Something You Don't Know About Me

Something you may not know about me is I have left side trigeminal nerve damage.?

What the f*ck does that mean?

It means on holiday on the 30th September 2012, after a lovely Turkish meal (see photo), in our beautiful hotel in Turkey, I went to bed. In the early hours of the morning, I woke up in agonising pain in my stomach and felt like I was going to explode. One end of me was very active, the other needed some help, I needed to stick my fingers down my throat to get some relief from the pressure in my stomach.

I finally managed to get to sleep but woke the next morning with a weird tingling sensation on the left side of my face. I went to see a Dr, but I felt the communication barrier was too great, so I decided to wait until we got back to England. In the meantime, I googled (self-diagnosis, not always the best) what it could be and came up with a deficiency in electrolytes. So took what I thought may help.

Back in England my face still felt the same and the vision in my left eye became blurry. I went to eye casualty and after much investigation, with eye specialists, neuro specialists, a lumbar puncture and MRI scan, they came to the conclusion that the trigeminal nerve which serves the left of my face was irreparably damaged. Probably caused by a viral infection.

What that means to me, is that I have no feeling in most of the left side of my face. The left side of my mouth feels like when you're at the dentist and they've numbed it with a local anaesthetic. My left eye can't tear naturally, so to keep it moist I have to insert eye drops about every 2 hours and some eye gel overnight, otherwise, it will dry out and ultimately I'd lose my sight.

One really annoying thing is if I get an itch on the left side of my head, no matter how hard I scratch it, there's no relief as I can't feel the scratch.

One really funny thing is that I think some nerve endings managed to rewire themselves in a very bizarre way, so if I have a drink, I can feel the liquid sensation in my left eye (including the temperature), how f*cked up is that? Apart from that, I have no sensation in my left eye, as in you could poke your finger in it and it wouldn't hurt me.

So why am I telling you all this?

When this first happened to me, I was a little overwhelmed.?

I focussed on my left eye and was wary of damaging it in any way (as I wouldn't feel it). So much so, that I wore an eye patch for a short while afterwards, but that wasn't much fun, so I soon ditched that.?

I focussed on how I needed to learn to eat, just on the right side of my mouth because if I chewed on the left, I'd end up biting my cheek. I'd lose my food in the left side void somewhere, as I couldn't feel where it was. I also felt self-conscious eating in front of others.

My speech felt slightly different than before and some words were harder to pronounce, which again made me self-conscious.

Intimacy with my wife was different, my kissing skills took a dive as did my confidence.

Day in and day out I focussed on the things that affected me and made me feel different and less confident.

So guess how I felt? I felt different and less confident!

The human mind and body are amazing, as over time I stopped noticing most of these things and they just became part of who I am.

But if I focus on having a drink, I can still feel the sensation in my eye. If I focus on when I'm eating, I can still feel self-conscious about it. If I focus on my speech, I can still feel the awkwardness of pronouncing some words and get self-conscious.

But when I'm not focussing on any of those things, then, to be honest, I don't really notice them anymore and they fade into the background.

We have a choice on what we put our focus on. I've seen that when my focus is on other things instead of my nerve damage, I generally have a much better experience of life.

What are you focussing on that's causing you to feel pain, low self-esteem or anxiety?

Would you like help in changing your focus?