The other day I went to see the visiting psychiatrist at the embassy because I needed a refill for my Zoloft prescription. So we’re in the middle of chatting about why I take Zoloft when he stops mid-sentence, studies me carefully and declares, “Your face is lopsided.” Say what now? He then has me go through this range of “exercises” to test something (hold hands out in front, look at ceiling, look down) before he lets me sit back down to explain what he’s talking about. He starts throwing out phrases like “bell’s palsy” and “7th nerve something or other” and asks if anyone else has ever noticed that the inside of one of my cheeks droops more than the other. The entire time he’s studying me like I’m one of those 3-D pictures that he can’t figure out.
I tell him that no, I have never noticed anything strange about my face other than those pesky frown lines in-between my eyebrows and a few sunspots from too many hours spent baking in the sun as a teenager. And that no one, including my husband who looks at my face every day has ever noticed this supposed lopsidedness that he sees. He then went on to say the odds are minuscule that it is something serious, but if my face continues to change then he would want me to get a CAT-scan or a CT-scan — one of those medical head scan things that they talk about on House every week.
I told him that it was a good thing I was taking Zoloft because back in the day if someone had said something like that to me I would have been completely freaked out and sure I had been stricken with some scary, terminal disease, but the improved me wasn’t worried at all. So I got my refill paperwork, went home, looked in the mirror, didn’t see anything, and didn’t google it at all.
So you’re all on notice: if you notice my face looking even more lopsided than it already is (see below photo for reference), you’re supposed to let me know so I can go have my brain scanned. Good grief. It’s a good thing he doesn’t work with patients who have anxiety about those sorts of things . . .
