why my facial palsy made this my best birthday yet.

Earlier this week I celebrated my 26th birthday. I know I'm not old at ALL but I have been joking that this meant I was now a proper adult, looking to get a mortgage and start plucking those unwanted grey hairs. I would say that I’d also now be on high alert for crows feet and wrinkles, but that wondrous botox for my nerve recovery has made sure that’s something I don’t have to worry about for a very long time!

All jokes aside, I was feeling quite anxious leading up to my birthday this year. Literally the day before I had a bad anxiety attack and didn’t leave the house as I couldn’t bear going out looking so droopy. It was also dawning on me that this would be the first proper chance to celebrate with a lot of people since coming out of a thousand lockdowns, as well as being over a year into my recovery and seeing so many people I hadn't seen since before I got sick. I was probably also worried about being the centre of attention and having my picture taken, things I tried to avoid for so many months.

But instead it turned out to be one of my favourite birthdays to date, the weekend consisted of staying in this incredible little house on a marina with my family where we played board games, drank wine and rowed this cute little boat to explore the area. I saw my entire extended family and a few close friends for Sunday lunch at a local pub, and on the actual day I was treated to the most incredible dinner at HIDE in Mayfair by my wonderful boyfriend, as well as seeing so many close friends the rest of the week for dinners, drinks and days out. I have enjoyed every single second of it, and I do think my facial palsy had a massive part to play in that.

Every year I would build up my vision of what I wanted my birthday to look like in my head. But I always felt this sort of pressure to give everyone around me the best time whilst we were celebrating, even though it was my birthday. I always felt as though there were more activities I could’ve crammed in, or made more plans with people to make sure I had seen absolutely everyone. But each time I would end the day with this weird feeling of dread or anxiousness about another year of my life being behind me, and wondering if what I was doing with my time on this earth was bringing me happiness and real purpose.

However with this birthday I took a moment to reflect on the way I live my life and look at how the past year has altered my way of thinking. It has taught me that I need to value what’s important to me, my health, my relationships with others, my physical and emotional recovery, and what makes me truly happy. What I think the biggest difference was this year was that my facial palsy recovery has taught me that I can’t control everything, and I should just sit back, try to stop myself from worrying and just enjoy my time and the people that I’m with.

I think this gave me the comfort to simply enjoy the whole weekend without overthinking anything. Whoever was able to attend would be there and I shouldn’t over-exhaust myself worrying about every single detail, in fact I let everyone else plan the whole thing!

Looking back on it I was much more present with those I love, we laughed so hard, drank just the right amount of wine and had cake for breakfast, and to be honest I barely looked at my phone which was so liberating, I wanted to enjoy my time with my family who I actually don’t get to see a lot of during the rest of the year.

There was one hurdle however that I needed to overcome and that was photos being taken by other people. Up until now I’ve been so in control of how I take photos of my face and how to pose to make myself feel more comfortable, but this weekend I was met with candid shots and videos that I had no idea how I was going to cope with being posted and shared. Surprisingly, there weren’t that many awful shots! I was pretty happy with most of the pictures taken, maybe it’s because I’ve mastered my angles, I know my good side and I know not to grin like a Cheshire cat, because I can’t!

But I do think that since starting my blog, sharing my journey and meeting more people in the same position as I am has massively helped my confidence. I see how me being so open is really helping other people, and that encourages me to share more and be even more open and vulnerable. I’m gradually learning that my beauty is so much deeper than my physical being, and with this I think I now look at myself in a much more loving way. I am so proud of who I am becoming, doing something good with an experience that negatively impacted my life so much. I still see a crooked smile and a tight eye in every picture I take, but now, instead of cringing and hating it I actually really love it! It’s changed slightly but just because I can’t physically smile, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy and capture the moments that make me want to.

The best part for me however was actually one of the smallest moments, the night before my birthday I whistled. I have not whistled since before I first got sick, my mouth has never been able to make that shape or have the strength to do it, but this time it did! I can’t whistle anything fun yet or do anything fancy, but finding out I could do this again reminded me of how far I have come in the last 14 months, and made me excited for all the healing still ahead of me. All the hours of physiotherapy and those botox injections are really paying off, it’s a small victory and another step in the right direction in my recovery.

I’m also learning to not live for anyone else. I used to care so much about what others thought about me, what I would say or do or wear, and what I would post on Instagram. But since having something like my identity, health and beauty be impacted in the way that it was, I felt like something was taken from me, and now I don’t want to give another piece of myself to anyone who doesn’t deserve it.

I’m learning to say no to certain things or people and give that time back to myself or to people who make a real impact on my life. I let myself do the things that bring me pleasure, and I’m not embarrassed to say that includes lazy days at home knitting a jumper or spending 5 hours playing sims. It all comes back to remembering that there was so much joy and time taken from me this past year, even the smallest acts now mean so much because there was a time where I couldn’t do anything, and when I remember that I remind myself to not get caught up in the stress, the worry or the pain.

I feel like I’m going into this next year being in a much better headspace and mindset, living my life with less stress, worry and more with purpose. I'm still learning how to do this as there are days when it does get the better of me, but I want to approach each day with the knowledge that what I am doing is really making an impact on other people’s lives, as this is much bigger than just my personal journey, there is so much more I can do to try and help others with the same condition. There is still so much development and healing for me to go through, but for now I am happy. I am learning to accept what is and what has happened, choosing to live a happier, more purposeful life with what I do have, rather than worry about what I haven’t got and the things I can't control.