed to going to Bible Study Fellowship.
4. Nicole Linkletter beat Nik Pace for the title of America’s Next Top Model but she, like, totally didn’t deserve it that whiny brainless punk she’s not even that pretty but Nik is friggin awesome.
5. My hair grew back.

These last 10 months have been a lot of waking up for work, work, witty comment, go home from work, work on casb, sleep and then more work. I think I may have missed out on a lot in the process.

And suddenly, it’s April. I don’t think it was supposed to go down like that.

Let’s try again.