Monday morning 2am (one week ago) I wake up and the room is crazy spinning. Crazy. Tea cups at Disney x 1000. I think,
Whoa, that's weird. And then I start to feel incredibly nauseous -
back of the throat something wicked this way comes nauseous. I lay back down and start to sweat violently. In a minute my shirt is soaked. I place my hand on my chest to feel my heart. It seems fine. In fact, it doesn't even seem like it's beating at all - which freaks me out, but it has to be beating. I try to feel if there is a shooting pain down my left arm. There isn't.
I wake up Pam. "Sweetheart, I think I have a problem."
For the next 4 hours I throw up EVERYTHING. And then some. Pam and I (and the internet) conclude it must be food poisoning. We had gone to a Middle Eastern restaurant around the corner because we've been reading Nola a story about felafel. But Pam is fine. And Nola is sleeping soundly.
"It must have been that red sauce," I say. I was the only one who spiced things up. "I'm yelping this shit later!"
Whenever I am flat on my back, I feel the sea come rushing in and out. It takes me awhile to figure that out. My dizziness has such gravity. My face is smashed into the floor. Eventually I fall asleep on my side. I wake up an hour later and I'm like,
Whew, glad that's over. But in a quick second I am back on the Tsunami Tea Cups from hell.
I discover there are 8 degrees of not feeling well.
1. I don't feel good. I'm going to lay down.
2. I feel like crap. I'm going to take some over the counter medicine and lie down.
3. I feel like total shit. Can you go to the pharmacy for me?
4. I feel like I'm dying, but it just needs to run its course, I'm going to be fine.
5. I feel like I'm really dying, but I'll call the doctor tomorrow.
6. I feel like I'm really really dying, but there's no need to call 911. Seriously, put down the phone.
7. Yeah, go ahead and call 911. That's a good idea.
8. Please for the love of god call 911 I'm dying here!
Throughout the night I have held on to number 4,
Just gotta run its course... But as daylight starts to appear, I start considering other numbers. When Pam says she is calling 911, I'm at number 7. "Yeah, go ahead."
I hope to never get to 8.
The paramedics arrive and immediately diagnose food poisoning. "Just gotta run its course," says one of them. I throw up some bile right then and Pam says, "No, you're taking him."
I am able to crawl up on the gurney, but they have to carry me out. There is a great seriousness to an ambulance. It has a siren and it's written backwards so there is no guesswork. You pull the fuck over. It's embarrassing and humiliating to be put into an ambulance. It means you have no control. It means you are unable.
People are prideful.
I can't lay on my side in the ambulance because I am strapped in. I am miserable because I can feel every turn and pothole, and the siren isn't winning any favors either. But I have nothing in me to throw up. I dry heave when we get to St Mary's.
I have my eyes closed most of the time because everything is still spinning. But I blink out images of sad people slumped in chairs and one guy in a bed hooked up to a bunch of tubes staring at the ceiling without blinking. I am wheeled into a room and I crawl onto a bed. I then crawl up to the rails to lie on my side, seasick, in short quick breaths, eyes closed. I listen to people crying and shouting. I hear a nurse say, "No, sir, what are you doing? Do not pee there! Stop peeing right now!" Some guy in the very back of somewhere keeps moaning, 'Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.'
Pam arrives and that is good. She is my advocate, my champion. She speaks, because I cannot.
The ER staff gives me a bunch of different medicines and fluids to right my ship, but nothing helps. I continue to list. Someone says food poisoning. Someone else says stomach flu. Another says dehydration.
My EKG is normal. Most are thinking food poisoning except for the woman who gets me blankets and the main ER doc. The blanket woman - by the way - knows WITHOUT shining a light in my eyes and observing the subtle shifting back and forth of my pupils.
Vertigo, they say.
I have to pee, but I can't get up. So I have to pee on my side. But my body is telling me,
Dude, this is not how we pee. Pam says she'll run the water. I guess there's water in this room. Eventually I am able to pee on my side because my body says,
Dude, you're going to burst.
At some point I am brought upstairs and I crawl onto a different bed. More fluids, more medicines, more readings... Still dizzy, but not as nauseous.
Time passes. I am finally able to stand up and pee into the container. THAT feels good. But when I lie back down in the bed I fall into it like bricks. Eventually I can make it to the bathroom and back. But the pee remains in the container at my bedside. I point it out to an orderly. "Um, that apple juice tastes funny." She laughs and I explain that I don't need it any more.
Progress.
Pam has to go back home to relieve our nanny who has put Nola to bed. Pam hasn't seen Nola all day. Nola is like air for her.
I am visited throughout the night by lots of different medical staff who reach for an arm, bring a tiny cup of pills, or have me drink more water. There is no rest for the very sick. At three in the morning, one doctor explains he is going to test for diabetes and something else. When I see this doctor at dawn I ask if I might also see a neurologist. He says, "Oh, no, you just need to drink more fluids, you are just dehydrated."
"Are you sure," I ask, "because I'm not sure what they told you, but..."
After I explain in detail, he says, "I will get the neurologist right away."
Right away when you're bleeding out and right away when you have your own room probably mean different things. After a couple hours I am taken to get an MRI. An MRI is a claustrophobe's nightmare. You've seen this in commercials for big hospitals and General Electric. It's its own showpiece. It's the big white wall with a hole in it that says GE right above. You body goes in that hole. Luckily they run the air at full blast so it
feels like less of a horror. And your legs remain outside. Otherwise you are ENCLOSED, like in a tomb.
I am given earplugs because they are sending me into a jack hammering water break at rush hour on Main street.
Pound pound pound. Thwap ssss thwap ssss thwap ssss. Chukka chukka chukka chukka chukka. Pound pound pound.
The machine fails.
"We're having some technical difficulties," says the tech. "Why don't you have a seat?"
"Damn, I should have brought the one we have at home."
"You have one of these?"
"Yeah, only we call it a microwave."
They get the machine working and I have my test done, dye shooting into my hand and then up into my brain.
Throughout all my tests and stormy repose, Pam has been texting, phoning, and emailing our families. She is the communications officer, an unfair position for anyone. Nurses, doctors, interior rooms, access to a window and a clear signal, etc. My immediate family tends to lean on the dramatic, thus making her position even more unfair. To be fair, when my mom called work this morning, they said, "Oh, I think he's in the hospital." Still, I need to have a communications intervention with them and explain that in a hospital situation, texting is the right way to communicate. Just texting. The info will come in short bursts on your phone. Texting, people. Just texting. Let's not make this harder than it has to be.
After the MRI (and MRA) we are taken back up to my room. I am drowsy and slip in and out of naps. Time passes. Lunch comes. Or is it dinner? I guess you could call it meat loaf. It's brown. And ultimately flavorless. Lime sherbert? Seriously? Who likes lime sherbert? Why not any of the reds? Cherry, strawberry, mixed berry... Do hospitals get all the lime sherbert by default? Mmmm, it's curiously refreshing.
Friends call and text. Some word is out. Steve Keith calls and says, "Dude, as opposed to my heart attack that I could have done something about with my smoking and poor diet, it seems like you got bitch slapped outta nowhere."
It's good to laugh.
The neurologist comes. He looks in my eyes, leans me back, taps me on my knees. He has me push against his hands. He whispers in my ear. I apologize, and explain his accent makes it hard to understand. He instructs Pam to administer the test. She asks me simple questions with barely a breath. I pass. I even bonus up when I say Pam is only 35.
The doctor hasn't seen the MRI results yet, but after examining me he thinks it's
Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, almost positive. He explains that we all have small stones or rocks in our heads that are set in specific locations to help us balance. If they move, we don't.
He says he's going to look at the films now and will let us know. A nurse pops into the room a moment later and asks us to come to the nurse's station. "He wants to show you the films," she says.
The neurologist explains the butterfly loaves of my brain. (I'm guessing there's an after market for MRI's as a Rorschach test.) He says my brain is normal. (And by default, I have one.)
"No tumor, no stroke," he says. "You do have a gray area in the back, but it's isolated and nothing to worry about. If there were more of if, or if it were bigger - it could be multiple sclerosis, but it appears to be nothing."
Multiple sclerosis? Multiple sclerosis wasn't even in the consideration set. Food poisoning, heart attack, tumor, cancer...
I never thought of stroke either; which was either very very bad or very very good.
I should explain.
Bad because you need to act
FAST if it's a stroke.
F=Face Ask the person to smile. Does one side of the face droop?
A=Arm Ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downward?
S=Speech Ask the person to repeat a simple phrase. Is the speech slurred or strange?
T=Time If you observe any of these signs, phone 9-1-1 because ambulance staff can expedite treatment.
The only reason it was good to not consider stroke was because I WOULD HAVE FREAKED OUT!
(Which really isn't good.)
Still, there was a gray spot on the film. And the cost of an MRI doesn't suggest a printing issue.
"How did it get there?" Pam asks. "Do we have to monitor it? Should we be concerned?"
"It's like a pot with a burn mark," says the neurologist. "You look at it one day and you don't know how it got there. But it's still a pot and it works fine."
It's very zen and I'll take it.
It seems that this is the VERY BEST DIAGNOSIS I could have received. It may be a long way around my ass to get to my elbow, but I have a clean bill of health. We'll find out about diabetes and whatever else tomorrow.
The neurologist comes back to my room and I put him on the phone with my dad. They talk shop. I listen to the neurologist speak.
"The patient exhibits no signs of uhhhhhhhhh trauma to the head uhhhhhhhh or neck as we did both an MRI and MRA uhhhhhhh...'
It's
dictaspeak! I am shot decades into the past when I made rounds with my dad and listened as he dictated his findings. They ALL speak like that.
After the neurologist leaves dinner arrives. It resembles a chicken sandwich and it's actually pretty close. My aunt Audrey calls. She, like my father, is also a neurologist. I explain what has happened. Her diagnosis, like Pam's dad (also a doctor, but not a neurologist - who actually weighed in first) is slightly different.
Labyrinthitis. My aunt also explains that if it is BPPV, there is a therapy that will reset my crystals (stones, rocks) such that I could walk out as if nothing has happened.
Pam and I watch some TV (M*A*S*H) and she soon makes her exit. I listen to the person in the next room cough up an Oldsmobile until I fall asleep.
I wake up the next day excited to see how the body repairs itself during sleep. I'm disappointed. Still no sea legs. But I imagine I can manage better.
The neurologist's partner visits me. I show her how I walk heel to toe. It's comical, because I can't. In fact I have to start over a few times before making it two steps. She says it's probably better than yesterday and that it will continue to get better. I ask her about therapy. She echoes what my aunt said and writes me a referral.
My attending physician makes an appearance a minute after and it's sort of like a game show. He has index cards. "Remember I said we were going to test for diabetes?"
"Yes."
He looks down at his cards.
"Your results are... negative."
It takes me a second to remember that anything negative in a hospital is positive.
"Right," I say. "That's good!"
"Yes, yes, it's good."
He's excited that I'm excited and I want him to release me. I don't mention about the neurologists.
"I can probably get out of here, right?"
"Yes, yes, I'll start the paperwork."
I call to make an appt with the therapist before the door closes.
Pam arrives and we check out. We go to Milk and Honey Cafe to get some food. Pam parks in a no parking zone so she can help me inside. I'm definitely not 100%. I feel different. I feel handicapped.
The sun is so bright. It's blinding.
Pam sits me down, and because Milk and Honey is weird about ordering first and then sitting down, she explains that I am not a vagrant before she re-parks the car.
I get the soup and salad. It's nice to eat real food.
We go home.
Nola.
She's so beautiful. She starts to sing when she sees me.
"A B C D E F G..."
This means she's happy.
"Daddy's home from the hospital," says Pam.
"Daddy, are you better?" Her voice is so tiny, precise, and perfect.
"Yes, sweetheart. Daddy's better."
I kiss her tiny head and smell her hair. She smells good.
Nola finishes her lunch and goes sleepy time. I do the same. Pam goes to the grocery and does other errands to keep our lives moving forward.
Next day Pam drives me to work. As we drive, I recognize that I'm not nauseous, but I'm hyper aware of all movement and it makes me dizzy to see it all. I close my eyes.
We park and Pam walks me to work, doesn't let go of my hand. I know I'm fine, that I'm not going to fall over, but Pam doesn't. We take the elevator up. She asks if it bothers me. "No, I'm good," I say. She gives me a kiss goodbye when we get to my floor and lets go of my hand. She knows she has to let go and let me do this on my own, like it's the first day of school.
Don't let those kids make fun of you.
I KNOW I shouldn't be here. I feel alien. But I'm not a danger to others. There is no heavy machinery, no hazardous chemicals.
I'm all about the down low as I give a cursory nod to the front desk and continue to my office. I don't know who knows I was carried out of my home and put into an ambulance. And that I got out of the hospital YESTERDAY. Walking down the hall, I know it's not in a straight line. It's like I'm drunk, but without the euphoria.
I print out the questionnaire for the therapist, fill it out, and find out how my jobs are going. People ask how I'm doing. "Fine," I say. "All good. No big."
I've lost so much time. Before this week started I knew there were going to be issues. Now time and space have piled up on each other. In short, I'm behind and under.
Pam arrives to take me to the therapist, says she doesn't want me to return to work.
"Let's talk to the therapist," I say.
That said, I know I shouldn't walk the half mile and agree to the cab.
The therapist knows within two minutes of my story that it's
vestibular neuritis. She does a simple test to confirm it. She puts my head in her hands and says to focus on her nose. She's going to move my head quickly back and forth, but keep looking at her nose. She turns my head to the left, and then the right.
"You had an inner ear infection on your right side."
I imagine this test being given in the cave man days. "Yup, that's why you having jump vision, or
nystagmus."
The therapist explains that my right eye takes a moment to find its destination. "That's why you're having jump vision, or nystagmus."
To confirm her confirmation, I put on a blackened scuba mask that records my eye movement. She plays the video after she runs me through the test. My pupil keeps jumping over.
"No hearing loss, thank god, but you have some nerve damage," she says. "That's why you're unsteady. You may not ever be 100%, but you should be 99% no problem. You probably won't even know the difference unless you're on a beach at night walking on sand up a hill."
I can live with that.
"How long will it take to recover?"
"It could take a few weeks, maybe a couple of months."
My heart sinks momentarily. But I remember I have my faculties, although yesterday when I put on a new roll of toilet paper, I put it on underhand. Toilet paper should NEVER be underhand.
"It could be sooner," she says. "It depends. It seems like you're doing amazing for just getting out of the hospital yesterday."
"Driving?" I ask.
"Probably not for awhile."
My heart AND shoulders sink.
"The dizziness and jump vision will go away," she continues. "I'll give you some exercises and we'll see if you're still in range of taking steroids to help the healing process. You're going to be fine."
She takes me through the different exercises. One is where I stare at something eye level an arm's length away. I turn my head but keep my eyes locked on the target. When I turn to the right, the target seems to drag over.
Fascinating...
I get a script for the 'roids. It's just a dose pack so it will be done in a week. Pam and I go immediately to the Walgreens to drop it off. We have lunch and go back to get it. She walks me near work and lets me go. The therapist said she wasn't worried about me falling over and I know that helped Pam. Still, she wants me to text her when I get back to work, and encourages me to leave early. I text her when I get back. But I can't leave early; however, when I do leave, I walk to the corner and cross. I can do that.
I SHOULD do that.
We should ALL do that.
The spot I'm cutting right now is a six camera shoot. My client wants to see a cut on Monday. So when my assistant shows me the multi-cam display I am dazzled by the cruelty. It couldn't suck more. It's hard enough to fixate on a single object let alone six moving screens. I guess it could have been a nine camera shoot.
Sigh...
Bottom line, I'm fine. My vertigo is vertigone. I'm still a bit wobbly, and sometimes I just need to close my eyes, but I feel INCREDIBLY LUCKY. Even though this was not a wake up call per se, Pam and I are going to treat it as one. We are going to try to lead a healthier lifestyle. It was frightening and it happened just like that. And it has served its purpose.
