Here is part three of My Adventures in Dizzyland. Hopefully, you are enjoying it so far. Leave me a comment if you're so inclined.
Adventures in Dizzyland Continued...
Before
any of this happened though and I was still unsure of my driving ability, I
stopped driving, except for taking my kids to and from school and to the local
store. Why chance it, right? I did teach my daughter to steer when she was
thirteen and drive while she was fourteen, just in case she had to take the
wheel. The first time I had a panic attack on the road, I was by myself. I was
tired of being stuck home, not being able to drive, and the ironic part was
that I was driving to a natural medicine clinic that I thought might be able to
shed some light on this mysterious illness I had. Well, I was lost to begin
with. I had no clue how to get to the place and the dizzy spells were getting
worse. The familiar panic starting welling inside me (and yes, I had had many
panic attacks in the past not related) and I knew what would happen. My heart
was beating out of my chest, my hands became cold and sweaty, a feeling like I
would die right then and there was so overwhelming, I began to hyperventilate,
which made the dizziness worse. I managed to pull into a gas station and sit
there, trying to get a hold of myself, while people stared at me as if I might
go insane. I had to call my mother, who lived just up the road, to come get my
husband from work, who was thankfully only minutes away. We only had one car.
Both of them showed up about fifteen minutes later, and by that time, I had
calmed enough that I felt like I would live. My husband drove me home and went
back to work, but by then, all I could do was sleep. I felt like I had just run
a marathon. It wiped me out.
After
that terrifying experience, I relegated myself to my home. I became
agoraphobic, afraid to leave my house. I swore I would never go through that
again. Well, because of that vow, I made myself a prison—within the walls of my
own home. This was not the life I wanted to lead, which then propelled me to
becoming a research maniac.
Chapter Two
Information Overload
Information Overload
Let me
tell you, the internet is a wonderful tool, but it can also be the devil. What
I mean to say by that is we humans are curious people, even downright obsessive
when it comes to our health. Any abnormal bodily change was an urgent alarm in
my head to find out what I “had.” I was, I admit, a hypochondriac. It started
in childhood. I was afraid of everything! I was afraid of the wind, thought it
would blow the house down, (Three little Pigs must have traumatized me or
something) afraid of thunder, (not sure why) and lightning, thinking it would
split our house in two (was told a relative’s house was struck by lightning,
therefore, ours was bound to as well) and afraid of every spider there was.
Didn't help that as a child I was bit by a wolf spider that sent me to the E.R.
in the middle of the night, with a fever over 104. To me, these were legitimate
reasons for my fears, but alas, I obsessed over my health, and the internet
became my connection to every disease on this planet. So, naturally that’s where
I went when I wanted answers, at least ones I could take to my doctor. I wanted
him to know I was intelligent when it came to my health, you know a real
sleuth. I was taking control.
I turned
on my computer, went to my trusty search engine (Google) and typed in dizziness
and off-Balance feeling. I got #6, 524, 345, 678 results! Ok, I would be there
a while, I figured. After seven hours of searching over everything from
constipation to cancer, I couldn't see straight and a panic attack was knocking
on my door. I had to downsize. So, I just typed balance problems. Better, now
it was only a couple thousand pages—that I could handle. Armed with my new-found information, I headed to the doctor. He did a complete exam, looked in my ears
and said, “You have a red ear.” Red ear? Was it bleeding? A sore, what? An
infection. Ok, have had ear infections for years, no biggie. Take an
antibiotic? That’s it? I had my stapled concoction of possible diagnoses and he
tells me an ear infection? Well, my ears did feel full and stuffy, and to think
about it, I would slap anyone who touched my sinuses, so yeah, made sense. I’ve
always had sensitive ears, a stink load of infections as a child. In fact, I
had an infection so bad; my hearing was almost gone in my right ear. My mother
never took us to doctors. Whatever we had would be cured by herbs. Too bad my
rotten teeth couldn't be cured by that.
No comments:
Post a Comment