Don’t Try This At Home
Screwing one’s head on right
I’ve been dealing with something in the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome family for the past 25 years, although, you would hardly know it. I can do everything anyone else can, just less of it. I get “sensory overload” if I don’t carefully space out my activities, and if I overdo it and get in a deficit, I don’t bounce back quickly.
I recently said to my husband, after a particularly busy day, “I just can’t think straight!” The next morning I woke up with my first ever experience of VERTIGO. It reminded me of the time I paid $35 to ride on a glass bottom boat in the Florida Keys, only to get seasick and throw-up.
Fortunately, vertigo is more treatable than Chronic Fatigue, or tinnititus, which I also have to a small degree – or should I say “decibel.” The most common cause of vertigo is from crystallized calcium deposits in the inner ear canal. Prescribed exercises to dislodge the deposits have a high success rate; although when I do them, I feel like the guy in the above photo.
The photo came from my son. I convinced him to give it to me because I liked it so much. I wanted to take some similar shots myself, and I knew I wouldn’t remember the poses without the photo to remind me. Little did I know what personal significance the image would take on.
It’s been a week since vertigo knocked me for a loop. It’s improved, but hasn’t gone away. Even so, it didn’t stop me from dancing to my favorite local band, Foundation Stone, in town this weekend (although I wouldn’t attempt contra dancing now). At the dance, a girlfriend approached me, offering tissue paper to plug into my ears, which I accepted for the first time.
At a certain age loud music sounds louder, our eyes can’t read fine print, and some people become dizzy with vertigo, which makes me wonder and have to ask, “Didn’t we drink alcohol when we were young to feel just like this?”
May 2nd, 2005 5:16 pm
Excellent Picture….I can see why you wanted it. Is Josh in the picture?? Love xo
May 2nd, 2005 5:39 pm
It doesn’t look like his head. I don’t know whose butt it is! Let’s try this pose next time we get together!
May 2nd, 2005 11:29 pm
Welcome to the tinnitus bandwagon. I have a constant ringing in my ears, since I flew back from CA on a jet many years ago. Do you know of anything to make it better?
May 3rd, 2005 12:08 am
Most stuff I read on tinnititus is only about how to help you deal with it and not focus on it. My sister Kathy has it really bad and has lost some hearing due to it. I would love to hear from anyone who knows how to get rid of it. Roselyn Carter and William Shatner both have it and have come out publically trying to help others cope.
May 4th, 2005 10:12 pm
Like the whimsical photo – gave me a double take. And the Asimov kinesthetic quote from the next entry.
What are these exercises for vertigo? I’ve had it my whole life, attributed by me to poor circulation and kinky extra narrow ear canal.