Beauty in CJ's garden from my new camera!

 

Thank you, CJ for helping me.

 

Just wait 'till Paris!

VERTIGO – Part 8 – The Mountaineers (cont)

It showed the strength of humans and the way they can support each other and the amount of care that was there from one person to another, to risk their own lives and their own expeditions to go and assist other people and help them through those dreadful times. And I think that was a real indication of the strength of character and the type of characters that are involved in mountaineering and what they'll do for each other.
-- Guy Cotter, (Guide and Base Camp Support)

While yet on another expedition to Half Price Books, I headed straight to the mountaineering section and read the back flap of the book in front of me, Anna Purna, A Women’s Place by Arlene Blum. Oh, my God!  She’s from Berkeley!  This was the story of an all-women expedition to the top of Anna Purna; the first American expedition to reach the summit.  I was engrossed in hours of absorbed delight, getting to know the characters, looking at their pictures over and over, trekking with them, rooting for them, and mourning with them when two of them died in their attempt on the summit. 

One woman in particular piqued my interest because she was so pretty and she was from Wyoming.  Annie Whitehouse was an adventurous, 21 year old nursing student at the University of Wyoming, described by Arlene as a “sturdy young woman with determination, endurance, a tolerant disposition and a fine sense of humor.”

I read the name again.  I looked at the year – 1978.  That was indeed during the time I was there and my best friend, Karen Cloud, was there, too, going through nursing school.  I bet she knew her!  I called Karen, so excited I could hardly speak.  Yes, of course she knew Annie!  She had studied with Annie, taken the 5:00 am bus to nursing training sessions twice a week with Annie and gone to parties with Annie.  She had met Annie’s Sherpa husband when he moved to Laramie.  She even had pictures of Annie at her house! 

Karen was inspired to find Annie and after much research on Facebook and other social networks, she discovered that Annie and her friend, Jane were nurses working in a public health clinic a couple miles from Karen’s home!  They excitedly made a plan to get together and spent a delightful evening drinking wine and catching up on their lives and sharing how nursing school had shaped their vocations and service in the world.  Annie had been a nurse in Doctors Without Borders and served in many far reaching corners of the world.  Jane had spent many years serving in public health and Karen was a leader in her field of obstetrics and gynecology.  They found each other and renewed their rich friendship.

This ongoing experience with vertigo had not only enlarged my own consciousness, but had also created something larger than myself, something good, something worthwhile, something loving and connecting in this world.  Three strong women, reunited after 30 plus years, shared the travails and joys of a lifetime with each other and committed to creating a future circle of friendship and support.

VERTIGO – Part 7 – The Mountaineers (cont)

The mountaineering sections became my favorite section in used bookstores.  I found several used hardcovers including two more books about that fascinating story of the tragedy on Everest, the spring of 96’. (The Climb, Anatoli Boukreev and The Other Side of Everest, Matt Dickinson). I even found an old hardcover of Thomas Hornbein’s West Ridge Everest Expedition, written in 1963. 

One afternoon, while perusing Half Price Books, I found David Breashear’s High Exposure.  He’s the guy who made the IMAX movie, Everest, (which of course I had rented, along with several other movies of mountaineers’ derring do).  How exciting!  I grabbed the book and tripped across the street to one of my favorite cafes in Berkeley.  PIQ is a very Euro type place where I can sit at an outside table and pretend that I’m at Café de Flore or Les Deux Magots in Paris.  I ordered a latte and a baked good, opened High Exposure and started reading. 

About a half hour passed and I was completely engrossed.  I looked up and a guy was standing there, apologizing for bothering me, but just “couldn’t help but notice that I was reading his friend, David Breashear’s book.”  Yes, he knew him quite well, and was surprised I was reading this memoir, written several years ago.  We excitedly got into a discussion of mountaineering books, and he gave me several authors; including H.W. Tilman’s, the Seven Mountain Travel Books, (which I immediately ordered from Amazon.)  He introduced me to the old timey climbers; Tilman wrote in the 30’s before Everest had even been successfully summited.  One of the guys on his expedition was on George Mallory’s expedition in the 20’s! How cool is that?!?

It lifted my confidence that this guy actually wanted to talk to me.  And it was fun to talk about all these mountaineers with someone else who was interested. He even took my picture holding the book and said he was going to send it to Breashears.  It was a sweet encounter that lifted my spirits.  Yet another angel on the journey. . .

I wondered if God was the actual dynamic of climbing the mountain - God as a verb, not a noun.  Maybe God in me was the reaching for courage, for balance.  And these mountaineers reminded me of something that was already in me – it just took the loss of balance to find it.

I love knowing that the Himalaya Mountains are out there.  They are out there, as I type, standing tall and majestic, soaring into the sky into the thin air.  I am still standing, too.  Despite the storms and the battering, the root of my essence can never be destroyed; it is eternal.

At the summit what I felt was a massive, peaceful contentment. And a very exact feeling of everything falling into place: this woman, this young girl, fighting for her space in the world and having a lot of strength and a lot of talents and a lot of ambition and a lot of desire for challenges, and then having set out to climb this mountain because I had the opportunity and took it.

-- Lene Gammelgaard (first Danish woman to summit Everest.)

VERTIGO – Part 6 – The Mountaineers (cont)

I became fascinated with Everest, itself.  Rob brought home an old National Geographic he found in the church basement about Sir Edmund Hillary’s and Tenzing Norgay’s first expedition to summit Everest.  (May 29, 1953 in case you’re interested).   I spent hours studying maps of Mount Everest and carefully traced all of the routes to the summit. I even printed maps from the internet and studied them, too. I knew all fifteen routes to the top.

I dreamed about trekking to Everest base camp from Namche Bazaar in Nepal.  I printed out pictures and in my imagination crossed the gigantic crevasses of the Khumbu icefall. I meditated on the glorious Western Cwm, as I glided through this wondrous valley of glittering snow and ice. I climbed the Hillary Step and the Lhotse Face.  I pretended that I was walking across The Balcony (where poor Beck Weathers spent a whole day waiting for Hall) and the sun was shining and the snow was glittering.  And I felt healthy and strong. I knew the spiritual delight of standing on the top of the world. 

I stared at the forlorn camps on the South Col where they weathered a horrible, horrible storm and it was deafeningly loud and the tents collapsed on their faces.  (How scary!). I felt the cold and listened to the wind of the high camps on the south summit.  I read the part over and over when they couldn’t find the camp and were trapped in “the huddle”, waiting out the dark, stormy night, thinking they would probably die. I read about the brave rescues.  How I admired them.  So many of them survived!  Extraordinary!

I learned the lingo, understanding what it meant to “fix the ropes”, to “move under your own power”, to “short rope”, and of course, to “summit” (a verb). I knew what “jumars” and crampons looked like and how to properly set an ice axe in the snow.  I was spooked about the “death zone”, (over 25,000 feet), crevasses, the roar of avalanches, and “seracs” (apartment size blocks of ice) in the icefalls.

I respected that small group of elite climbers, braving the mountains over “8,000 meters”.  I knew what it meant to “bivouac”, (basically spend the night hanging off a cliff.)  I knew about altitude sickness, frostbite, “hypoxia” and “cerebral” and “pulmonary edema”.  I knew about “acclimatizing” and “carrying loads” from camp to camp.  I knew the optimal “turnaround times” and ideal conditions for the “summit push”.

I liked that sense of stripping away everything in my world except for that feeling of the physical push and the mindlessness of the focus of stepping right in front of you, step after step. That was so peaceful. .

– Beck Weathers, pathologist from Dallas, summited six of the seven continents' highest peaks.

I meditated on the metaphor of being stripped away and plodding forward.  I became peaceful, too.  I just need to put one foot in front of the other.  I can do that.  God in me can do that.

VERTIGO – Part 5 – The Mountaineers

I think on the summit of Everest, we are looking for something within ourselves. It's a journey. The summit is only the destination. There is something that affects you mentally, spiritually and physically on a climb, where you transcend the moment. And everything blends together in a timeless way; you and the snow and the rock and the view and the truth -- because you can't hide from the truth up there; that is, yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses and how you deal.

– Charlotte Fox, Professional ski patroller and EMT, the first American woman to climb three 8,000-meter peaks.

It all started with rereading Krakauer’s Into thin Air.  I became fascinated by the character of Jon Krakauer and his brave, determined companions who worked in post offices and doctor’s offices by day, training their bodies and saving for years to attempt the summit of Mount Everest.  I was inspired by the scrappy expedition leaders and guides and the Sherpas and the unflinching, devoted support at base camp. 

I became fascinated by that story when Everest took twelve climbers in the spring of 1996.  I knew all the characters by heart; Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, two seemingly indestructible, hot shot guides who died, Andy Harris, assistant guide who died, too, Doug Hansen, a postal worker, whose dream was to summit Everest, (died), Beck Weathers, physician, who came back from the dead twice, the socialite, Sandy Hill Pittman, who made all the Sherpas carry her computer gear, Lopsang Jangbu, Scott’s fiercely loyal Sherpa . . .oh, you probably don’t care about all of their names.  But just typing this brings it all back and makes me feel emotional; a sense of yearning.

I have this lotion from Trader Joes I was using at the time.  I’d put it on my face at night and get into bed and read about my climbers.  All I have to do today is smell it and it brings me back.  They discontinued it so I use it sparingly.  That smell is sacred. . .the smell of hope.

What does this have to do with vertigo?  I wasn’t sure.  All I knew is that I was hungry for their stories; I loved reading about those grand mountains and those who lived to climb them.

I gazed at those pictures over and over; I’d read a page; flip back and look at the pictures again.  I looked deeply into the eyes of those who died.  I studied the list of people in all of the expeditions; I knew all of their names and all of their fates.  I googled the PBS Frontline story, Storm Over Everest, check it out, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/stories/lifeafter.htm.

I cut and pasted their stories and made a Word file.  I read them over and over and gained strength from them.  I was interested in these peoples’ characters. What kind of person climbs mountains?  I didn’t necessarily want to climb mountains, but I wanted to be that kind of person.  I wanted to be strong, courageous, smart and able to withstand extreme physical discomfort. I wanted to be persistent.  I wanted fortitude.  I wanted great endurance.  I wanted to be intrepid.

In these conditions people are stripped of their ability to be anything but their true selves, and that is one of the undercurrents in the film. You find out if you're a person who gives help, asks for help, or just gives up and lies down to die. 

-- David Breashears (Produced IMAX large-format film Everest).

This was me post-vertigo; stripped, exposed, unable to be anything but my true self.  Was I going to just lie down to die, or was I going to move forward?  With the help of my angels; the doctors, physical therapists, and you, my sweetie, colleagues and dear friends, my fellow mountain climbers, I moved forward and continue to do so to this day.

VERTIGO – Part 4

I was so happy when I decided I was going to drive again.  Freedom!  I kept my head solidly against the headrest (still do to this day), and I stayed on surface streets.  CJ encouraged me to keep the little pink pills (meclizine for dizziness) within reaching distance.  I put two in a pretty little pill box with a pink flower on it and kept it in the cup holder. 

I found an E-mail in my files about a typical drive to work:  “Oh, Tracy, this is just glorious.  I’ve taken to pulling the top down and taking surface streets to work in the morning.  Starting at Lake Merritt, I zip through leafy Piedmont, up Broadway, left at Chabot, past the monastery - then on to College.  I love seeing all the people moving through their mornings, sipping coffee, reading the paper, walking energetically – all of humanity going about the business of living.  It takes twice as long to get to work, but I love it.” 

God, I just kept going.

My spiritual direction supervision group gave me a gem. Bless them, Nancy, John, Dan and Joellynn for listening to me with such compassion as the tears rolled down my face.  This was a place I could be absolutely real.  They encouraged me to be in a year of Jubilee.  Go fallow for awhile; be in a time when debts are forgiven and obligations released.  (obligations released . . . balm to my heart).  I read somewhere that debt is a cancer threatening the life of its host.  Chilling.  I wanted freedom.   I cried for the real. 

Bellaruth Naparstek’s meditations on the Kaiser Healthy Living website (check it out:   https://members.kaiserpermanente.org/redirects/listen/) lifted me every morning.  I’d light my candles and settle in with Pablo and Toby.  I learned guided imagery.  I went to peaceful places.  I repeated coping statements.  I learned how to breathe when I got scared.  Inhale . .  . one – two – three . . . and exhale . . one – two- three.  I hear her soothing voice to this day.  Her voice helped healed me.  God, there are so many angels out there.

Rob and I started sitting together in the mornings reading to each other from Edmund J. Bourne’s The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook.  I highly recommend this book.  Especially for any of my dear readers who suffer from anxiety.  This sweet time in the morning has been one of the greatest gifts from the vertigo.  We share our innermost lives, secrets, fears, desires.  We share the most vulnerable parts of ourselves.  The structure of the workbook gets us started and we soar from there.  It is part of our spiritual practice now; a great thing that has come out of this period.

My relationships changed, especially at the church.  It was just impossible for me to get up and go on Sunday morning.  I wasn’t driving anyway, and I couldn’t turn my head without the spinning, let alone be the rector’s wife.   A few parishioners started calling me at home.  I grew closer to those women than I have ever have been the entire ten years we’ve been there.  Those one on one, quiet talks, honest, vulnerable and true, were part of my healing.  Mary and Joe even drove all the way from Hayward on a work night to have dinner with us.  That touched me.  Susan Roberts drove all the way from Danville just to have breakfast with me on a Sunday morning.  Bless her good heart.  Pat encouraged me to let everything go except the essentials.  Facilitating the women’s group just wasn’t happening.  She encouraged me to take Sabbath.  She permitted me to take Sabbath. 

When I finally did brave a Sunday, it touched me how sweet they all were to me.  Joy sat on the steps with me when I cried, stripped and exposed in front of the entire congregation.  Mary tilted her head when she talked with me so I wouldn’t have to. Rob prayed with his hands on my head.  Ellie smiled, “this is a good day.”  Pat said that when she looked out in the congregation she saw an angel sitting in a pool of light.  And it was me.

And my dear, dear chaplains took such good care of my heart.  Again, I am so grateful – SO GRATEFUL – I could still go to work.  If I would have been isolated at home in my dizziness, that might have been too much to bear.  Instead, I could go to work, I could care and be cared for by the chaplains, I could do all of my office manager tasks, just at a slower pace.  I will never forget Carrie driving Little Red, (my Miata) with Lena following when Rob picked me up from the office and took me home one particularly bad morning.  I know everyone gave me a lot of slack – probably more than I’ll ever know.  Thank you.

VERTIGO – PART 3

The cards streamed in.  If you have ever deliberated whether to send a card, by all means, SEND IT!  You have no idea how loved those cards made me feel.  I set up a little table by the fireplace in front of my meditation perch and I carefully arranged all the cards, putting the prettiest, most inspirational ones in front.  At least once a week, I would gather them all up and read through them carefully and gain strength and sustenance from the love in them.  CJ sent me a card with a lighthouse on the front.  That was one of my favorites.  Max sent me several, including one with a bird of many colors; I put it on our fireplace mantle.  Its vibrancy made me happy.  Ellie Nonn sent me, must have been ten cards.  It seemed like one a week was coming in for a while there from her.  Those cards would tumble out of the mailbox and fill me with hope.


Where was God?  Very present.  God for me in the worst of it was the strength and power and ability in me to simply keep going.  To take a shower.  Feed Pablo and Toby.  To show up for work.  Cook a simple dinner for Rob and I.  To collapse after work on the couch and watch our shows.  There wasn’t much social life or much of anything else except at that time other than staying clean, eating, working and surviving.  And that was the God force inside of me. I kept going.  I was going through a horrible, horrible ordeal.  And I was surviving.  That is great power that stays with you forever. 

I was so worried about sweet Audrey Claire’s baptism.  I thought about her blonde curls and her sturdy little body, and I worried if I could stand long enough to be her Godmother at the ceremony.  I wondered if I was good enough – if I could really say those vows.  Nothing was clear those days.  In an act of incredible generosity, John and Candace assured me that they knew me and my broad spirituality and that was why they chose me to be the Godmother, one of the spiritual friends for their Audrey Claire.  They chose me, exactly as I am.  I stood up there by the baptismal fount proudly, full of emotion when Rob poured the water on her sweet little head.  Such a good girl.  And I stood through the whole thing without a hitch.


I paid more attention to my horoscope.  I threw the I Ching.


Judith called every day.  Every single day she called.  I will never, ever forget her loyalty and her hope and her encouragement, especially to keep moving.  She taught me how to work with the anxiety.  She is my friend - - and she is also a highly trained therapist.  She didn’t know a lot about vestibular neuritis, but she knew a lot about anxiety.  She told me about breathing into a paper bag.  She encouraged, “Detach from it, watch it, it’s not all of you.  Talk to it like its separate from you.”  She assured me over and over, “You’re not crazy.  That is absolutely, ridiculous nonsense!”  Edie declared, “Stare it down!”  I found my inner reserves of courage and strength. 


That gripping anxiety was the worst part.  I had never in my life experienced the actual physical symptoms of anxiety.  And it would come out of nowhere. We’d be watching a TV show, and say the music got a little ominous, or there was a loud noise, and I would turn my head and the dizziness would come on strong and I would be gripped with terror.  Am I going to have another vertigo attack?  I could feel the shaking inside.  It would pass over me like a bad dream.  Like a nightmare actually. But it did pass. 


I learned coping statements. I kept Daily Mood Logs.  I recited affirmations.  I learned guided imagery.  I went to peaceful places in my mind.  I rode the wave.  I imagined that I was a pyramid of power, solid, wide and expansive.  I was standing my ground.  I remembered the surviving tree from the Oklahoma City bombing.  I printed a picture of it and posted a copy on our frig and at work.  I was still standing with my roots deep in the ground, my trunk sturdy and my branches reaching wide into the sky. 

VERTIGO – Part 2

There was another bad one in September.  It happened at work.  I had stayed late to answer the phone for a chaplain request.  Thank God, I did the intake. I will always maintain that phone call saved my life.  I would have been driving when the spinning hit. Good CJ was there as I dropped to the floor and crawled out to the hall.   I was flat on that carpet for a long time, scared to get up.  Would there be two pictures on the wall again?  Oh, God, help me – NO God! -  Not again.  Finally CJ gingerly helped me to the couch in my office, (not sure why I didn’t go there in the first place).  Marcia came and held my hand with tears in her eyes.  Rob came, good steady man, walked me slowly, slowly to the car and took me home and tucked me in bed.  God bless him, he made me one of his famous smoothies with lots of half and half, fruit and yogurt for dinner.  That was all I could manage in those first weeks.  It only lasted an hour, but that aftershock shook my confidence badly.

Thanks to the internet, I know everything about vestibular disorders there is to know.  I know the difference between BPVV, Meniere’s disease, Labyrinthitis, cerebellar clamps, acute compensation and ataxic gaits.  I’ve read all about the complicated system of communication between the nerves of the inner ear and the brain.  I went to a neurologist who tested me for Lyme disease, Vitamin B-12 deficiency and syphilis. (negative).  He ordered a MRI.  Dear reader, if you ever get something you think could be serious (and hopefully you have insurance), God, help you, GET THE MRI!  The results of my MRI ruled out the scary stuff, like a brain tumor or MS.  The MRI gave me great peace of mind.  After the MRI, everything inside me changed. I didn’t have anything life threatening.  I wasn’t going to die.

My neurologist, Dr.  Joshua Kuluva is the best doctor I’ve ever had.  I get kind of emotional about it.  I knew he was different, because he asked me questions and actually listened.  I was shocked at how much of my life we covered in that initial 45 minute appointment.   We talked about all the moves as a child.  We even talked about my dad.  He treated me as a whole person.  I walked out of there feeling hopeful, even safer somehow, knowing I was in expert hands.  He encouraged me to keep a calendar.  Bless my heart, I kept that calendar faithfully for over three months.  I began to see patterns with my dizziness.  For example, it got worse if I was in a hurry.  Or if I was stressed or frustrated about something.  Or if I didn’t get enough sleep.  Or if Trader Joe’s was just too crowded.  I continue to see the great Dr. Kuluva to this day.  I walk out of every appointment with fresh insights and hope.  I will be forever grateful to Dr. Joshua Kuluva. 


I did everything I could to make myself well.  In addition to Dr. Kuluva, I went to several other specialists, including an Ear, Nose and Throat, specialist, known as an otolaryngologist. The best part of that appointment was finding out I have the “hearing of a teenager”, (really?  after all those rock concerts?), and I finally got a diagnosis.  I didn’t have BPVV.  I didn’t have Meniere’s disease. I had a condition called vestibular neuritis.  A nasty virus had attacked one of the vestibular nerves in my inner ear that fateful morning.  Those nerves are crucial for determining your whole orientation.  They are the pathways communicating balance with the brain. 


Ok, so now I have a diagnosis.  When will it go away?


After waiting for three months to get in, I went to a hot shot doctor specializing in post-menopausal disorders.  She gave me an estrogen patch, that I dutifully changed twice a week, but it didn’t put a dent in the dizziness. (or the insomnia).  I tried multiple doses of Advil, antihistamine, (could it be that simple?) and even acyclovir (after spotting an obscure reference to herpes on the internet).   I learned about organic problems vs. functional problems.  The otolaryngologist suspected an overlying stress component. Oh, God, could this really be all in my mind?  Am I like the chronic fatiguers, seasonal affective disorderers, allergy prone, scent sensitive Berkeley types?  Could that now be me?


I even printed out several diagrams of the inner ear and meditated on the health of that myriad of nerves governing my balance.  I talked with complete strangers who had similar conditions.  I learned about CST and vibrational yoga and acupuncture.  I heard promises from a chiropractic neurologist and his brain-time training tapes.  I kept meticulous files.  I was still dizzy.


I was in physical therapy for months, faithfully learning exercises to retrain my brain and experimenting with several head repositioning techniques.  I tried the Epley, the Hallpike, Brandt-Darnoff and Semont maneuvers and the Hawthorne eye exercises.   I went to an experimental workshop for people with neurological disorders.  The researcher gave us a vest with weights attached to different parts of the body.  I am haunted to this day by that beautiful black man with multiple sclerosis, guided by his loyal, steady girlfriend as he walked unsteadily across the room in his vest with Velcro weights.  The other guy had Parkinson’s.  That got me grateful real quick, let me tell you.  I went home and Rob piled every heavy Bible and Dictionary we have in the house on top of my stomach because they said that weight can ground me. 


I love Marcella Larondo, my physical therapist.  She never gave up on me.  She listened to me.  She patiently taught me all of those exercises. I still have the tongue depressors she made for me with the green dot. (Move your eyes, back and forth, side to side, up and down, focusing on that green dot.) She assured me that I was the type of personality that would heal from this.  I was not a depressive victim.  I had energy.  I had spirit.  I had optimism and hope.  Bless her, angel, Marcella.


And bless my earnest heart.  I have so much compassion for myself reviewing all this material preparing to write about it.  I really tried everything.  I never lost hope.


It all helped.  But I was still dizzy.

VERTIGO – Part 1


I woke up Friday morning, July 22nd and the room was violently spinning.  There were two of every picture on each wall.  It was terrifying.  I stumbled to the bathroom, holding on to furniture along the way, hoping and praying it would just go away.  It didn’t.  I crawled back into bed and there were still two of every picture.    I felt sick in every cell, horribly nauseous, out of control, wishing I would just die.  Seriously.  I couldn’t live for long with this sickening sensation.  I wandered briefly that even if there was an earthquake I would not be able to move.  Rob wanted to call 911.  But there was no way I could move, sit up, ride in a car, talk, anything - - he made me squeeze his hand and say my name.  Oh, God, in heaven, could it be a stroke?


I fell mercifully asleep and just prayed that everything would be normal when I woke up.  It wasn’t.  There were still two of every picture.   The spinning started up again every time I moved my head.  Somehow, Rob got me in the car and we drove the hellish couple of miles to East Bay Family Practice.  I felt like I was dying with every pothole.  The nurse took my pulse so many times, standing up, walking, sitting down, until I begged to just lie down for a blessed moment.  The pretty young doctor diagnosed it as benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, BPPV.  She explained that the crystals in my inner ear that help govern balance had been dislodged and were free floating in ear fluid.  She left the room with a sober message, “This may take a while to resolve”.   It is still resolving 10 months later.


It was one hell of a weekend.  Did I mention that I am terrified of throwing up?  I read later that this phobia has an actual name, emetophobia.   The most terrifying moment of this whole ordeal was the next day when I got out of bed briefly, walked in the kitchen to get some water and immediately dropped to the floor.  I was writhing, gagging, holding Rob’s strong hand, swallowing it down, determined not to purge.  Thank the good Lord, I didn’t.  I have never felt that nauseous, even after the tequila hookers and shots of Wild Turkey in my college days.  


I slept through most of that nightmare weekend, except the third day, I must confess I mustered up enough energy to go have my hair done.  Vanity wins out, even in the direst of circumstances.  My good husband drove me there and waited as I got color and cut. Poor Rosie looking very worried, asked me to please not “hurl” in her chair.  I’m sure she was relieved to see me go.  I went back to bed for three more days.  At least my hair looked good.


The wild, spinning vertigo part of it went away after four hellish days, but the dizziness has persisted. It is an unsettling, exhausting whirling sensation, kind of like being on permanent vibrate mode on my cell phone.  There was a very weird pressure at the back of my head and base of my neck.  It felt like my head would just roll off at any minute.  It took so much energy to walk, talk, turn my head, shave my legs, vacuum the cat hair, prepare a simple meal . . . basically it took everything I had just to live.  I fell into bed exhausted at the end of the day.  I didn’t drive for months.  Thank God I could ride the “bullet” shuttle from Summit hospital near my house to Alta Bates hospital.  But you have no idea how grateful I was that I could work.  I love going to work.  I love the chaplains.  I love feeling useful.  I will be forever grateful that I worked through the whole ordeal.  Staying home in dizzy isolation would have been unbearable.


Power walking got me through, too.  Power walking is so . . . me . . . . such a major part of my healthy identity.  Oh, dear God, don’t take that away, too.  I will never be able to thank Judith enough as she encouraged me daily to, “get out there, MOVE, don’t coddle it. “  I grabbed my water bottle and put my tennis shoes on and out I went around Lake Merritt and all over Oakland.  I especially liked the long, clean lanes of the cemetery, figuring even if I’m totally off balance, the worst that can happen is I will just fall over.  Unlike driving, I won’t kill anyone.  I can’t begin to describe how much that walking saved me.  It was a part of me that was still there.  I must not be in too bad of shape.  I could still walk . . . for miles.  


Speaking of identity, I would never have never understood how a chronic health issue can affect your self-esteem.  What happened to me?  I’m FUN!  A major part of my identity is wrapped around my passionate interest in life – all the wonderful things to do and be engaged in – going out there and learning, trying new things and introducing my friends and community to my discoveries.  But that was all gone.  I couldn’t do any of that.  Why would anyone want to be around me?  I was sick.  I was creepy.  I was tainted.  In one horrific moment, my health had profoundly changed and I was a different person.  It was lonely.  It messed with my confidence.  I’m dark and scary now.  I’m not fun and lighthearted.  I couldn’t even take the noise in restaurants for God’s sake.  Had I lost that part of myself forever?  


I would look at the picture of Rob and I on our fifteenth anniversary in Paris and I would get sick inside - that was before.  That part of me is gone.   I would look into my own eyes – little did that happy girl know what would happen to her two short years later.

Testing My FaceBook LInk

My dear husband is trying to link my blog to my FaceBook page. We're testing this to see if it works. Whether it does or not, he is very handsome for someone turning 50 today.