A Little Delayed News...

Here is a piece of news about something that happened to me recently and a follow-up on it.

Dizzy...I Get Dizzy...

I had a bout with vertigo several days ago. Boy, what an adventure that was. I have been a bit dizzy before but never knew what vertigo was until three days ago. I had noticed some loss of hearing and some hearing distortion for a day or so before then dizzy spell. That was on Saturday. We went to a jam session Saturday morning where we play music with others but I couldn't stay because of the sound distortion in my right ear. It got so bad we went home before pot luck. Then on Sunday, the morning of the vertigo, I took a cup of coffee to my computer and sat down. Then the world began to spin and I had to close my eyes. I called my wife and she came a runnin'. I held on to her for a while and couldn't get to my feet. After an hour or so, I finally managed to get to the toilet (I had to go very badly) and empty out. It took about 45 minutes. Donna wanted to call 911 but I said no. (I'm so brave) After I finished my elimination bout, I managed to get to my bed and a prone position. That afternoon, about 4:00 pm, after attempting to call my regular physician with no results, I decided to go to the ER and get my ear checked out. The doctor took some blood and ran a cat scan and pronounced me not too bad. He gave me some vertigo medicine and some ear medicine and sent me home. He gave my wife a phone number for an ear doctor and I have to see him on the 28th. Believe me when I say, if you've never experienced real vertigo, you cannot imagine how it feels. I remember being so drunk once that I couldn't open my eyes without the world spinning around; I couldn't stand or move to anywhere and I got the heaves. The vertigo I had was just like that but worse and without the pleasure of bourbon or beer first. I'll keep me posted on this after my doctors' appointment.

Follow-up:

Doctors' Orders...

Well, (I like to say that before a post sometimes because it was something Ronald Reagan did when he was President) I went to see the ear doctor and I'm really glad I did. I feel much better now that a specialist has told me I had a bout with vertigo! 'duh'

I already knew that. The doc at the hospital gave me some prednisone for my ear problem and it worked pretty well so when I got to the ear doctor, my symptons were all but gone already.

The ear doc told me I probably had experienced a "Sudden Hearing Loss Syndrome,"-(1 : a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality...) and it would probably get completely well and I'd be back to normal one of these days. I asked him, "Which one of these days," and he said , "Who knows?" I assured him I certainly didn't and he assured me he didn't either. So I guess that was a push.

I'm glad I went to see him, though. At least now I know whatever it was that happened to my ear isn't something that has a specific name that might require surgery or some other really scary method to repair it.

He was pretty nice. He took a look at Donnas' ear, too, while he was at it. She lost almost all the hearing from one of her ears and has all kinds of noises in there from time to time. She had been told there was nothing anyone could do to reapir her ear and, after looking it over, the doc assured her that, indeed, there was nothing anyone could do for her ear. Boy, what a relief!

Now we'll try another jam session to make sure our music days are not over forever. My ear is better and there have been no more bouts with vertigo, Thank God for that!

Later...


Tuesday February 21, 2006