Me Life Story by Scarlett Moffatt (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📕

my hand over my mouth in the hope no one would notice my horrendous teeth. I would look down when people spoke to me, probably looking like such an ill-mannered teenager. I had no confidence with boys for years – I mean, who would want to kiss me? The only rare occasions I did smile in front of others was when I was dancing at competitions. But that was me playing the most confident version of me.

Not being able to walk into secondary school on my first day and smile at the other kids was hard. If the monobrow eyebrow slapped across my face wasn’t enough, I had now been blessed with black goofy teeth that looked like they were having a party without me. I had a pale, freckled, chubby-cheeked face that emphasised the fact puberty had hit and I had a faint black tash. I honestly looked like a brunette Helga Pataki from Hey Arnold! (I was watching beautiful blondes like Christina Aguilera in ‘Lady Marmalade’ music videos and that’s what I aspired to look like at the time.)

For the first year of secondary school my front teeth were half the size they had been. When I was finally given caps on my teeth they were very bulky and the right tooth was still black. This gave the bullies a lot of leverage for nicknames. Some of them were actually quite inventive, I was impressed: Polystyrene Teeth, Cap-tooth Scarlett, Chessboard Teeth, Black Tooth, Scruffy Teeth – and the most original one of all, Goofy.

I remember daydreaming that one day I would wake up like they do in the movies and I’d be beautiful. My teeth would be as white as Simon Cowell’s in Pop Idol. My hair would be silky and poker-straight, I’d have perfectly groomed eyebrows, the tash would be gone and my tan would look like I’d been dipped in liquidised gold.

But even my ‘ugly duckling turning into a swan’ daydreaming came down with a crash. Not long after the accident I was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, a type of facial paralysis. The doctors said it could be because of the trauma of smashing my teeth. Now I am under no illusions that there are worse afflictions to have but at the time, being eleven years old and starting secondary school where it is so looks-orientated, it was just soul-destroying. I couldn’t even dream about being pretty because it was just one thing after another.

When the Bell’s palsy struck I remember staring in the living room mirror, screaming and screaming. ‘Mam! Dad! Help, help!’ One minute I was fine and the next minute I felt my whole face collapse. I could barely open my left eye; it drooped so much that it looked like I was winking. My mouth slouched and I could barely string a sentence together. It’s like I was fighting with my own face, my own tongue, to get my words out. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get my face to go straight again. I couldn’t even force my eye open. I was utterly petrified. I honestly, at that moment in time, thought I was dying. I remember feeling like I was having an out-of-body experience; I could hear the blood rushing around my body. I stood grabbing my face with both hands, trying to manipulate it back to how it looked before it slouched. Literally pulling at my face, pinching it so hard I was making it red. ‘Go straight, go straight!’ I screamed. There was nothing I could do, I felt like I wasn’t even in control of my own muscles.

My mam thought at first that I was playing a prank; she honestly thought I was joking. ‘Stop it now, Scarlett, it’s not funny,’ she snapped. I couldn’t even speak. I was inconsolable. She then realised I was not putting it on. My dad grabbed my coat and my parents took me to the hospital where the doctor diagnosed me with Bell’s palsy. This condition has the symptoms of a stroke but it causes temporary weakness or paralysis of the muscles in one side of the face.

After my initial diagnosis we all had to sit back in the waiting room of the paediatrics department surrounded by paintings of clowns and smiling faces on the wall. The doctor entered the waiting area. ‘If you’d like to follow me …’ We were now all crammed in a very small hospital room. I can’t remember details about the room, just that it was very small and stuffy, but I do still remember what the doctor looked like. He was my dad’s height (five foot seven), his clean-shaven skin was as smooth as a baby’s arse and he had kind eyes. (You know what I mean, sometimes you can meet people and their eyes look right through you. Like Katie Hopkins, for example, if you look closely at her eyes they look sad, like she just needs a good cuddle. But this doctor, he had the eyes of a gentle man, he had David Attenborough kind of eyes.)

‘If you can take your socks and shoes off, Miss Scarlett O’Hara, I’ll pop you on the scales. I just need to explain something to your parents about why we need to do some blood tests. Now it is nothing to be scared of, I promise it will only feel like a scratch.’

I smiled, without showing my teeth. I was so relieved that the doctor was so kind.

The doctor continued calmly talking to my parents as he prepared me for the blood test. ‘We need to do these tests as on rare occasions Bell’s palsy can be an early manifestation of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia,’ he said.

I had no idea what any of the words meant and I’m so pleased I didn’t. It’s only now I look back I understand why my parents got so upset. My dad had just recovered from a rare skin cancer just four years before. So I know the thought of