I thought Vertigo was a movie and a song by U2.
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Friday morning. I took my son to school, came home, and went back to bed — I didn’t sleep well at night. Got up at 9.50, which is very late for me, and had breakfast. Started feeling a very subtle discomfort while eating. Took my laptop and started working, half sitting, half lying in bed. The lines on the screen started to move. I looked at the walls — they were moving too. It was reminiscent of being very drunk, which I haven’t been in decades. I got up abruptly, thinking that faster breathing and moving would remove the dizziness, and stepped outside.
With every step, the dizziness got worse. Everything before my eyes was spinning. Lightheadedness seems too soft of a word to describe how I was feeling. I was about to faint.
I called my Mom while sitting down on the edge of my sofa. I wasn’t getting better. I dialed 911. My stepdad said I looked very pale. The only comforting thing is that I could speak clearly, and my thoughts were clear too, despite the extreme dysequilibrium. Not a stroke, I was thinking.
When the crew arrived, I started to feel better, but when they asked me if I could get up and move to a stretcher, the dizziness returned and was even worse. On my way to the emergency room, I threw up.
The head scan and the blood work came back fine. My vital signs were fine. The onsets of dizziness, though, continued several times. I could barely stand up, let alone walk. Later in the day, dizziness was supplemented by nausea, and I threw up on the way home. I struggled to write texts on my phone to my wife, who was traveling — it was hard to focus my vision, and the dizziness would increase.
I experienced Vertigo.
Vertigo describes the symptoms but not the underlying condition, most of which are related to the disrupted workings of the inner year.
I slept a lot and found a way to reduce vertigo by holding my head at an angle or sleeping on that side (right).
I’m much better today. Found this apparently famous video:
I’ll need to do some checks, but despite the shittiness of the experience, it doesn’t seem a dangerous condition. There are several reasons why I may have experienced it. I found myself dehydrated during a couple of runs in the last week. I had to fly. I also swam several times and felt pain in my ear a couple of weeks ago because the water wouldn’t come out. Maybe there is an infection, though I no longer feel the pain.
Our bodies are complicated mechanisms…
I’m thinking of watching Hitchcock’s movie tonight, as I continue to recover.
