Before I post the second part, I just want to say thanks to those who have seen this blog. The skies are starting to clear, and it may be just for one day, but I'll take whatever sun I can get. The air is clear and beautiful, and for a Monday, I will definitely take that! :)
Adventures in Dizzyland Continued...
That was
five years ago. How things change. At the beginning of this journey, I started
feeling little things, such as leaning over to the left side when I drove, mini
dizzy spells from looking left to right, feeling like someone was continually
pushing me forward. I am short, well height-challenged if you want to get
politically correct, so I always had the seat forward, grasping the steering
wheel so as not to feel like my arms were reaching for the sky. Now, I pull the
seat forward as far as it literally can go, as well as the headrest, which my
husband, being 6’3 would smother to death if he couldn’t change positions when
he drove. I clutch the wheel, hoping a dizzy spell doesn’t attack me going 45,
or anxiety doesn’t creep up on me and I have to pull over and tell myself,
“You’ll get through this, just drive like your grandmother did at
eight-five-years-old and you’ll make it home.” Believe me, having a dizzy spell
in a car is frightening, but when you’re driving three plus kids around with
you, it’s downright terrifying.
I tried to never let them see me panic, but also teaching two teenagers how to drive being dizzy, well I should have been institutionalized! The first time my daughter drove on the freeway with ongoing construction that would last at least a hundred years, I said a quick prayer, not that she wouldn’t cause a crash, or someone else, but that I wouldn’t freak us both out, try to slam on non-existent brakes, slap her against the seat, to “protect” her, or scream there was a rock in the road that would blow out a tire and we would go careening down a snowy embankment to our inevitable deaths. Over paranoid? Of course, but being in a car with a balance disorder was a thrill a minute, and not the kind you get when coursing down a 100-foot drop on a rollercoaster and screaming your lungs out, as your hair flies off your head and whiplash is an underrated medical term for your neck snapping in two. No, this was sheer terror, thinking the lines of cars would rush backwards and smash into you. Sound a little off? Well, with a balance disorder, you don’t quite know where you are in relation to space, so when things go rushing by, instead of watching them and knowing you’re moving, not them, I feel like everything is alive!
There is no stability that grounds things when in motion. In essence, the cars, trees, buildings, everything is moving, and I’m the one standing still. Now tell me, would you feel safe and comfortable in a car, with your sixteen-year-old daughter driving? Thought so. And yet, I had to take her, made sure she got her 40 hours of driving, which I doubt EVERY teenager did honestly, right? Then, because I was a glutton for punishment, I did the very same thing with my teenage SON, who thinks a car is his master and what he says goes, and fast he goes!
I tried to never let them see me panic, but also teaching two teenagers how to drive being dizzy, well I should have been institutionalized! The first time my daughter drove on the freeway with ongoing construction that would last at least a hundred years, I said a quick prayer, not that she wouldn’t cause a crash, or someone else, but that I wouldn’t freak us both out, try to slam on non-existent brakes, slap her against the seat, to “protect” her, or scream there was a rock in the road that would blow out a tire and we would go careening down a snowy embankment to our inevitable deaths. Over paranoid? Of course, but being in a car with a balance disorder was a thrill a minute, and not the kind you get when coursing down a 100-foot drop on a rollercoaster and screaming your lungs out, as your hair flies off your head and whiplash is an underrated medical term for your neck snapping in two. No, this was sheer terror, thinking the lines of cars would rush backwards and smash into you. Sound a little off? Well, with a balance disorder, you don’t quite know where you are in relation to space, so when things go rushing by, instead of watching them and knowing you’re moving, not them, I feel like everything is alive!
There is no stability that grounds things when in motion. In essence, the cars, trees, buildings, everything is moving, and I’m the one standing still. Now tell me, would you feel safe and comfortable in a car, with your sixteen-year-old daughter driving? Thought so. And yet, I had to take her, made sure she got her 40 hours of driving, which I doubt EVERY teenager did honestly, right? Then, because I was a glutton for punishment, I did the very same thing with my teenage SON, who thinks a car is his master and what he says goes, and fast he goes!
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