Vertigo

One day, years ago, a friend of mine, Marie, asked me if I could give her a ride to the store because she wasn't feeling well. It was Sunday, and I wasn't working, so I picked her up and drove her to all the places she needed to go. In the car, she told me she had vertigo, which made her dizzy and unable to drive.

Dizzy? I thought. I know dizzy. That's when everything around me turns, and I have to immediately sit down or I might fall. I've always had low blood pressure, and if I don't eat when I have to, I get dizzy, to the point that I can't drive or walk straight.

Little did I know.

Two weeks after I moved to Arkansas, about eighteen months ago, I woke up dizzy in the morning feeling the whole room was turning around me, but not in any way I'd experienced before. I was feeling dizzy, but not like I felt when my blood pressure was low. I was off balance, my head spinning, like I was turning in all directions, like I was on both an out-of-control merry-go-round and a Ferris wheel going at the speed of light, combined. It felt like I was being thrown into space, moving incredibly fast with no control over anything. I kept my eyes shut and held on as tightly as I could to my bed frame and the edge of the wall to avoid being thrown out of orbit. When I finally felt like I was spinning less and tried to slowly get up, I fell down and threw up while falling to the floor. I crawled on all fours over to the door of my cabin, lifted myself just enough to reach the door knob, and managed to open the door so that the dogs could go out. I'd never let them out on their own in the woods and I was worried that they might go farther than they should, but they knew something was terribly wrong, so they did their business and ran back to me.

I heard a car coming, and I saw it was a neighbor. I immediately held my hand up, waving to get the driver's attention. He saw me down on the floor and stopped his car. I told him I was feeling extremely dizzy and I couldn't get up. He helped me up, and I turned my head away from him just in time to throw up again, this time on the wall. I felt embarrassed and helpless and thankful he was there, all at the same time.

He asked if I wanted him to take me to the hospital. I asked him to get me my phone from the counter so I could ask an old friend, a doctor in California. I texted my friend, knowing it was early in the morning in California. I just wrote “extremely dizzy and nauseated... the whole world is turning” He immediately wrote back “Call 911 and get yourself to a hospital NOW. RIGHT NOW. PLEASE.” I asked my neighbor to give me a minute while I covered the area where I had thrown up and hadn't yet cleaned with a towel and took my purse. I handed my neighbor the keys asking him to lock the door and take me to the hospital. On the way there, not knowing what was happening to me, I asked him to take care of my dogs if I didn't make it back home.

He dropped me off, gave his phone number to the front desk, and went to work. A few hours and several tests later, after I gave the hospital staff a wonderful demonstration of what I was feeling by throwing up in front of them every time they tried to move me to run tests, they gave me pills for sea sickness and told me there was nothing seriously wrong based on the test results. I called my neighbor and asked him to pick me up whenever he could. An hour later, I was in his car on my way to the drugstore to pick up the pills the doctor had prescribed. I also picked up frozen and canned food for the next few days for me and the dogs.

My doctor friend told me based on the tests done at the hospital that I probably had vertigo. Vertigo? I immediately called Marie. I described everything that had happened, and she said that was exactly her experience with vertigo. She shared how scared she had been the first time, not knowing what was going on. She'd been living with it for a decade now and had consulted many doctors about her condition. She told me what her doctors had told her and that stress might be a major cause. She sent me physical exercises to do as well as a list of foods to avoid. She had also been given the same kind of sea sickness medicine they gave me.

Sadly, those sea sickness pills didn't work for me as well as they'd worked for her. I stayed that way for about five days and the dizziness slowly diminished in intensity, or level of dizziness, and in frequency, until it went away on its own.

Since that first time, these episodes have come and gone several times. One time, it lasted three whole weeks. It was terrible. I wasn't able to drive or even walk. I eventually learned to live with it. I prepared myself for it by stocking up on all kinds of canned foods (meat, vegetables, beans, evaporated milk), dried foods (rice, beans, pasta, nuts), and bottled water and juices. I built a fence around a small area next to my cabin and installed a doggy door. The dogs have learned to use their little door when I can't accompany them. I'm so thankful to the person who invented the doggy door. I also learned that when I didn't move my head at all, I felt a little better, so, during these episodes of various lengths, I occupy myself with tasks that don't require moving, like reading, listening to audio-books, watching movies, writing, and even proofreading.

This past Monday, I woke up off balance again. The last few days have been terrible. I couldn't even stand up on my own until this morning. I don't even know how many times I've thrown up these past days. The temperature here has been very low and the most challenging and exhausting task this time has been to put clothes on my three fidgety dogs before sending them out in the cold through the doggy door, four or five times a day. I woke up this morning and stood up, somewhat dizzy, but finally able to walk. Hopefully, it's starting to go away.