When Janeena Chan was reminded of her experience with facial paralysis, tears appeared to begin to fill up in her eyes.

Janeena relies on her appearance to support herself as a model, event host, and TV personality. But in 2016, as she touched up her lipstick before getting ready to conduct a live event, she found she could barely move half of her face and knew something was wrong.

“As in on the spot, mag-hohost ako then oh my gosh, ‘yung half of my smile ‘di na nagsma-smile… Even my winking couldn’t be done by my eye; my eyebrows couldn’t go up and down. Really, the half was frozen.”

Janeena was thus sent to the emergency department rather than the ballroom, and fortunately, the final physical therapist on duty for the day was still at the facility to start treating her right away.

Janeena recalled, “I was super shocked. We left everything at the event. I can’t host now, obviously. So we went straight to the rehab doctor and buti na lang, they were about to close na, but naabutan pa the last rehab doctor. And we got the last PT (physical therapy) session na rin, agad-agad,”

But it was only the start.

Janeena was identified as having Bell’s Palsy, a disorder that causes abrupt paralysis in the muscles on one side of the face, according to the Mayo Clinic. Therefore, it “brought back so many memories” for Janeena when she recently heard about international pop singer Justin Bieber’s postponing his global tour due to Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a similar disease that appears as facial paralysis.

“Apparently, it’s like Bell’s Palsy, it’s what I had, plus shingles is what he has, mas severe pa,

“May pagka-Justin Bieber pero delayed,” she said.