Playwright Sarah Ruhl Finds Inspiration in her Bell’s Palsy Journey

Episode Transcript

Dr. Correa:
From the American Academy of Neurology, I'm Dr. Daniel Correa.

Dr. Peters:
And I am Dr. Katie Peters, and this is the Brain & Life Podcast. Daniel, I'm sure you take advantage of seeing plays and theatrical performances, as you're in NYC.

Dr. Correa:
Part of why we're here in New York City. My wife and I love the arts. We enjoy getting out to see plays and musicals and particularly dance and other arts in New York, but I can't say that I've seen the show that you're going to mention from our guest today. The FOMO list, or fear of missing out in New York City can get quite long. There's that work thing that a few of us have to do, and then there's just getting some time to rest and relax on the couch, so I'm always looking for something new to see, but just getting it on the calendar is the challenge.

Dr. Peters:
Well, hopefully I can get you to add some from this wonderful playwright that we got to talk to. I got to interview one of my favorite playwrights, Sarah Ruhl. She has a great play called Dead Man's Cell Phone. I got to see it at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in DC, which is also just an amazing venue, so you got to check that out too. In addition to her being an award-winning playwright, she's also an author and essayist and I got to read her recent book, Smile: The Story of a Face. And this details her experience with a form of facial palsy called Bell's Palsy, and it developed after she gave birth with twins. So we discuss not only her plays, playwriting, her book, but also this neurologic phenomenon that happened to her and how she balanced it with being a new mother to twins along with just her regular professional life. We'll next have a conversation with Dr. Gary Gronseth. He's a neurologist, and we'll sort of delve into this condition and other forms of facial paralysis.

Dr. Correa:
This is going to be really important for so many of us because this is a condition that is not uncommon to have experienced as individuals or have someone in your family who's had an experience with Bell's Palsy, but there's not a lot of explanation about what it is. So I think it'll be really important for everyone to hear, and I look forward to the discussion.

Dr. Peters:
Seeing a face helps us establish a deeper emotional connection, and facial expressions provide us cues about a person's feelings and allow others to respond empathically, fostering a sense of understanding and connection. But what if we cannot use our face to express those emotions and show what we're feeling? And we're going to learn about this, a form of facial palsy that leads to challenges with facial expression from Sarah Ruhl. Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright, author, professor, and essayist. Her popular plays include The Oldest Boy, Dear Elizabeth, Stage Kiss, and In the Next Room. One of my personal favorites is Dead Man's Cell Phone, which I got to see at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in DC.
She has received the MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for Distinguished American Playwright in Mid-Career. In addition to pinning plays, she's a book author including the recent relevant memoir, Smile: The Story of a Face, and I'll say it was a great read. I would encourage our listeners to check it out. So today she'll be sharing some insights on her saga with Bell's Palsy, which is a form of facial palsy caused by facial nerve dysfunction that is due to a myriad of underlying causes, and how she managed this neurologic complication in the setting of her amazing career and the setting of a pregnancy with twins. So Sarah, I'm a big fan. Welcome to the Brain & Life Podcast.

Sarah Ruhl:
Such a pleasure to be here and again, I'm so glad you saw Dead Man's Cell Phone. That tickles me.

Dr. Peters:
Good. Now, before we discuss your journey with Bell's Palsy, can you share with us about yourself, where you live, your career, and your career as a playwright and author?

Sarah Ruhl:
Sure. I live in Brooklyn, which is snowy Brooklyn today. I teach at Yale School of Drama and I grew up in Chicago. I started out as a poet and then took a deep dive into theater. Paula Vogel was my mentor at Brown University and kind of pulled me over to theater from poetry, but I never lost my love of poetry and still write poetry and essays and I guess a memoir.

Dr. Peters:
Wonderful. And on your website you share, and I like this quote, that you try to interpret how people subjectively experience life. Can you elaborate on that and sort of what inspires you to write a particular play or book?

Sarah Ruhl:
I'm really interested in people's interiors and I think that in the theater, we can get so fixated on realism. And so when I was talking about this idea that everyone has this great big, huge opera inside of them, I was trying to hint at how we might access a character's interiority. Even if they seem like a quiet sort of character like Jean in Dead Man's Cell Phone, how we might find the operatic, emotional life, even in everyday gestures that might seem to be more quiet.

Dr. Peters:
I think that's wonderful and it really focuses on that whether you're an introvert or extrovert, you have something within you to bring it out. And that brings me now to your memoir and again, it's a book I've really enjoyed and I learned a lot about. You talk about your diagnosis and struggles with Bell's Palsy, which is for our listeners, a facial palsy caused by a facial nerve dysfunction. Can you share your story with this condition and how it happened?

Sarah Ruhl:
Yeah. I had just had twins and they were kind of a miraculous delivery because the pregnancy was hard and beset with some problems. And then I was nursing and there was a lactation consultant and she said, "Your face looks a little droopy," and I kind of said, "What?" I was slightly offended and I made some joke about having Irish ancestry or something, and then she said, "No, that's not what I'm talking about. Go look in the mirror." And this whole side of my face, my left side had fallen down and was completely frozen.
And I'm married to a physician, so the differential diagnosis I already was kind of going through it and I was like, "Have I had a stroke? Is this Bell's Palsy?" And a neurologist came and diagnosed Bell's Palsy and usually for listeners, Bell's Palsy is idiopathic. People don't always know why it comes or goes, but it usually resolves within three months. And I was an outlier where it just kept going on and on and on and on, and it turned out I had some underlying other conditions which were probably contributing. But what we don't really know, childbirth can be a trigger and pregnancy can be a trigger for Bell's Palsy, so because I had that trigger, I think my doctors weren't that interested in looking at other possibilities.

Dr. Peters:
You talk a lot about your interactions with the medical profession and how there's some doctors that maybe didn't communicate well, but others that did, and then you also mentioned you're married to a physician. Can you comment on any tips that you would recommend for our listeners in regards to sort of interacting and being an advocate for yourself with those medical professionals?

Sarah Ruhl:
Yes. I had some heroic doctors and then I had some doctors who really made me feel hopeless and not listened to. And starting with the heroic doctors and what I think makes a really incredible doctor is the art of listening and storytelling. So for instance, I had this doctor, Dr. Chen who after the Bell's Palsy hadn't resolved in two years, I went to him for a second opinion and he asked me to go through the story of my diagnosis. And I mentioned in passing, just like I did on the podcast, "Oh, I made some joke about being Irish." And he kind of went, "Oh, you're Irish?" And I said, "Yeah," and he said, "Let's check for celiac disease." And I kind of went, "What?" I knew very little about celiac disease, I didn't know that it was more prevalent in the Irish community. So based on a chance little anecdote, he found out that yes, I had celiac disease, probably my father had it, probably he died of cancer because it was untreated. He connected so many dots that it turns out my daughter has it, so I'm so grateful.
And as it turned out, it might not even be related to the Bell's Palsy or why it wasn't resolving, but he found this other contributing issue to my overall health. So listening, I think even to facts that might not seem pertinent, I think the art of narrative medicine is I think such a beautiful thing. And then also doctors who really listen to patients and believe them and help them find the next expert who can guide them. I think doctors who were really off-putting to me objectified me. One neurologist who just kind of looked at me and said, "You're not better. You're not better. You have a twitch. Do you know that you have a twitch? You're never going to get better. If you're not better now, you're never going to get better. You need experimental surgery." So I remember leaving that office crying and feeling hopeless, and also feeling like I'd failed somehow, failed to get better. There was almost something in the way he was talking to me where I was like, "Oh, I was supposed to get better and I didn't, and now I'm a failure."

Dr. Peters:
Well, I really think it's important that you shared those experiences because I know that our patients hopefully are in a relationship with a medical professional where it is hope. And I would say I want to thank that doctor, because the trickle down effect was not just to find out about your celiac but your daughter's celiac, and I remember that point that you shared in the book. But I'm going to loop back around and not to hit on the hopeless, but I love the fact that you referenced Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor, one of my favorite books. And can you just share your thoughts about how Sontag, she believed that if you wrap disease in metaphors, it's discouraging, it silences patients, it shames patients. In your journey with Bell's Palsy, can you reflect on Sontag's thesis of illness as a metaphor?

Sarah Ruhl:
If I'm reading her right, she's also talking about how culture starts wrapping illness in metaphors that lead to self-blame for patients. And I think for me, this idea that I wasn't getting better, that my face was flat, that my affect was flat, I don't know, I felt somehow ashamed and at fault and that because I'd had these healthy twins with a high-risk pregnancy, that I should just be grateful for that outcome and not be vain or focus on my own illness. I think I also thought I shouldn't be upset about Bell's Palsy because it was chronic and it wasn't going to kill me, and so that it was vanity somehow to actually mourn not having my face, what I thought of as my face anymore. And I think writing the book in a way was cathartic to let go of a lot of these strange thoughts around the illness that I was having that in a way weren't the illness themselves, but how I was processing it.

Dr. Peters:
Well, that's wonderful because it really is about not just even physical healing, but also emotional healing. And I feel like going through your story in Smile: The Story of a Face, I could see what was happening to you and feel your emotions, so I greatly appreciate it. What else do you think helped contribute to your emotional and the healing process going through all of this?

Sarah Ruhl:
I think one thing was writing the book, interestingly. I think my way forward before writing the book was to try not to think about it, to sort of go on with my life. And there was a big part of me that was suffering, that was retreating from the world, withdrawing from friends, withdrawing from family that was deeply depressed. And I think writing the book and owning that and making sense of that and sharing that, sharing that even with family and friends who said, "I had no idea you were going through that," was healing.

Dr. Peters:
Well, that's quite a journey and I think for our listeners, not everybody is a writer. Maybe we have people that have different ways of communicating, whether it's through music or through artwork. I think it's really nice to see that you used a medium, which is writing, to help you heal. Do you have any plays in the works that have been almost inspired by your journey that are coming out or will come out?

Sarah Ruhl:
It's such an interesting question. I don't have a play about this particular issue, and maybe I should. It's such a hard thing to write about, and I've thought a lot about how would you express it theatrically? And maybe it's about a mask, going back to Greek drama and the whole idea of a mask. But I haven't written this as a play yet, and maybe I should. And I think what you're saying about expressing in any form you have to heal, I found someone on Instagram who had a stroke and is doing beautiful visual art post-stroke.
I think so many of the arts can help, rather than withdrawing, which is what I was doing for a time. And I have a neurologist friend, Julie Roth, who talked about gratitude lists with some of her neurology patients who have really difficult diagnoses that don't necessarily have magical treatments. And she says she has them make gratitude lists, but not generic ones like, "Oh, I'm grateful for my friends and my family," yes, but also to go to really make specific enumerations like I'm grateful I can put my socks on. I'm grateful my husband's heart didn't stop beating last night. I'm grateful. And I started doing that as well, and that was helpful to me too.

Dr. Peters:
Oh, I like the idea of gratitude lists. Thank you for sharing that, and I'm sure our listeners will really enjoy that. So you essentially had this condition, Bell's Palsy. You just had twins and you were at the height of your career. I think this is again a question that will resonate with our listeners. How did you balance everything? What are some tips and tricks that make it possible to balance home life, your health, your work life?

Sarah Ruhl:
It was a bananas time. I was nominated for a Tony Award right after I had twins and had Bell's palsy, so I was I going to the Vanity Fair, have your picture taken as a Tony nominee and I couldn't smile. And these photographers were like, "Smile. What's wrong with you? Why can't you smile for your Tony Award?" And I was like, "Actually, I can't. I have Bell's Palsy," which shut them up. But balancing having my picture taken, being sometimes in public venues or conversations with extreme self-consciousness was really hard. And I think the biggest balm for me was my husband, the support of him and my family. He not only was emotionally supportive, but domestically supportive so that when I had crazy fatigue and couldn't seem to get up in the morning to make breakfast for three kids, he would do that. He would alter his working hours as a physician to be more present at home, so I really credit Tony.
I have an incredible babysitter who is a very wise, wonderful person who continues to be in our lives. So I had a lot of helpers and I allowed myself to be helped. I think that's one thing I've talked to mothers about or mothers who are balancing writing, you have to ask for help. I'm sorry, you're going to have to. I know you seem really self-sufficient, but I think when you have twins, it's where the rubber meets the road. When I had one child, I was like, "I can balance this. I can do it." And then when I had twins, it was like, "I can't. I literally can't breastfeed them at the same time and make a sandwich for my four-year-old. I can't do it. I don't have enough hands. I need help." So I acknowledging you need help and then accepting the help that's given was an important lesson for me.

Dr. Peters:
And those are two really important steps, the acknowledgement that you need help and then accepting it. And I think so many of our patients and their loved ones that will resonate with them, and I think that you're highlighting the caregivers and having sort of a makeshift team around you is so important. And I guess you see this all the time with your plays. It takes the entire cast of characters-

Sarah Ruhl:
Yes, that's right.

Dr. Peters:
... to pull it off.

Sarah Ruhl:
And the stage manager and the costume designer and the market. It's huge how many people have to come together to make a play.

Dr. Peters:
And I'll say, I think the idea of a mask and going back to Greek comedy/tragedy or any of the plays would be a great idea for a play. I was a classics minor in college, so I did biochemistry but I still have a soft spot for the classics, so that would be a great idea.

Sarah Ruhl:
Yeah. Woman after my own heart. Yes.

Dr. Peters:
Well, I just want to say thank you for sharing your experiences with Bell's Palsy and the insights into your writing. Please check out Sarah's website, it's www.sarahruhlplaywright.com, and pick up her book about her personal journey with Bell's Palsy entitled Smile: The Story of a Face. And always, thank you to our listeners.

Sarah Ruhl:
Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Peters:
Thank you, Sarah.

Dr. Correa:
Can't get enough of the Brain & Life podcast? Keep the conversation going on social media when you follow @NeuroDrCorrea and @brainandlifemag or visit brainandlife.org.

Dr. Peters:
Hello, Brain & Life podcast audience and thank you for joining us today. I'm Dr. Katie Peters, your podcast co-host. Today we'll be discussing the phenomenon of Bell's Palsy. Now, Bell's Palsy is a temporary condition that affects the muscles on one side of the face, causing it to droop or become paralyzed, but I'm not going to talk any more about this condition because we've got an expert today. Our medical expert is Dr. Gary Gronseth. He earned his undergraduate degree at Marquette University in 1977, and then he graduated in 19 eighty-one with a degree in medicine from the Medical College of Wisconsin, and he completed an internship at the St. Joseph Hospital in Milwaukee in 1982. He then finished as a flight surgeon education at the School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, has subsequently served as a chief of aerospace medicine. I may have to ask him about this, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.
He completed his neurology residency at the Wilford Hall Air Force Base in San Antonio. He then later was the chairman of neurology and director of the Neurology residence program at that same Air Force base. He retired from the Air Force with the rank of colonel in 2002. Dr. Gronseth's career at the University of Kansas Medical Center began in 2002, where he currently serves as a professor and chair of the Department of Neurology. In 2017, he was awarded the Chancellor's Club's Teaching Professorship, which recognizes persons who have demonstrated outstanding teaching competency over an extended period of years. And we hope he'll teach us today all about Bell's Palsy. So welcome to the Brain & Life Podcast, Dr. Gronseth.

Dr. Gronseth:
Well, thank you for having me, Dr. Peters.

Dr. Peters:
Can we start off first, what is Bell's Palsy?

Dr. Gronseth:
Well, as you said, it's a condition that affects a nerve that controls your facial muscles on one side. It's an idiopathic condition, meaning that the doctors don't know the cause, that's why we label it idiopathic. But we do know that it's caused by inflammation of the nerve, and the inflammation causes the nerve to be pinched in a bone in the skull and that's what leads to the weakness. We're suspicious that the inflammation is caused by a virus, perhaps the common cold sore virus, but we're not certain of that.

Dr. Peters:
Are there particular people that are more predisposed to develop Bell's palsy?

Dr. Gronseth:
So it can occur at any age. It's most common in young adults like age 20 to 40, but people can get it at any age, and people who are pregnant tend to get it at a much higher incidence. We're not sure why. The immune system of course changes a lot, and so they may be more prone to infection, viral infections in particular. Plus, it may be just related to fluid retention and the nerve is more prone to swell and get pinched in that bone in the skull.

Dr. Peters:
Well, that's very interesting because the person that we interviewed was Sarah Ruhl, she's a playwright and an author, and her condition really developed right after she delivered twins, and so it happened in that period after she delivered. Does that happen also, not just during the pregnancy stage, but after patients have delivered?

Dr. Gronseth:
Yes, patients who have just delivered are at increased risk as well.

Dr. Peters:
Oh, interesting. And she had some other symptoms that were associated with her Bell's Palsy. Can you describe any other common accompanying symptoms?

Dr. Gronseth:
Sure. So the facial nerve does more than just control the face. That's its most important function, but it also controls taste, so people often complain of a funny taste on the same side that their face is weak on. They also sometimes note that sounds are really loud because the facial nerves controls tiny muscle in the middle ear that attenuates sounds, and so they might notice that things are louder because of that. Sometimes our tearing will be affected. Usually it's increased, although sometimes it can be decreased as well.

Dr. Peters:
So I remember when I had a patient with Bell's Palsy, I looked in their ear and I found little vesicles. Can you describe that phenomenon of finding little blisters or vesicles in the ear?

Dr. Gronseth:
Sure. So that technically is not Bell's Palsy, that's a related condition called Ramsay Hunt syndrome. Bell's Palsy is one of those peculiar diseases that we deal with that if you find the cause, you don't call it Bell's Palsy anymore. And so in the case of Ramsay Hunt syndrome, and it's very important to look in the ear, the doctor will do that, that's caused by shingles. And so there we know that the virus is the chicken pox virus that caused the facial weakness, but technically we wouldn't refer to it as Bell's Palsy, but the manifestations are very similar.

Dr. Peters:
Thank you for that clarification. And I agree, that is Ramsay Hunt, and I was really happy when I picked up those vesicles so that I could diagnose and treat my patient. It's a great pickup for a neurologist, particularly neurology resident to find, don't you agree?

Dr. Gronseth:
Oh, I agree. Those cases are fun. Not that we want patients to be suffering, but they're fun because you have the diagnosis and then there's very specific treatment to help them get better, and that's always rewarding.

Dr. Peters:
Yeah. That's what we want to do, is help our patients. And one of the things that was sort of interesting about Ruhl's case is that she continued to have weakness in her face and it didn't resolve. Can you describe how there's different trajectories of the illness where some people will recover completely or maybe some people will have lingering problems?

Dr. Gronseth:
So with treatment, and by treatment I mean primarily steroids, so just a short course of steroids, a couple of weeks of prednisone is usually what's prescribed, 95% of people get better, but there are 5% of people who don't and they can eventually recover, but it can take a long time and sometimes they don't ever recover. But in those patients, facial exercises seem to be particularly important to help recovery.

Dr. Peters:
Is there anything special or unique about that 5%?

Dr. Gronseth:
There are certain risk factors that predict a poor prognosis. So patients with diabetes are less likely to recover, although most of them still recover. Patients with high blood pressure. Commonly patients with Bell's Palsy, didn't mention this, will have some pain in the ear or around the ear. But if you have pain and it's not in that area, it's elsewhere, those patients also have a decreased likelihood of recovery. But exactly what the relationship is between diabetes and poor recovery in patients with Bell's Palsy, it's unclear.

Dr. Peters:
And you described the treatment journey for patients, it really involves giving steroids and you mentioned prednisone. Do we need to do any special imaging or other testing to diagnose our patients?

Dr. Gronseth:
Well, that's a great question because the way it usually manifests is somebody will wake up one morning, look in the mirror and they'll notice that their face is paralyzed on one side and the first thing they think of is, "My gosh, I've had a stroke," and that's exactly what they should think. And in fact, they should treat that as an emergency because it could be a stroke. And so that's not something where you dilly-dally and wait to get an appointment with your outpatient physician, that's something where you go to the emergency room to get evaluated. And then the physician in the emergency room, there are certain exam features like if the forehead is involved especially, that will indicate that it's not a stroke, but most people don't know that. You need a physician to go and figure that out and if it is a stroke, the treatment is a lot different. So if you notice that your face is weak on one side, don't hesitate. Don't just think, "Oh, this is that Bell's Palsy that I heard about," get evaluated to make sure that it's not a stroke.
And usually without tests, the physician can be confident that it's not a stroke based on the pattern of weakness, based on whether taste is involved. But sometimes they will do some imaging like an MRI of the head or a CAT scan to make sure that there's nothing else going on, and that's okay too when there's not certainty. But then once it's identified, then you go to the treatment phase and almost always, the physician will prescribe a course of steroids. This, isn't long-term, this will be a couple of weeks, followed by a taper. There's mixed evidence, but sometimes because we think it might be related to a virus, they may give an antiviral type antibiotic and they may even send you to the physical therapist to train you on how to do some facial exercises. We know that that's harmless to do. It's not going to make anything worse, and there's some suggestive evidence that it might help. It might make you better.

Dr. Peters:
Thank you for that advice for our listeners and for the general populaces. Again, if you have an acute neurologic sign such as facial weakness, you should be evaluated for a stroke. I would think another potential thing that could be uncovered that wouldn't be that idiopathic Bell's Palsy could potentially be a tumor of that facial nerve that could lead to dysfunction.

Dr. Gronseth:
Yes. One of the warning signs when we're evaluating a patient with Bell's Palsy is if it came on slowly, that's less likely to be Bell's Palsy versus something else like the tumor that you described. And so if it comes on over more than three days, we start to worry and look for that. Also, if we see evidence that you may not be aware of that it's been there for a while, like you've got some abnormal reinnervation, something that we call synkinesis, that's a warning sign too. And in those situations, the physician for sure will do some imaging to look for other things.

Dr. Peters:
Could you describe synkinesis a little bit more for our listeners?

Dr. Gronseth:
Synkinesis is when there's damage to the facial nerve and the nerve is growing back, and it's got to find the muscle that it was originally attached to and it finds the wrong muscle.

Dr. Peters:
Oh, interesting.

Dr. Gronseth:
I wish we had video because I had Bell's Palsy and I have synkinesis and I can demonstrate it, but I wouldn't be fair to my listeners to do that. So the muscles of my lip, there are nerves that go to the muscles of your lip when you purse your lips to kiss that come to the facial nerve, and there are also muscles that go around your eyelid muscles to close. So when I go to pucker to kiss, you can see that those eyelid muscles get activated and I close my eyes. That's synkinesis and the treatment, the physical therapy may be, but the prednisone for sure decreases the risk of that, but it doesn't guarantee that you won't end up with something like that.

Dr. Peters:
You did a great job showing me synkinesis, and thank you for sharing your own personal journey with Bell's Palsy. One thing that the person that we interviewed, Ms. Ruhl, that she talked about is that she had difficulty with eating and maybe with even speaking. Can you talk about those issues for our patients? Because it's not just the weakness of those muscles, they also have activity problems.

Dr. Gronseth:
Right. And so it's related to the function of those muscles, and so relative to speech, many of the phonemes, the sounds that we make are based on the facial muscles. Like when you go, "Pa, pa, pa," or, "Ba, ba, ba," you're using your lip muscles and if those muscles are weak on one side, it's not going to sound quite right. And then when you're eating, your facial muscles are preventing the food from pocketing between your gums and your cheek. They contract and they keep the food out of there, and you could have difficulty with that and notice this pocketing of food. And so you really get to appreciate all the things that your facial muscles do but again, fortunately in most people, all those things get better with time.

Dr. Peters:
I like that it gets better with time. That's a very positive message for our listeners that maybe are going through this, always having a positive support network for our patients. This would include their caregivers or loved ones because it can be emotional since our face is what we're presenting a lot of times first. Can you talk about the role of maybe the caregivers and the family and friends and the need to also balance someone's emotional response to something happening to their face?

Dr. Gronseth:
The mainstay is to reinforce the reassurance. Okay, so you've been to the doctor and it's not a stroke. Okay. It's Bell's Palsy. I never say, "Just Bell's Palsy," because it's still a problem. You know the prognosis if you did nothing is really good, and now you're taking medications and maybe doing exercises that will help, so now it's just a waiting game. Then the other thing to emphasize is because the facial muscles protect your eye, they close your eye and they may be weak, IT's important and your friends can help you and remind you, protect that eye. Don't get into a situation where it's really dusty and there's a lot of dust blowing out there and things can get in your eye. You may have to put drops in it. Your physician may prescribe that. Your loved ones may help you tape the eye shut at night so that you don't rub it on the pillow, and they can just remind you now and again that things are going to get better.

Dr. Peters:
What other advice or insights would you offer to essentially patients that are going through a similar experience with Bell's Palsy?

Dr. Gronseth:
I think just patience, expectation, and you'll get through it. You'll get through it. Remember, the odds are in your favor.

Dr. Peters:
Thank you, Dr. Gronseth, for this enlightening experience on Bell's Palsy and learning more for our patients and providing such a positive message that we will get better, and you have a great smile. That's what I would say.

Dr. Gronseth:
Well, thank you. Thank you, and again, thank you for having me.

Dr. Correa:
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Dr. Correa:
You can also find that information in our show notes, and you can follow Katie and me and the Brain & Life Magazine on many of your preferred social media channels. We are your hosts, Dr. Daniel Correa, connecting with you from New York City and online @NeuroDrCorrea.

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Playwright Sarah Ruhl Finds Inspiration in her Bell’s Palsy Journey

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