When I woke up two days ago, the room was spinning. I wasn’t drunk (and haven’t been for 17+ years). I didn’t feel feverish. I hadn’t eaten anything strange the night before. I figured it was allergies since I’d had a few days last week when my allergies were bad. Plus it’s fall and ragweed always messes me up.
I pushed my way through walking the dog and doing about 2/3 of my morning workout. But I had to pause a lot. The room kept spinning and I felt queasy a lot. After about two hours, I laid down to try to get the spinning to stop.
It didn’t.
I ended up in bed for most of the day. Sometime late that afternoon the spinning subsided and I was able to walk the dog and eat dinner.
The next day, I woke up feeling 100%. I did all of my normal activities and even mowed the lawn. It was fantastic!
The best part of being sick, is the first day you feel better.
I chalked the dizziness and queasiness to food poisoning.
Then today I woke up to the room spinning again. WTF?
This time I pushed through my entire workout. The spinning was bad, but not as bad as two days earlier. However, on elf my inner ears is definitely clogged and a bit painful. Usually, I would ignore this and live through it. My ears get clogged up all the time from allergies. I’ve been living with this for 53 years.
But because the dizziness truly sucked, I decided to go to Urgent Care to see if I had an infection and get started on antibiotics, if needed.
I saw a Physician’s Assistant and she said I had middle ear effusion – which is a Eustachian tube that is blocked but not infected.
She prescribed a short course of Prednisone.
And so, for the first time in my life, I’m on steroids.
I wish a side effect was making me leaner and giving me bigger muscles. But it’s not that kind of steroid. Instead, the side effects include agitation, sleeplessness, and stomach upset.
But I don’t care at all – if it reduces the swelling in my Eustachian tube and allows it to drain so the dizziness stops, I’ll cope with any side effect.
If it doesn’t work, the PA said I’d need to see any ENT specialist for more specific diagnostic tests and treatment. I really hope that isn’t needed since it will cost a fortune.
Plus I just want to feel normal again quickly.
Fingers crossed that will happen.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a few moments of self-pity this morning when the room was spinning and I thought I’d throw up. After taking care of my wife for almost 30 years here I was all alone, bent over, not sure I could even drive and once again f*****d.
In the past three years since my wife died I’ve had:
- A lingering, severe flu for 6 weeks right after she died.
- My first surgery ever for an inguinal surgery.
- My first root canal ever – requiring two 4 hour procedures and lots of drugs and $ to fix.
- My second surgery ever – inguinal hernia repair on the other side.
- A blown out shoulder that keeps getting reinsured.
- And now this dizziness.
I thought, I’m falling apart. And I have nobody to take care of me – except me.
That lasted for about 5 minutes before I decided I’d push on with my workout as best I could and go to Urgent Care afterward.
Like most days, it turned out to be another good day. It wasn’t what I had planned, but all-in-all, it wasn’t too bad either.
Plus, I’ll probably get a lot of writing done tonight since I took 5 prednisone pills today to kick off the steroid taper. I’m still having some dizziness, but I also feel a bit like I could run through a brick wall.
*For those who don’t get the reference and for those who do, here’s the video.