Just Call Me Dizzy

*ring ring ring ring ring ring*

Hello?

Terese. You know how we were supposed to have lunch today?

Yes......what's up?

Well, I've been trying to get out of bed for two hours now and it's not working. I don't think I will be able to do lunch.

WHAT?

I....I'm so dizzy that I can't hardly even turn my head to the side much less get out of bed.

Let me drop something off at work and I will be right over.

Are you in the car?

Yep. Almost there. I'll text you when I get to the house.

*click*

This is how my day began yesterday.

Seriously.

I had gone to bed the night before feeling fine. I got up once during the night and was able to motor around without issues, but on awakening tried to roll over in bed and felt as though the world's axis had shifted. Whoa, Nellie! I did not know that the universe could spin in all different directions at once.

Is that just bizarre, or what? Turns out it's likely that I have this weirdo inner ear thing: benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Here's all the nauseatingly accurate details of this condition from the Mayo Clinic website:

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is one of the most common causes of vertigo — the sudden sensation that you're spinning or that the inside of your head is spinning. 

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is characterized by brief episodes of mild to intense dizziness. Symptoms of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo are triggered by specific changes in the position of your head, such as tipping your head up or down, and by lying down, turning over or sitting up in bed. You may also feel out of balance when standing or walking.

Yep. That's it in a nutshell, all right. I had my suspicions that I was experiencing this and a call to the advice nurse at my clinic confirmed them. I blabbed away to the nurse with Terese perched on the edge of the bed, who had arrived in an amazingly quick period of time.

I have to commend Terese for not laughing at my predicament.

Well, not too much anyway. She would have had plenty to laugh at because I was not kidding: I had been trying to get upright for two hours and it wasn't pretty. Bed head. Jammies. I'll spare y'all the rest of the details.

Actually she was incredibly sympathetic since she knows firsthand how this all feels. Right, T? Remember the time on the plane and....oh, wait. Even thinking about it makes me feel barfy....

Lulu found the whole thing upsetting. She could sense that I wasn't acting normally and tried to get as close to me as she possibly could. She didn't want to let Terese come upstairs, either, and jumped off the bed to plant herself at the bottom of the stairs while barking madly.

Just like Gandalf. 

She's still keeping an eye on me. 

The timing on this escapade is not good, what with the holidays fast approaching, but there's not much I can do about it all except lay low, take my meclizine, and follow up with my doctor as advised.

D#2 has had this diagnosis for a couple of years now, poor baby. Girlfriend -- I felt badly for you when you went through it all but, dang. You were right when you said this stuff wasn't fun.