How It All Started

This was the day after Thanksgiving, so with my belly still stuffed, I went to work that day. Work was quiet and I was the only one of the Assistants working that day. This day was slightly different because it was the day before we were due to leave for Walt Disney World! My fiance and I had saved for months for a special trip. I normally don't get excited before a trip because I am always afraid that something will happen like I will end up with a cold, or the plane will crash, or we'll come home with special bugs in our suitcases from various places that people travel from. You name it, I'm always thinking it will happen. So I try to pretend like nothing is happening until I get to the destination and I am settled in. That day I went to lunch with a new found friend. We blabbed about Disney through lunch and everything seemed to be completely normal. I felt fine that day. After we had finished our food, it struck. As we were waiting for the waitress to take our payment, the room began to spin. And when I say spin, I mean spin. I remember people looking at me and their faces being distorted. I told my friend what was happening and said maybe I need to get to the bathroom because I feel sick. She helped me there and I sat on the floor waiting for the inevitable to happen. It did not but the room was still moving up and down. She helped me to the door because I thought maybe I just needed some fresh air. As soon as I reached the bottom of the stairs outside I was sick. I sat there on the curb scared! My friend did not want to leave me so I called my fiance to come pick me up. He did within 10 minutes. I went back to work and called the doctor. They said that they were not accepting patients that day unless it was an emergency. I told her my symptoms and she said it was probably just an episode and I should go home and rest and she told me to have a great trip. It never ended. Then followed the most miserable 2 weeks of my life. We cancelled our trip, thinking we would go another time. I could not move. If I walked 5 steps I would get sick. I laid on the couch and stayed out of work for 2 weeks following the initial episode. I went to the doctor on Monday in a wheelchair, gripping a trashcan in case of illness. Everyone was looking at me in the office and I kept telling my dad to turn me slowly. The doctor thought I may have ear stones (BPPV) so I went home and came back an hour and a half later to see a physical therapist where she turned my head all about trying to move these "ear stones" that did not exist. This made me feel horrible and I couldn't wait for it to be over. I was told to sleep at a 45 degree angle which is NOT comfortable so for 2 nights I didn't sleep. None of this helped. Finally I went to see an ENT which I recommend from the beginning. He said he did not believe it is BPPV because there was no change with the movements of the head and because of the way it came on. He told me to move as much as possible. I seemed to think that this was something that was going to go away. Boy was I wrong. I went back to work 2 weeks after this all started. I walked as though I had just drank 2 pitchers of beer and was quite sick of slamming into walls and walking as though I was an 80 year old deteriorated woman. In the months of December and the beginning of January things were looking up. I was able to drive again in January. I went to the college to get my books for the Spring 2009 semester (this happened at the end of the semester in 2008) and I was going to the grocery store on my own. Great! Well for that time anyway. Then, I got a bad cold at the end of January and the dizziness began again. Something else started in January with the dreaded cold. Anxiety. Panic. I will talk more about the Anxiety and Panic in a separate post. They are a whole different evil that will invade my body and the next months will be some of the hardest months of my life.