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Have any of you ever had vertigo ? I woke up Friday
morning to find the room spinning around me and
each step a challenge. Managing to stumble my way into the kitchen, I made
myself a cup of coffee and thought perhaps it was just a severe case of morning
grogginess. A cup of coffee later, things had not improved.
In the past I've had a condition call "Positional
Vertigo".
Positional Vertigo is a condition where a small crystal of calcium
breaks away and finds itself inside the inner ear, there this tiny crystal
plays havoc on the tiny hairs that allows us to know what position our body is
in . . . are we standing, laying down, bending forward etc. With my past
episode of positional vertigo, whenever I tilted my head back to look up I was
overcome with dizziness and would lose my balance. A neurologist helped me by
showing me a maneuver to repositioned the wayward crystal back out of the way,
where it would not bother me and eventually my body would reabsorb the annoying
little crystal.
But Friday morning was different. The dizziness
was constant, there appeared to be no definite position that was worse than
others. However I did try the maneuver taught to me by the neurologist . . .
several times . . . nothing happened, the condition remained the
same. Eventually I called my doctor. Since in my present condition I was
unable to operate a motor vehicle and John, my hubby, was not at home so could not
drive me, my doctor phoned in a prescription for a medication to help with the
nausea and that also had been shown to have some affect on dizziness.
When John got home he went and picked up
my prescribed medication and I began taking it . . . one pill every 8 hours for
5 days. If after 5 days I am still dizzy I need to go see my
physician.
During this I found the best thing to do was simply
sit still and so I lounged on the sofa and looked out the window wondering about
the strange dizzy sensations, that's when I became aware of another sensation, a
pain and achiness at the back of my neck. Now my thoughts went to; "What the
heck could I have done to hurt my neck?" And then it struck me. Why the memory
completely slipping my mind, I haven't a clue.
Thursday evening John and I were coming home from
having had a pleasant evening dinning at a favorite restaurant. As we came down
our little two land country road, the vehicle ahead of us appeared to turn left
into a driveway; only that was not the case. The driver was obviously not where
he thought he was supposed to be and decided to turn around, he may also have
been drinking as he missed the driveway to the left by several feet. Anyway he
then proceeded to back straight across both lanes of our little country road;
without looking and without regard of other vehicles on the road.
John lay on
the horn but the driver continued backing up. There wasn't enough distance to
bring our car to a safe stop so John swerved abruptly to the right. Though our
road is asphalt it has no paved shoulder, the edge is just a straight drop-off,
as our car careened off the road it was like driving off of a curb. As our car swung violently around the backend of the other vehicle, John
managed to keep our car from going too far to the right and into the muddy ditch. Then there was the return
to the asphalted road with its sharp edge; an abrupt, bump up.
All of this
happened very quickly and I had not been prepared so had not braced myself.
Even though I was wearing my seatbelt I had been tossed and shaken pretty
good through all the sharp swerves and bounces. Afterwards all I could think about was
how fortunate it was that John had avoided hitting the other car broadside and
had prevented a serious accident. Counting our blessings, I then quickly
dismissed the incident. However the incident had not quickly dismiss
me.
Today is Sunday and there is some improvement of my
vertigo symptoms. Now I can at least look at my computer monitor and not feel
like I'm doing barrel-rolls in a small airplane. So if any of you are wondering
why I have not responded to your comments in the last couple of days the above
explanation is my reason.