Becoming Accustomed

The following day, Tuesday, I had Annual Leave booked anyway, so I mooches about the house on my own. I found I was quickly developing an unfamiliar habit of looking at myself in the mirror, only, it wasn't me. Now, I consider myself quite lucky, the paralsysed side of my face has never 'dropped'. I practiced a look of normality, which is essentially a still photo pose, once I moved a facial muscle normality skipped out the window.
I still felt positive, I self administered my second whopping does of steroids and got on with things. Myself and Sam are driven to becoming proud owners of livestock, in the form of chickens. We had just decided to build our own chicken coop and run from scratch and had targeted today as the project start date. After fashioning some crude plans I set to the manual labour, measuring lengths if wood and angles with a school protractor set and other makeshift equiptment.
My tact of ignorance failed to make any ground and the pain in my head provoked more breaks on the project than a council worker.
Wednesday 15th October, I was forced to give real consideration to my ability to function as an Operational Manager. My very good friend Phil collected me at 8.30am from our usual meeting point and was struck dumb. He could not figure out which was more incompriensable, the appearance if my face or the fact he was taking me into work in such a state. I was forced to promise that I would leave work when I had my blood pressure checked and had made arrangements to cover my responsibilities.
I did both, at a pace, and was secretly relieved when Phil dropped me back home before lunch, that short day exhausted me.
The next few days were a conglomeration of - chicken coop, radio 5 live and occasional dozing. Phil came round with a card from work colleagues which jolted my spirits no end and went a long way to making me feel like a normal human for a brief moment. My blood pressure leveled off at a slightley hypertensive 150/106 and the headaches continued.

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