US local TV reporter Mary King is learning to smile again after a terrifying medical condition left half her face paralysed.
King was on a plane at a Charlotte, North Carolina, airport about to fly to Baltimore on June 1 when she suddenly found she couldn't rub her lips together or move the right side of her face.
Thinking she had suffered a stroke she left the plane and was rushed to hospital where she was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy.
When the 25-year-old looked in the mirror she saw how badly she was affected — her right eye wouldn't blink and the side of her mouth had dropped so that she couldn't smile.
"All of a sudden it hits you how different you look," she told ABC News' Good Morning America. "I kept thinking, what if I still look like this on my wedding day?
"All I wanted to do was smile because I was so happy, but when I did it just looked so awkward."
Bell's Palsy results in temporary paralysis of the face and is caused when the seventh cranial nerve gets inflamed or damaged.
Two weeks after the symptoms first began she was able to smile again and now after three weeks she's nearly fully recovered.
King has returned to work at WIS TV, the NBC affiliate in Columbia, South Carolina.
"I used to be able to wink with both eyes, now I can’t wink with the right eye," she explained.
"But I’m by no means complaining. To have my recovery time to be what it was is a blessing."
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