Been a Rough Few Days

I don't think I ever posted about the outcome of my visit to the ENT and the audiologist, but I was diagnosed with something call benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, or BPPV, which is apparently a very common cause of dizziness and usually very easy to treat.  And sure enough, the treatment seemed to help.  For a couple of weeks, I was dizziness-free and loving it.

Friday evening I had a severe episode of dizziness, but thought it was probably due to low blood sugar because I ate a bunch of crackers, which tends to make my sugar crash.  Luckily a friend was here and he got me something to drink and something to eat and eventually it went away.

Also, Friday I had a horrible muscle spasm in my neck.  There was this giant knot on the right side of my neck and I could hardly turn my head.  I tried heat, my TENS unit, stretches, everything I could think of, and nothing helped.  Saturday morning, I was miserable and desperate.  I decided to go to urgent care.  The physician's assistant touched the knot, said "Wow!" and seemed most impressed, and prescribed 20 tablets of a muscle relaxer. 

I was amazed she gave me that many.  Apparently she thought my knot was really, really something.

It was huge.  I mean, you could feel it.  Maybe even see it.  Like having an egg-shaped lump on the side of my neck, made of muscle.

I took one tablet and by the next morning, the knot was almost gone.  It was a normal muscle knot, anyway.  The kind I get in my neck and shoulders all the time.  My neck hurt, but it was a normal pain for me, not something I felt I needed urgent care or prescription medication for.

I am guarding the rest of those muscle relaxers like they are gold, let me tell you.

Isaac was great at urgent care, by the way.  Snoozed the whole time.

Then Sunday night, I had another really bad dizziness episode.  Couldn't stand up.  I took my blood pressure and it was 79/49.  Tried it again a bit later and it was 78/48.  I debated going to the ER.  Finally decided not to, partly because I thought they would just give me IV fluids and I didn't think I was dehydrated and just didn't think they would be able to do anything to really help, and partly because going to the ER would have meant walking out to the car, driving to the hospital, walking from the car to the ER, etc.  And I couldn't really stand up.  Definitely not long enough to do all that walking, and I wasn't sure it was a good idea to drive when I felt like that.

And then I had an anxiety attack.  I think the anxiety was about feeling anxious and guilty and stuff I needed to get done, including some articles I was already late finishing, and feeling anxious and scared about how dizzy and sick I was feeling, and feeling depressed and alone about not being able to go to the ER because I was too sick to drive myself there. 

And yeah, I could have called 911 and gone by ambulance.  I didn't want to.  How would I get home if I did that?

Anyway.  I ended up crying, and Isaac brought me my medication, and I took some, and then I got down on the floor with him and lay down with him and he rolled over for me to rub his belly.  And then Whiskers came over and licked tears off my face and curled up next to me and purred for a while.  And after a while, I felt better.

So it's been a rough few days.

I need to call the audiologist back because I probably need another treatment for the BPPV (I'll have to explain what that is later).   Wednesday I have to have tooth pulled and I'm trying to get prepared for that.  So it's also been busy.

Isaac and I did get to go for not one but two walks Sunday, one in the morning and another in the afternoon, before the dizziness hit me.

It was very  nice.  We both enjoyed it.