According to a Cleveland Clinic survey, 65% of male participants say they avoid the doctor. A Mercy physician discusses the importance of preventive care.
We have been talking on Zoom for a few minutes when Sarah Ling breaks into a broad, if slightly lopsided grin. Her right eye squints, then closes – she looks a bit like she’s winking. As she stops smiling, her eye remains closed for a while longer, before relaxing.
‘I can feel it happening,’ says Sarah, 43, who works for a fostering agency and lives near Cambridge with husband Matthew, 42, and their 18-month-old son Benjamin. ‘But because we’re on Zoom, I can see it too, which makes it so much worse.’
Sarah suffers from facial palsy – a weakness of the facial muscles, caused by problems with one of the major facial nerves which control the muscles around the eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks and forehead.