A Touch of Vertigo. . . or. . . Could You Please Stop Spinning?

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.