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My Vertiginous Week
Jan. 18th, 2016 10:27 pmVertigo sucks. I'm just going to put that out there.
Tuesday night on the Fifth of January, I went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens with my brother, who was in town for a visit. I felt fine after the movie, and through breakfast the next morning. However, around noon I started to feel a bit dizzy. I sat down, hoping it would pass. However, the dizziness only got worse, and soon after the room began to spin. I tried laying down, closing my eyes, but to no avail. A few hours went by like this until mid afternoon I decided to have my brother take me to the ER.
It pays to work at a hospital, because I got a room almost instantly, along with some oral meds that I later threw up. They did some tests, and found out the cause of the vertigo was likely an ear stone (new word of the week: otolith!) messing up my balance. The PA tried doing a head manipulation called the Epley maneuver, which is supposed to help, but she admitted she wasn't familiar with it, and I think it ended up causing me to throw up. (Side note: so weird to be under the care of my coworkers! My brother thought it was amusing how everyone from the docs to the janitorial staff was checking up on me!)
So I ended up with an IV, and some steller anti-nausea meds that helped me feel a bit better. The ER could see no reason to admit me, though, so I had several days of feeling crazy at home. (At one point my brother and I went to a great used bookstore. Most of my purchases were from books at eye level, because looking too far up or down the aisles made me crazy dizzy).
It's been almost two weeks at this point, and with some Physical Therapy (who knew they could refer you to for PT for an ear problem? I thought it was a joke at first!) I've begun my recovery. Still, it was a crazy weird experience, and I'm hopeful it never happens again. But since the Physical Therapist thought I had "hypovestibular function" in my right inner ear, it's possilbe it'll come back if I'm not careful. Spending too much time on the computer was difficult if not impossilbe in the beginning, though that has somewhat improved.
So overall, a really shitty but interesting experience in retrospect. But on the upside, I now know how to write a character with vertigo, I guess? XD
Tuesday night on the Fifth of January, I went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens with my brother, who was in town for a visit. I felt fine after the movie, and through breakfast the next morning. However, around noon I started to feel a bit dizzy. I sat down, hoping it would pass. However, the dizziness only got worse, and soon after the room began to spin. I tried laying down, closing my eyes, but to no avail. A few hours went by like this until mid afternoon I decided to have my brother take me to the ER.
It pays to work at a hospital, because I got a room almost instantly, along with some oral meds that I later threw up. They did some tests, and found out the cause of the vertigo was likely an ear stone (new word of the week: otolith!) messing up my balance. The PA tried doing a head manipulation called the Epley maneuver, which is supposed to help, but she admitted she wasn't familiar with it, and I think it ended up causing me to throw up. (Side note: so weird to be under the care of my coworkers! My brother thought it was amusing how everyone from the docs to the janitorial staff was checking up on me!)
So I ended up with an IV, and some steller anti-nausea meds that helped me feel a bit better. The ER could see no reason to admit me, though, so I had several days of feeling crazy at home. (At one point my brother and I went to a great used bookstore. Most of my purchases were from books at eye level, because looking too far up or down the aisles made me crazy dizzy).
It's been almost two weeks at this point, and with some Physical Therapy (who knew they could refer you to for PT for an ear problem? I thought it was a joke at first!) I've begun my recovery. Still, it was a crazy weird experience, and I'm hopeful it never happens again. But since the Physical Therapist thought I had "hypovestibular function" in my right inner ear, it's possilbe it'll come back if I'm not careful. Spending too much time on the computer was difficult if not impossilbe in the beginning, though that has somewhat improved.
So overall, a really shitty but interesting experience in retrospect. But on the upside, I now know how to write a character with vertigo, I guess? XD
