A Smile Lost & Found

Last winter we had family pictures taken. It was the first time all five of us posed together as a group for photos! We had a lot of fun that day, and afterwards we kept saying how we wished we'd done it sooner. Little did we know just a couple of days after this, those photos would come to mean even more.

Later that week, Ellie came down with a mild virus we thought at the time was just a cold. However, she ended up with painful blisters in her mouth and the doctor said she most likely had coxsackievirus that would go away on its own. So we took her home and kept her comfortable. She seemed like she was getting much better. Then after her nap one afternoon, she started to cry and I noticed right away something was wrong with her face. The right side wasn't moving at all. It looked like she was crying with only half of her face. We were very scared. Immediately we thought something terrible was going on. We worried she may have had a stroke.  

It turned out she had Bell's Palsy, facial paralysis caused by swelling of the facial nerve. It is a fairly rare complication that can arise from having coxsackievirus, especially if one has an upper respiratory infection at the same time. The doctors said it would most likely resolve on its own within a month or two, but there was the possibility of lasting nerve damage. We called it "the time Ellie lost her smile." 

These new family photos were suddenly even more precious to us:

We were now so grateful we'd had them taken. We wondered if they might be the last photos we had of her with her sweet full smile. We hoped and prayed every day for her smile to come back. We were so thankful she was healthy again, but her missing smile was a constant reminder to us just how precious the health of one's family members is. Even after all this time, when I see pictures of her without her smile I still feel the weight of all the emotions we had then. There is still the pang I felt, and the memories of wishing so fervently for that little smile to reappear. 

      

Her little smile gradually did come back, and then one day it was just there again like nothing had ever happened. We continue to be so very grateful that that smile we love so much was found again :)