Three weeks after my first real signs of progress, my lips and cheek can smile more. I have more mobility in my mouth, including significant clarity in pronouncing my Fs and Ss. There’s hope.
The forehead and eyebrow of the affected side still don’t move much, if at all. No Groucho impersonations for me anytime soon. But, I definitely look better. People see it, and I can feel it. The mouth droop appears to be gone completely.
That I can speak more clearly is my moment-to-moment reminder of hope. I am used to speaking. I am a speaker. I am a singer. I am an actor. I’m a trained communicator. Having had more than three months of mush-mouth had taken its toll. The funny thing is that, at its worst, I finally let go. I simply accepted that that’s where my mouth is and that’s where my self is. After that acceptance, I went to the piano and began to play.
Even before the BP, I’d been writing pieces without words. But I love to sing. It’s as physical as anything else I do – and takes more out of me than most activities. It’s a workout when I sing.
But, right at the point of acceptance- THAT’S when I sat down to sing. And I sang songs as best as I could. And they sounded a little strange. Bulky. A cluttered mouth angling around the words. Less Droopy Dog, but still marble-mouthed. At this time, while singing, my mind flashed: ‘Hey, maybe you’re the guy who sings in a pained way, like a Tom Waits character.’ And I felt a little sad, but then I shook that off. I got some steam behind me. My singing was a bit tortured, but damnit, I was singing. And, a day or so after that singing is when things started looking up.