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June 4, 2025 16 mins
James shares a painful time in his life 7 years ago.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Okay, right and smiling and it's fine symmetrical. If you're listening,
you can't see my face, but you know what looks
like chances are And it's been like this for a
few years. I have I see some things that still
are perfect. But I want to tell you but my
bell's palsy story. Hi. I'm James au Junius is tightened

(00:27):
up with James Jr. Here on JJ Media. We just
rebranded the show last month and I'm looking at the
numbers and thank you so much for anyone who's tuning
tuning in to the audio version to some of the videos.
Thank you so very much. We want to grow this podcast.
I have some stuff planned for you that's just amazing

(00:48):
for this show, So stay tuned man. Next I'm recording
this next month. On July second, it will be my
seven year anniversary since the day I woke up and
have my face went paralyzed. One of the scariest things

(01:10):
that ever happened to me my entire life. I've had
some I've had some scary things, but to have this
something I did not know what was happening. It was
on set all of a sudden. It was strange. I
know how serious. It was. At first, I didn't know
if it was a stroke. It was just it was all
crazy talk the night before on June. For July first,

(01:36):
I had an earache. We're not going away. I was like,
I was thinking all this time also just not going away.
As you know, I'm a podcaster, so I had It
was a Saturday night, so Sunday I woke with the
same rich just go away and all things like you know, uh,
hot compresses, cold compresses, there's there wasn't going away. But

(01:59):
I had four four shows to do live shows on
camera I had to do that day, and I went
to work out to the valley and FBus TV right
three and I went on and we do we headphone
stuff and people I have not looked. I have not
looked to this day. I've run with those episodes, see
what I look like. But some people said later they

(02:21):
could tell someone's going on with me. Thea you know
what it was with my mouth and I just had
I had an eric. But I did all four shows
at all and one of these shows we were toasting
something and I even had an alcohol whatever. I got
to come home, eat, go to bed, and I guess

(02:42):
as I'm talking about to you right now. I'm I
am just seriously transported back like it was yesterday. That's cuzy.
So I wake up, go to the bathroom, my bed,
I get up on the right side, the bathroom's on
the right side, steps away and go into the bathroom,
walk past the mirror and go to the Toilet's peak

(03:05):
in the morning, Pete gotta do that. So I pee.
I go to brush my teeth and wash my face,
and I washed. I the washed off, and I went
my fraid on stuff. I'll tell you something. I went

(03:26):
to brush my teeth and I couldn't spit couldn't form
my lips to spit. It looks in the mirror. My
something looks a little strange, like once I face was
a little swollen. So I said, okay, I'm going to

(03:48):
have to really look at this. My mother had a
mild case of Bell's palsy not so long before that.
Her only lasts like weeks. She was better, which many
cases that happens, but this is why. But this isn't
always happened anyway. So I'm like, okay, And so I'm
trying to brush my teeth and stuff just falling out,

(04:12):
and I'm like my mouth feels weird. I try to
move it around. I called my mom. It was like,
I think this one's gone with my mouth. I think
going to the clinic. She's like, okay, I'm thinking cleat
bell's palsy or could be a stroke. I wasn't sure
what was going on. So thank god my friends at
New Care Clinic love them. New Clinic is the bomb

(04:32):
here in Westchester, Dutch McHale and his staff. I got dressed,
you know, and got in and got in an uber
where lived and where it was and went over there.
It's like ten minutes away. So I went over there,
listen to that. Walked in. It was like, I think
I have some side of my face and they could

(04:53):
tell her say started. I couldn't stop looking at have
a little mirror. It was like getting where and started.
It was droopy. They're like, oh, okay. They bring me
in a blow press of stuff, sit me down, and
it's okay. We're going to just do some tests, physical tests.
It looked at it and some stuff chake my ear
as kind of things, and so I can just sit

(05:13):
here for you. I'm a former nurse, so I just
want you guys to know. I know that if you
catch a stroke early on set, so long as you
can reverse it, stop it, minimalize, there's things you can
do sometimes to help with that. But she's looking at
me and I said, there for like maybe twenty minutes,
and my face is starting to treat you more. And

(05:36):
that's what I said, we think you have bells palsy.
Now I was like, Bell's policy. Okay, Like oh god,
I got how I get it, blah blah. And that's
what is kind of a semi mystery. I'm explaining to
you what happens and why. But the actual cause some
saxtreme stress like your body system. May say it's a virus,

(06:01):
and it's your system. Deer chicks, lime disease, sometimes pregnancy,
like certainly just different things I really stress your body
and cause you to feel sick, but it goes to
your nerve. So what happened was so behind your ear
is a nerve. It's a cranial nerve. They called the
seventh nerve, cranial nerves, different words for it, and it's

(06:21):
behind your ear. So I just came back from Pittsburgh.
I used to live in Pittsburgh part time, so it's
very woodsy there. So maybe I got a deer tame,
who knows. But something got in my ear and it
was swollen, it was inflamed. It was like a little
further out, didn't hurt, but just like, oh, it's inflamed.
And it started to cause my face to droop. And

(06:47):
but it's one of those things where you don't know
how bad it's going to be. That's that's the unknown
part is the scariest part, because you don't know how
bad it's going to be, how worse it's gonna get,
all that stuff. So they said, okay, well we're gonna
give all it can do is want psych verer for
the for the virus that could be your system. And
it's a parento zone, which is a steroid possibly can
help you, and they call it a Z pack. So

(07:09):
what you do is it's like you take this may
Midle Grands for a few days, and you take this
man Milo Grams for a few days, and it's less
and less and less important. I'm supposed to just drop
just to wean you off it. I wasn't paying attention. No,
only I'm paying attention. I'm scared. So I was like
I just took it and was like again, whatever. So

(07:29):
then I go home to my mind. I was policy,
I think, and like you told me, it could stop
at any time or keep going up to seventy two hours,
so like like the next few days. It doesn't hurt
when your face goes paralyzed. It's the opposite. It just

(07:53):
you can't use it. I'm trying to describe this feeling
as somebody it's I got because I have for a
long time. I got used to it for a while,
but it's just we At first you're like, oh, you
feel it coming on. It's like a tingling sensation. Something
hurts and it starts to drop. Now I had a show.
I was they interview Darcel, one of the lead dancers

(08:16):
some Solid Gold. I had her book. I was to
interview lay a day I had to cancel with a girl.
I got bos palsy, so I couldn't such. I really
couldn't talk. I couldn't swallow, I couldn't chew, can sneeze,
can't cough. It's just weird how much you use your face.
The headache was still there, so I got I was
getting teased and calmed me down and the back. They
couldn't swallow the pills. It was hard to swallow them.

(08:39):
It was crazy. So the next two days I tell
him like, I'm out a commissioner right now. I don't
know how long. And so my journey lasted for nine months,
almost a year as severe case of Bell's palsy. Why
not gonna stop here. I'm gonna show you a quick
video I found the other day. I'm gonna say, trigger warning.

(09:01):
If you can't look at people with half paralyzed face
or you've had yourself, it's trigger I was getting trigger warning,
but just me giving a public soervice announcement because I
decided to document my journey. So all the videos are
out there. This is one and this is me, and
you see my face as completely half paralyzed. Something to
remember if you have take pregnizone or any kind of steroid,

(09:23):
make sure they taper you off. That is very important
because the side effects are not run. But I am
doing a little better. I feel like I feel like
I'm just away from the world right. It's it's even
hard for me to watch sometimes it's weird. I was like,
it's like it's like a different person, yet I remember
it completely. Yeah, so and and so after so anyway,

(09:50):
so I had to live with it for a while.
I couldn't work. I got brain fog. It really, it
really affects your brain. I had brain fog. I had
I had anxiety at I was taking all this stuff
and it got worse. Over the next four or five days,
against got worse. I felt depressed, like this my job
as talking is this. I can't do this? Like what

(10:13):
I so? Yeah, So that was it was a trip
and I somewhere along the line decided I got to
take control somewhere. Now, why am I showing on this show?
Facial paralysis is a major thing. Not a lot of

(10:34):
plastic surgery or electro surgery can help you. Sometimes it can't.
I mean because the problem is there's dead nerves there storing.
It's like the paralyzer, dead or numb. So to revitalize
that it was to get more and more technologies nowadays,
but you know, seven years ago there was not much
more you can do. And I started looking up, like,

(10:57):
what are some possible things that can help you. I'm
not a person just sit surround does nothing. It's just
not me. And I heard for the inflammation, so the
swelling goes down and maybe will help you get your
face back is vitamin B and lots of vitamin B.
It's good for information, you know, whether it's supplements, vitamins

(11:18):
or food's rich envitement. Now I can't I can't eat,
I can't chew. So I did you and they cants
on pills. So that was a trip. I did both.
It was a trip. So I was doing that. Lots
of rest, no exercise, so I was following all this stuff.
But I actually went to a bunch of the Bell's
palsy websites that are out there and looked it up.

(11:42):
You know, don't do this, do this, don't do this,
do this. I was trying holistic approaches plus rest. If
I get tied, the rest, but and then later acupuncture.
That's why I bring it up for the show. It
could help. I think. I think it did help me
stimulate some of the things. And I want to give
things to Maria Menudo's I was told by Kena Degaro

(12:07):
at FTV. Contact her. She knows people, and she tell
you can to rescue. And I got a couple of
treatments and I will like say, I think it did help,
and I mean, I look, it's basically almost back to normal.
So and tell but it was a very lonely journey.
I went to Pittsburgh for three months to recover in

(12:28):
silence and quiet and calm things. Couldn't do it. I'll
drink lots of tea. I'm gonna sit over behind me
in this little chair, sitting there drinking the tea. Calming
cameal teas, calming teas, give everything calm because it was
just it was crazy. It was crazy. It was crazy.
There's lots of stuff. So I was like, okay, I'm

(12:48):
going to when I would try to beat this, I
did something. I mean, even if I was partialing part
because I had friends who contacted me who had Bell's
palsy one part of his. I still droopy to this.
Another got through it, and actually, an actor on the show,
says Treddie Smith, I actually had him and I show
a lot of help with James out or you can
check out that episode where he talks about it, because

(13:09):
I said, I want to document my journey here and there,
and that's where that one video comes from. Because people
have Bell's palsy and no one's talking about it. When
I got it's like, oh my god, my uncle got it,
my mom got it. Like this guy. It like everybody
knows somebody who had it, but nobody was talking about it.
So I've been very vocal about Bell's palsy ever since.

(13:30):
I'm just like, no one's talking about it. One person
said they didge her after they got past the whole thing.
They did have surgery and to repair some damage and
it was close to normal. So I mean, I will
have some experts on here later in the season to
talk about if there's any kind of facial reconstruction you

(13:51):
can do when it comes to facial paralysis. That is
a major thing. So I had that and it just
taught me a lot. I appreciate. I can talk now.
I do have problems with me once in a while.
Still my mouth doesn't work well. Sometimes you get hearings
sometimes but the information is down and that's gone. But

(14:11):
I you know, I don't. I've got it several times.
You've got both sides. I'm just like, I never want
it ever again, never ever ever wanted again ever again.
But I remember thanking for the sake of this this discussion.
If the initial part is just done in a sense,
and it's just that I have a chrobute face, I

(14:32):
would have went and sought help so I can see
I loved you. I love this. I love doing what
I do, whether I camera or not. I couldn't form sets,
I couldn't talk fully, I couldn't do this as you
saw in the video. So I was like I was
gonna do wherever I could, but then within minitary reach,
because I always been advance and now there's more advances
in seven years that there's more advances. And I said,

(14:54):
later in the season, we'll have I'll talk to some
folks about this. But but I just survived it. I
am a survivor of Bell's pause, severe Bell's palsy. I
will never forget it. So when Juice, when July Say
comes up, I just can't taking a step and think
about it. And I just remember, I remember that whole
I remember that whole day. It's just it's I remember
going out in public, but I couldn't smile, and I

(15:16):
had I had these cards I've written out on paper,
and it was like, I'm not mad, I just I
have Bell's policy. I'd wear shirts. I had bought these
shirts that Bells pos them because I said, what people,
because you went. I started getting back out to the
world to interact I like to say thank you and please,
and you know, good luck and every nice day, and
I have to chit chat and I couldn't. The expressions

(15:39):
were just dead. It was dead. I couldn't do anything.
So I think I was mad. I was an angry
black man or that. So it was. It was. It
was a trip mentally, is a trip physical. I will
It's something I'll never forget for rest of my life,
never ever forget. That's my Bell's Walter story. Kids. We're
here on Wednesdays. Tighten up Wednesdays. We talked about and
so when I have some size, I have some really

(16:00):
good stuff plan for the show. But if you want
to come on, if you're into Platt surgery or any
kind of let your surgery world, you want to come
on the show, please let me know, DM me write
me Jharrislide, gmail dot com, whatever. Just where you find
this audio or video, please look me up. I'm ready.
I'm James Ejunior and we'll talk to you next week. Bye,
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