Spiraling
I got an email in late December about meeting with my faculty mentor this week (or next) for our biannual check in meeting. Although, for me it’s usually biannual meeting plus 800 emails over the semester for all the 10,000 things my brain usually throws at me. And I was SO excited to meet with him on Friday because I had nothing to report. Nothing except my grades from last semester, which are totally respectable.
So obviously some shit had to find its way to a fan.
I was driving home from school Wednesday and after sitting nearly completely still for the better part of an hour, we were finally up to normal speed. I was three and a half miles from my freeway exit, zipping along at 70 miles an hour in the far left lane when out of no where I got hit with the most entirely debilitating dizzy spell ever. I don’t just mean like, oh, hey, I’m kind of dizzy. For easily 5 or 10 seconds, I didn’t know up from down, I didn’t know right from left. And I felt like I was losing consciousness or at least as though I was losing voluntary control over my body. It was as if I was completely paralyzed to do anything.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been so scared in my life.
I’ve only had this sensation one other time and it resulted in me actually coming alarmingly close to passing out in a hallway at school. It took over 2 hours for my heart rate to find it’s way below 100 that day, and it was blamed on dehydration. I can tell you with absolute certainty that I was not dehydrated yesterday. Not even the slightest bit.
When the dizziness abated and I was able to resume controlling my body at least a little bit, I was about a quarter mile from the exit before mine and I felt like there was no way I was going to be able to not pass out. I got all the way over, got off the freeway and parked my car at the gas station.
I reclined my seat, sipped some water and focused on breathing. Slowly. Air in, air out. Until my heart rate slowed and I felt like I could drive the few miles home on surface streets with relative safely. I made it home in one very upset, scared and anxious piece.
As the evening wore on, I didn’t have any more issues with dizziness, just a normal headache and normal weekday tiredness. I had thought, even maybe hoped, that the dizziness was a migraine aura, but then I had no increase or change in headache, so I can’t imagine that’s the case.
I made it safely to school this morning and was totally fine and then in the middle of the morning, I got a replay of the previous night’s show. And while I am grateful to have been seated in class and not driving a car, it still sucked so very much. It’s something so much deeper than just normal dizzy feelings and it is absolutely debilitating.
I am doing the best I can to not panic, to not assume something is wrong, but it is incredibly difficult. I have had a lot of headaches lately, but I’ve otherwise been managing. And I was so hoping that this semester would be the one where all the health issues finally fully faded into the background and now I’m absorbed by concern. I don’t know if I should be driving (though I did today), I don’t know what I can do to help or what I might be doing that is unknowingly contributing.
I feel like I had things figured out. I knew how to manage my pain, I knew how to deal with the frustration of it, but I am starting to worry that I don’t have any coping abilities left in me. Like I’m literally watching things spiral out of control and I’m just not sure I have the energy to fight another health battle, to deal with another problem.
I just think that at some point enough has to be enough.
21 Responses to “Spiraling”
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Welcome! I'm Katie, a 28 year old, full-time graduate student who just happened to have brain surgery in November of 2007 to give my ginormous brain a little more space. This blog chronicles my daily life, from relentless headaches to being a doctor's wife. Sit down, get comfortable and stay for a while.
That sucks. I’m so sorry you have to deal with it. Praying here that it’s being caused by something minor and easy to correct. I know what it feels like to be at the end of your rope.
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That is so scary! I’m glad you made it home ok. I hope you feel better really soon.
Just know you are in my thoughts.
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I hope these are just two weird incidents that don’t repeat – it does truly suck to have weirdness strike just when you’re feeling as normal as possible.
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That would be f’in scary….are you going to go to the doctor or cut back on your headache medication??
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Katie Reply:
January 13th, 2011 at 10:49 pm
If it keeps happening, I’ll call the doctor. But they are notoriously horrible at calling back for messages, so I’m saving that as a last resort since it’ll be of little help anyways.
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elisabeth Reply:
January 14th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
@Katie, Call your doc now, please! You were lucky it only hit once while you were driving- you can’t count on that luck again. Please be careful and I hope that this is passing and easily treatable. *hugs*
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Britta Reply:
January 15th, 2011 at 11:15 am
@Katie, Eh, I’m just like you! I think, well it didn’t kill me, so unless it happens again I’m fine!!
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Holy crap! I think you know that I understand this one 100%. It sucks-especially when you are in a situation where it can affect more than you.
Does meclazine work for you?
And, more importantly, do you have a neuro appointment scheduled soon?
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Katie Reply:
January 13th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
You are the first person I thought about. And I was all, is this what I get for trying to convince someone else to be calm in the face of driving with vertigo? Maybe I’m taking yours too. That way you can have a nice beginning of grad school. The illusion of grad school is totally shattered for me already.
I have a neuro appointment mid-February. If it continues, I’ll call them.
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Suzanne Reply:
January 13th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
@Katie, After I emailed you, I spoke to both professors of my campus classes. Both know way too much about it and I’m okay for missing classes because they don’t want me driving if I’m spinning.
It’s really hard to be calm when you know what the hell is going on and it’s not easily fixed!
Hang in there.
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So this may induce some eye rolling seeing as you go to doctor school and all but if you are still off the candy could it be low blood sugar? Other thought was vertigo. Hope it gets better.
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Katie Reply:
January 13th, 2011 at 10:47 pm
Not eye rolling even a little bit. It is a totally reasonable suggestion. I might have been slightly low yesterday in the car, but this morning was less than an hour after breakfast. I’ll have to see where I’m at if it happens again. Thank you for the idea, I hadn’t thought about that yet!
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Flea Reply:
January 14th, 2011 at 10:40 am
Oh my. A good excuse to resume candy eating and not lose face, perhaps?
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oddly enough this sounds like my symptoms when i have an allergic reaction from my chemical sensitivites. i had the first one in high school and it was TERRIFYING. i don’t really have a solution but i feel that anxiety definitely aggravates the situation for me, so deep breathing and sunglasses (weird, i know) seem to help slightly.
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Holy shit, that is scary. I hope it doesn’t happen again.
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Katie, even two years post decompression I still have vertigo attacks.
I think a kinked and compressed brain stem is to blame. Hang in there
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Suzanne Reply:
January 14th, 2011 at 9:04 am
@Lace, So you’re both telling me that if I have surgery, I may still have vertigo? What’s the point of surgery again?
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Katie Reply:
January 14th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
@Suzanne, The major change I see post-op is that my headaches have a different quality. When I sneeze I don’t feel like the back of my brain might blow out, ditto with coughing. I don’t have to keep the head of my bed angled up anymore (I can lay flat!) and my symptoms occur much less frequently.
Do I have fewer headaches? Nope. Would I still do it over if I had the chance? Probably.
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Oh gosh Katie, that is so scary. I have had one or two of those moments but they were much shorter like one or two seconds. Could it be a side effect of the med?
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Katie Reply:
January 14th, 2011 at 8:37 pm
@Jenni Williams, It could be. But it just seems odd that I’ve been on it since late October and this came on so suddenly, and I won’t how it would make sense with the same kind of thing I had last year. It’s definitely a possibility and it’s something I’m going to ask my neurologist about.
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Benign Paroxsyml Positional Vertigo? There’s an easy test to see if you have it (Dr slappy could do it) and some doctors know how to get rid of it without any medicine. The first time I had it I walked around at night with two canes because as you said, you can’t judge where anything is.
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