Things have been hard lately for me. About a week ago, I woke up and half of my face was frozen. It wasn’t drooping and it wasn’t numb. It was just… frozen. I couldn’t raise one eyebrow, couldn’t form a full smile and only one of my nostrils flared open. “It’s probably nothing,” I figured, so I went to work where everyone told me I should call a doctor or something.
I eventually did after work. At about 9:30pm, I went to the emergency room of the local hospital. From there I had my blood pressure measured, blood drawn and an IV inserted. I laid down inside a CT machine and had my brain scanned. But mostly, I waited. I guess it makes sense, but there’s a lot of waiting in hospitals. I sat around long enough that I saw CBC’s The National about three times in a row. I sat inside an empty room for another hour, then in a reclining chair while I waited for my CT results.
The whole thing had a military kind of vibe to it. Nurses wearing one coloured uniform, doctors another and what I assume were orderlies wore a third. Everything was bang, bang, bang. Follow the red line, follow the yellow line. Sit outside this room until you’re told to enter. Hurry up and wait.
I have to admit, I was impressed by the whole outfit.
Anyway, at about 4am last Thursday morning, I was told my CT scan showed a brain abnormality and being on estrogen put me at risk for strokes, but what I most likely had was Bell’s Palsy. The doctor added it’s likely caused by the shingles virus, or maybe the one that causes cold sores. Maybe stress, too. In my case, it was very likely stress.
My day job is running the hot food counter at a supermarket, and as far as jobs go it’s pretty easy going. The sales aren’t anything like they are in meat, and I don’t have a huge amount of floorspace like produce. I don’t get up at 4am like the bakery manager does, and I don’t have to run the store like some of the other department managers. But I struggle with anxiety, and I stress out over my job every so often. And I’d been stressing: about the expiring product, a worker who quit and didn’t give notice and about something I’d been writing about.
A few days ago, my review of Detransition, Baby ran and reception was mixed (I kind of anticipated this based on how people reacted to my Substack a few weeks ago). A few people told me it was a good review, a few people took me to task (I don’t know how to read, “who cares if you don’t like the characters”, etc). I guess that’s to be expected for something having as big a moment as D,B is. Normally, I’m happy that people are just reading me, but this time I took some of that criticism personally, which is the kind of thing my therapist is always telling me not to do, and a few people I was mutuals with on twitter aren’t talking to me anymore. C’est la vie.
I don’t know why I got so worked up over that, though. Maybe because I worked hard on that review - I rewrote it like three times and even thought about giving up - but maybe it had something to do with my face, and how I’ve been feeling. I’ve been insecure, thinking I’m slurring my words and that everyone can tell I’m all screwed up. But I’m told it’s not so obvious. I’ve been nervous, afraid that this condition will be permanent, but my doctor tells me there’s a 90 percent chance it’ll go away
I mean, I worry about stuff a lot. But that brain abnormality. I have no idea what it is. Neither did the doctor at the ER. I’m having an MRI in the next little while, and maybe that will help me figure it out. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s something. I don’t know, and I almost don’t care. It hasn’t bothered me before, so why would I start to worry now?
It’s weird. The things I should care about, I almost don’t. And stuff that shouldn’t matter, that bugs me a lot sometimes.
My therapist likes to talk about focusing energy on places, and I find that’s a helpful strategy. I used to worry a lot more when people called me “Sir” at work, for example. But I’ve found that after a while, I stopped caring. I stopped putting my energy in the direction of a person I have a ten-second interaction with, and started putting it in places like writing or running my department. After a while it felt like second nature. Now, sometimes when people call me “sir” it bugs my coworkers more than it does me.
I guess that’s the point of today’s missive: I need to think about where I put my energy. As I write this, I think about how lately I’ve been trying to build something of a brand for myself online as a writer: by the people I follow, the discord I sometimes hang out in, the engagements I put myself into. I need to worry less about that, and more on actually putting words in order in a word document.
I think if my Bell’s was caused by stress, then getting back to basics will help, too. Writing has always been where I go to get away from the bullshit. I can sit at my laptop and bang out some words and before I know it, an hour’s gone by and my chest doesn’t feel like there’s a belt on it.
I think about it now, and the writers I look up to don’t spend all their days on twitter posting; they’re probably actually writing (or working a day job). I’m writing this as a reminder to myself, and maybe because it’ll help you a little. There’s only so many words in each person, and spending them all on tweets that nobody will remember? What a waste. I can do better. I will do better.
(Please call me on this if you see me posting non-stop all day sometime.)
~R