Spinning

I awoke last Wednesday morning to my usual alarm at 4:30am. Ruefully wondering what could be accomplished in this world if everyone had to crawl out of bed and emerge zombie-like into the cold shadows of morning at such an ungodly hour like my own nearly undead self, I threw my covers back and landed my feet on the floor ... and then I fell head first into my closet. Thankfully (?), the door was closed to keep out unwanted bulldogs and other vermin. I suppose this means I did not fall into my closet, but rather against my closet ... with my skull. And somehow the thunk did not wake the husband, nor did my subsequent crash-tastrifies. If I hadn't been otherwise occupied, I would have checked him for signs of life.

After recovering somewhat from the concussion, I turned and walked into the bathroom. Like any woman, I sometimes struggle with self-esteem. I say 'walked' because that connotes refinement, which makes me sound spritely and graceful. In truth, like a pinball in an arcade game, I bounced off the the foot board of the bed, smashed into Justin's closet, ricocheted into the dresser, and finally, hands clutching desperately at the walls I stumbled into the bathroom like a hungover frat boy. (No alcoholic beverages were injured in the making of this blog. Remember? I'm running a family blog here.)

Now, I had a decision to make: answer the usual morning call of nature, or vomit profusely. (Okay, not so family. Sorry.) After throwing up nothing (because there's no sickness like empty stomach sickness [which any proper kind of pregnant woman will confirm]), I crawled on my hands and knees back into the bedroom. With trembling muscles I scaled our bed (which thankfully Justin fixed just last week, so that instead of a mattress on the floor I could fall gratefully into, the solace of sheets and pillow stands a loft a pinnacle on a lonely Japanese mountain, only ascended by the most pious of meditators). As I fell to my back and squeezed my eyes shut, I watched the darkness swirl in great curling loops above me. It goes without saying that at this point I felt I had a temperature of about 2804 degrees Fahrenheit, and was deep-breathing, trying to settle my raucous and confused anatomy. The breathing woke Justin.

Insert eye roll.

After a few bleary-eyed moments Justin shifted into nurse mode. He got me water, orange juice, and cereal in case it was related to dehydration or low blood sugar. He proposed that perhaps my blood pressure dropped, and we should try a change of position. (Which, when Abi is not all spinny and nauseous, would have earned him a suggestive little joke and an eyebrow wiggle, but at this point just earned him a couple groans and a dirty look.) And he kept starting to say 'nauseous', but always quickly replaced it with 'nauseated'; because at 4:30 in the morning when the universe decided Abi should wake up on the Mad Tea Cups, she really cares about grammatical propriety. (Sadly, not an entirely sarcastic statement.) Very professionally, he asked me if it felt like I was still and the room was spinning or if the room was still and I was spinning. I answered with a dry heave, and that mostly put an end to the dizzy morning interrogation.

Despite all of this, Justin was truly wonderful. He got both kids out of bed, changed, and fed. He took them to my folks, he checked in on me every two minutes, and he called around to find a clinic open. We drove down to the clinic, and he didn't complain when I kept bumping into him on the way in. By this point I was starting to feel better. The nausea was gone and the spinning was intermittent now. We saw the doctor, and he told us he suspected that it was benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, but wanted to rule out anything more serious first. This ruling out of possibility mortalities included a neurological exam.

If any of you have had a neurological exam, you probably know the purpose is to test the 12 cranial nerves in your brain which control motor function throughout your body. And while this sounds all very prim and proper, the actual performance of a neurological exam is most like participating in a five-year-olds' dance improvisation class after flunking a breath-a-lizer test.

At this point I am too dizzy to sit up straight, and Doctor Dance with his tutu and magic wand is asking me to touch my nose, and wiggle my eyebrows, to kick out the right leg and the left leg, and perform the Macarena (which by the way I am awesome at, dizzy or otherwise). About halfway through the exam I got the giggles. I am sure after we left, Doctor Dance began softly pounding his head on the wall. The finale of the neurological performance is to stand up, feet all the way together, eyes closed, and arms extended out in front of you. At this point I am shaky, spinny, and giggly. I closed my eyes and immediately tipped to one side. I tried again and immediately spilled to the other side. Justin had to stand behind me and set me back on balance every few seconds until Doctor Dance was assured that I did not have a stroke, a tumor, or a brain cloud.

So there was the diagnosis: BPPV. No idea where it came from, how I got it, or when it would subside. So for the next week of my life, I spun. Lots. And I threw up. A couple times. And I got the giggles. More often than I'd like to admit. This Wednesday morning, just as suddenly as it arrived, BPPV made it's exit. With just as little explanation. (Although I suspect, Noah tackling me and smacking the back of my favorite head into the floor while Hannah threw herself lengthwise over my face may have been part of the cure. Thank goodness they don't understand gentle yet.)