Tag: BPES

Must be the BPES

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Until we learned about BPES, I never realized that my nose was a little different. I always thought I just had small eyes, never realizing that some of my other facial features were also a little bit different as well. I focus a lot on my eyes on these pages, in part because this is what people commented on so much when I was a kid. It is the most visibly obvious difference and our childhood experiences have such a profound impact on our psyche. Another visual indicator of BPES is a flattened nasal bridge. My eyes are farther spaced apart, which can help to contribute to the “buttoned eyed” or “teddy bear” look.

Now that we know we have BPES, it explains a lot, like our ears, nose, and eyes as well as the secondary amenorrhea. I have been having so many issues with my eustachian tubes, it’s got me wondering… are there other issues I have that are due to my BPES? We thought it was so funny that having small eyes and infertility were related. Sometimes I think I associate small bodily annoyances that I can’t explain with BPES. I have no idea why my ears always seem to pop and I am extremely susceptible to getting water in my ears. Is there something wrong with me? Am I being paranoid? Or is this some other BPES thing? Who knows!I want to know what is up with my ears. In running through all the possible explanations, BPES crosses my mind. Unfortunate that with my personality, I love to understand the “why” behind something – to the point that my inquisitive nature can drive others crazy. Blame it on the BPES.

 

Lost my “Bit mojo”

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Recently Bitmoji had a message pop up asking me to update my avatar to the new look.  I was like sure, why not and clicked on it.  As I was going through, I picked out a new hair style and a new face shape, and then I got to the eye page.

There are 9 options for eye shape and they all look almost the same to me. The shape just changes slightly but they are all the same size:

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Since I have BPES and very narrow eyes, I just didn’t see an option that even comes close to what I have.  I selected one the best I could and moved on.  When I looked at the eye size option, it appears to just be for the pupil:

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Now I know Bitmoji are just silly caricatures, but it is interesting to me how there is a lot more variety in some of the other categories, like hair.   And I think my new version does look like me, it is just that I am not used to seeing an image of myself with larger eyes.  I guess I will just have to wait until future updates to see if they change up the eye options.

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High all the time

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In college one of my favorite professors was my Spanish professor. I minored in Spanish so I had several classes with him throughout my time in college. He was from Spain and was just a stereotypical Spaniard in so many delightful ways. He brought the European approach to class and was much more laid back compared to US professors. He would get very homesick for Spain from time to time and we would have events outside of class related to Spanish culture. Sometimes he and a few other professors from the Spanish department, along with a group of students would go Latin dancing at a local Mexican restaurant for their salsa night. It was always lively and full of homesick student and professor expats. Between classes and off campus events, I felt like I’d had good interactions with him over the years and we had developed a positive student/teacher relationship.

Towards the end of my senior year, during one of our Spanish conversation classes, he casually mentioned in class discussion how I was always high in class. I was appalled. I felt I worked hard in his classes and I had earned his respect with my level of Spanish and as a serious student. I got good grades in his classes and I enjoyed having him as a professor. I also felt like we had spent enough time together that he would know me better than that. Our school was known for being very liberal, located in a smaller college town that is notorious for having a hippie, laid back counter cultural vibe. At the time I was in school, legalizing marijuana was something that wasn’t remotely taken seriously and it would be years before we started to see things like the law changes in Colorado and elsewhere at the state level. Weed smoking was really common and accepted around town, making the city a bit unusual at the time. That was not my thing. I was in college to get a degree, not to mess around. I was so annoyed, insulted, and irritated that my beloved professor thought I was stoned all the time. I felt like all my hard work was reduced to an incorrect stereotype based on my appearance.

My sister’s post last week about sleepy eyes got me thinking about people who misinterpret our BPES as us being high. This drives me nuts! I get so annoyed when from my perspective I feel it is very obvious based on our actions, environment, and behaviors that we are clearly NOT high from smoking weed. I think, how could this person be so stupid to think I was high? So many times in our lives, we have been mistaken for being Asian based on our BPES. It doesn’t happen as often, but we do get mistaken for people who are high all the time. I find it laughable, insulting, and just a little ridiculous. Writing this post, my heart sinks a bit as I dig up memories of my Spanish professor’s side comment. I still think back fondly on this professor, but his one comment so many years ago clearly left its mark on my psyche. ¡Que lástima!

Sleepy Eyes

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On Sunday I was perusing Twitter, and saw that the one of the items that was trending was Chuck Todd, host of the show “Meet the Press.”  He was trending because President Trump insulted his eyes, calling him “sleepy eyes” and saying he was a “sleeping SOB.”

What

I know that this is not the president’s first incident of name calling.  I am not comfortable with the president insulting anyone, but as someone who has unique eyes, this particular insult hit a nerve.  I don’t think Chuck Todd has BPES like me, but he does have narrow eyes.

I have never understood name calling.  What is the value in it?   Insulting someone’s physical trait and making fun of them for being different makes it seem like only “normal” people are good.  This is dangerous to me, especially because it came from a man who is supposed to be a leader and represent our entire country.  If the president disagrees with something Chuck Todd has said or done, than he should come out and talk about that.  It seems pointless to just make fun of his appearance.

It also makes me wonder, if I met the president, would he call me “sleepy eyes” too?

I was fortunate enough to never have someone call me a name or make fun of my eyes to my face.  I have always gotten and continue to get curious questions and stares.  I don’t know how I would handle it if someone said something rude to me publicly.  Here is how Chuck Todd responded.  He seemed to try to make light of it:

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It will be interesting to me to see if in the coming months the president continues to “normalize” name calling.  If so, I wonder if it will embolden more people to speak their minds and point out other people’s differences.  I guess only time will tell, but I hope that is not the case.

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Frozen

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Today as I was perusing my Instagram feed, an ad popped up for a local fertility center.  The ad had a picture of a woman sitting by herself, smiling, holding what looks to be an alcoholic beverage, enjoying her life.  The caption promises “Egg freezing allows women to create options for the future.”  I know I was sent this ad because I am a woman in my 30s.  But since I have Type I BPES, I stopped getting my period years ago and don’t have any eggs left to freeze.

As I have discussed before, I am okay with this.  An ad like this does not upset me, but it does remind me that I am not “normal.”  I usually forget that I have BPES, until something like this comes up, and it forces me to think, “oh yeah, for most women my age, it would be no big deal to see this ad.”  But I can’t help thinking, “well this doesn’t apply to me.”

I usually just don’t think about the fact that it is a societal norm that woman are assumed to want children and to be capable of having them.  I have encountered this at work.  When coworkers say, “when you have kids someday” I kind of freeze and it can be awkward.  I usually just try to smile and nod, because that is a lot easier and less personal than having to explain my situation.  I am really torn about whether I should open up and let them know the real me.  I do with most other aspects of my life.  I see myself as a genuine person.

But I have always been a private person, and don’t think everyone needs to know everything about me.  When I hear someone assume that I’m going to have kids, and I don’t say anything, I can’t help but feel torn.  On the one hand, I don’t want to get into my private life, but on the other hand, I don’t want to lie and be fake.  So far I have only discussed my condition with close friends and family, and I have never told coworkers at any job that I have had.

I find it a lot easier to write about it than to talk about it face to face.  But sometimes I wonder if the next time someone assumes, I should just be like, “actually…” and educate them about my condition.

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False Lashes

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One of my guilty pleasures is watching a few Bravo reality TV shows.  And in watching these shows, I see a lot of high maintenance people.  And I’m not judging, it is just not me.  But it is fascinating to me how much beauty and up-keep are a part of people’s lives.  These shows make it seem like Botox is practically a requirement.  And false eyelashes seem to now be a part of everyday makeup application.

I am a low maintenance person when it comes to makeup.  But sometimes I will try out new techniques to use on special occasions.   With BPES, makeup can be tricky, as I discussed in my smoky eye story.  But I am curious about false eyelashes.  I like my eyelashes, but they are very thin.  Looking at my face, I am assuming that if I add bulk to my eyelashes, it will just make my eyes look smaller.  It also freaks me out that they stick on.  I feel like since my eye shape is unique, they probably would not fit on very well.  After watching a how-to video, it does appear that the length can be cut to adjust for size, but I also wonder about getting the proper curvature.

I decided to check on SnapChat to see if they happened to have a filter which would give me a clue as to whether false eyelashes are something I should explore.  Here is one filter that enhanced the lashes:

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To me, this picture does confirm that the taller thicker lashes make my eyes appear smaller.  Obviously this is not the same as the real thing, which I may still try, but this at least gives me an idea.

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See Yourself in Others

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Over the holidays, we were very fortunate to have all of our immediate family in one place. That rarely happens nowadays. We typically spend December 24th at our grandmother’s house. We have cousins who live in our hometown that also have an open house on December 24th. In years past, we’ve done some ninja calendar management to make it to both houses in one night. This year, we weren’t really up for the challenge. Our younger brother took a slightly different approach to managing his family’s social holiday agenda. He came to see my grandmother a little earlier in the day, and then while the rest of us stayed at Nana’s house into the evening, he took his kids to visit our cousins at their holiday open house.

Something that I think is interesting about our family is that all four of us siblings have BPES. For my dad, only some of his siblings had BPES, while others did not. Likewise, for most of our cousins, not everyone had BPES. My sister and I were the first females in our family to have it. We thought that it was a sex linked genetic mutation, but my sister and I are proof that it is not! Our cousin, who lives in our hometown, has BPES along with his son and daughter.  His kids are slightly younger than my siblings and me so we were never in school together, but we aren’t too far apart in years. Oftentimes growing up, people in town would know that we were related because of our eyes. Complete strangers, like high school students working in the grocery store, would ask us at the check out, “Are you so and so’s cousin?” Until my brother’s daughter was born last year, I always felt a somewhat special bond with our female cousin because we three were the only females in our family with BPES. Now we are four! Still in the minority compared to all the male uncles and cousins that have BPES. The point being whenever someone on my dad’s side of the family has a child, we all wait in anticipation to see what their eyes will look like.

This holiday, it got me thinking, I wonder what it is like for our brother’s kids to see examples of people who look like them. Growing up, we were constantly exposed to family in our town and in nearby towns that looked like us. My brother lives many states away and his kids don’t interact with extended family as often as we did growing up. What is even more interesting is that not all of his kids have BPES. Of all our siblings our younger brother probably has the least pronounced BPES in his eyes. Growing up, we thought we were normal in part because we all looked alike. I never thought that it was anything special because all my siblings looked like me too and I spent most of my time with them as a kid. We just knew we had smaller eyes than most people, but we were like our dad. And lots of our uncles and cousins had it too. No big deal. We often had interactions with people who looked like us – completely affirming our identity and sense of self. We had a tribe.

I wonder if my brother’s kids even notice that two of them have small eyes and one of them does not. I’m curious if they even noticed when they were at my cousin’s house last month that my cousin and his kids look like them. I’ll have to ask my brother if this ever comes up in conversation. There’s a lot of discussion in various contexts about the importance of seeing someone like you in a given role or situation. It then helps you visualize yourself being able to be in that role. Did seeing my cousins help to normalize being small eyed for my brother’s kids? Or did they not even register it as they were chasing down cookies, hot cocoa, and candy canes and were too busy being kids? Hmmmm…

J3

There’s Something in Your Eye

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Since my adult eye surgery (that I go into detail about on our surgery page), I’ve only noticed one negative side effect. I sometimes get something stuck in my eye and it is nearly impossible to blink, cry, or flush it out. Immediately after surgery, I found that blinking to flush something out of my eye was completely ineffective. If I got something in my eye, like fuzz or dirt from the air, I would experience a sharp pain in my eye that was blinding. I wouldn’t be able to keep my eye open and I’d twitch a bit in pain. I couldn’t figure out what was going on exactly. I only know that somehow after my surgery if something gets in my eye, it is really hard to flush it out. Thankfully as time passed after surgery, this didn’t happen very often and I was much more careful about rubbing my eyes to avoid the situation.

I still don’t really understand why this happens. Unfortunately I’ve found the most effective way to deal with it is to lay my head down and close my eyes, basically going back to sleep and letting my body fix itself. I don’t always have the luxury to essentially sleep it off if something gets stuck in my eye. In December, as I was waking up for work, I rubbed my eyes a little more vigorously than I should have. All of a sudden I had sharp waves of pain whenever I tried to blink. Putting my head down didn’t work. Neither did crying, eye drops, or flushing my eye with water. As the minutes ticked by and it was getting to the time that I had to leave for work, I was freaking out. I was uncomfortable, annoyed, and a little scared. What was I supposed to do?

After a ten minute panic and lots of eye drops later, I ended up arranging to take a partial sick day and take some calls from home. I could not get this thing out of my eye and depending on where it floated around on my eye, I would have waves of pain and be unable to open my eye out of discomfort. I normally bike to work and with my eye acting that way, I did not feel comfortable or safe trying to bike without reliable vision. I took work calls from my couch, usually alternating between looking like a pirate with one eye closed in pain as I squinted at my computer screen and with shutting my eyes altogether. In between calls, my nose kept running. Since everything is connected, the irritation in my eye was causing overall congestion in my sinuses. I thought blowing my nose would bring relief, but it did not. I felt so stupid taking a sick day because I had something in my eye.

I feel silly writing this because I can’t even clearly explain what exactly is going on when I get something in my eye. Today it happened again while I was with my client and thankfully it wasn’t as bad as my sick day a month ago. Several times throughout the day, I had waves of sharp pains in my eye from what I can only assume was some environmental irritant. I should ask my eye doctor at my next appointment if they’ve ever heard of anything like this. In the meantime, I am really cautious about rubbing my eyes and how I carefully remove anything from my eye area. Small price to pay for being able to actually SEE, but I wonder if other people who’ve had the same surgery as me experience this. I also wonder why the heck this happens at all. Ugh – I wouldn’t go back to my adult eyes pre-surgery because they were practically closing, but I do miss the ability to be able to effectively blink and naturally flush irritants out of my eyes.

J3