Sunday, June 29, 2008

And then it happened

Imagine waking up some morning just as the sun rises above the horizon to the east. As you stand up to get out of bed and walk to the bathroom to refresh ones self and WHAM. The moment you open your eyes you realize that your inhaling carpet fibers, the side of your face hurts really bad so you realize that when you fell you didn't even raise your arms or hands to help fend off the impact.
Your mind is racing as the need to get to the bathroom has a new meaning as your stomach churns out of control and you realize that your next mission will be to grab the porcelain steering wheel and drive the bus. While you are forcibly hurling it dons on you that when you got out of bed and stood up the room started spinning as if someone were twirling one of those desktop globes but that just isn't possible. is it ??

Sitting around the white seat you have now lost everything but yet the dry heaves are starting to make you feel like your esophagus is coming out. You try to stand, only the room is spinning out of control and you catch yourself from collapsing by grabbing a hold of the door frame to support yourself. It is at this point you come to realize that standing up is not a wise choice so crawling out to the living room seems to be the appropriate means of movement. This is a life changing scenario that happens to millions of people, some of them will have this problem a short duration while others will need to change everything about their daily lives to combat these vertigo issues. Trying changing the way you look at things, changing the movements of your head, how you look into the rear view mirror, look up, look down, get out of bed, get in bed, sit down, stand up..... the list could continue

Now I think you see the problem. I write this because this happened to me in October of '02, and absolutely nothing that I'm aware of brought this on it just happened. I've had to make life altering decisions to combat this problem and I thought it was somewhat in remission as I have been quite careful NOT to do those things which set "it" off. During the winter it is worse and I believe it is because of the atmospheric pressure changes, however on Thursday as I was driving to Poplar Bluff and the beginning stages of this vertigo problem came back with vengeance.

The specialist tell me it could be an inner ear problem, or a few other terms that I can't spell or pronounce. I tried joining a support group to help me seek out some answers however most of these groups are filled with people who pity themselves and everyone else because of this issue. I don't need nor do I want any one to pity me or try to convince me I should go seek out a disability claim to have the taxpayers support me the rest of my life. I've been through much worse in my life and this is but a speed bump on the highway of getting to the grave and somehow I will overcome this problem even if it is only temporary.

This has me wondering why as I don't recall messing up my routine to bring this about, I guess I'll just keep asking myself these questions while I await another vertigo attack to knock me off of my feet and leave me with a massive migraine headache

1 comment:

What's up with the name? said...

Good Lord, Tom. That's awful. I had no idea.

I am currently reading a book. One of the cases is about a woman that had a somewhat similar problem. The name of the book is The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge, M.D. You might want to check it (or I'll give you my copy when I'm done.)