I’m So Dizzy, My Head is Spinning …
It’s been a very long time since I entered one of these things. I guess that’s because I’m generally lazy and unmotivated. And busy. You wouldn’t even believe the month I’ve had.
Of course, after Christmas (which was wonderful!) and New Years (which was swell!) we started a new project at the office, installing a new phone system for the main office that ties into 12 other remote offices. This is on top of all the development work I already do (yeah, right.)
This project has been crazy. Lots of bits and pieces to this one. Of course, I’m not the point guy on this one. Chris and Clay are, which means I only get involved when there is network or server issues that they can’t deal with.
And most fun, for the last 3 weeks I’ve been fighting Labyrinthitis. This is one sickness that you do not want to get. I wouldn’t wish this on my enemies. It gives you spells of dizziness and vertigo that make you feel like you are on the deck of a ship in rough sea.
Plus, it hangs around for 3-4 weeks. Or maybe longer. We’ll see.
Here’s how it all began: Back in early May, I started to feel kind of tired and woozy. We had been doing a lot of work outside getting the farm in shape and I had been working a lot on my father’s house, which we are building on 2 acres behind my house.
I felt like I had a head cold without the sinus pressure or headache, so I kept taking antihistimines which helped a little bit. Near the end of that week, my wife and I went and gave blood (which we do fairly regularly.) That was Thursday, May 8.
After giving blood, we went downtown to see if the Farmer’s Market was open to get some fresh vegetables and fruit. They were closed, so we went to the Flying Saucer to eat, down in the Rivermarket District. After eating, Penny said she wasn’t feeling so good and started to look very woozy herself.
I moved over to her bench and put my arms around her to ask her if she was going to pass out. She said maybe, then she passed flat out! After a minute or so of me holding her up, she jerked a little bit. I asked if she was back with me. She said in a dreamy, quiet voice “what? … what? …” then passed out again with a groan. My mind started reeling as to what to do. I decided that it would be best to get some medical personnel on site to check her out, so I started to dial 911 on her cell phone. I started to dial with one hand, mashing the buttons on the phone as it rested on the table. Then I decided I would probably let someone else make the call, since I couldn’t pick up the phone to talk while I was holding Penny up.
About this time, a waitress came by and smiled at us. She apparently thought we were just “being close” but I politely asked her to call 911 since my wife had passed out.
The blood drained from the waitress’s face, and she began nodding quickly saying “Yeah, yeah, sure! Hang on a second!” and she bolted.
About two minutes later, Penny came back again and I told her what had happened and that I had called 911 to have them check her out. About that time, the sirens could be heard and she said “What’s that sound?” I told her that was the ambulance coming for her and she said “OH MY GOSH! YOU DIDN’T REALLY DO THAT, DID YOU??!”
Umm, yeah.
The fire-rescue team and the ambulance guys came into the restaurant and so I waved them over to us. Penny is absolutely mortified, bless her heart. She is starting to wake up a bit more, but her lips are a steely blue. She looked all the part of a Goth.
The paramedics started to check her out all the while the waitress was hovering worriedly. I gave the guys our information and explained what had happened, from giving blood to when she passed out.
They decided to take her out to the ambulance and hook her up to a heart monitor. After they put her on the gurney, they lift her up and push her out ot the ambulance, which is parked in the middle of President Clinton Avenue. Traffic is stopped and Penny was even more embarassed by all the fuss.
Once they got her into the bus and hooked her up, they said that everything looked pretty good. Then, they asked us if we wanted her to go to the hospital. After some discussion, we decided that, since everything looked good except for the dramatic drop in blood pressure, we would just go home. They agreed that it was probably the blood donation that caused the pressure drop but that I should keep an eye on her.
Needless to say, Penny went to bed as soon as we got home and slept for several hours.
Stay with me, this was all on a Thursday.
The next week on Monday, I went to work as usually. I had been complaining about feeling dizzy since the previous Thursday, but figured it was just a combination of giving blood and the allergies (I hadn’t had any of the gross stuff that comes out with a sinus infection).
Then, around 11 am, I was walking back inside the building after taking a short break outside and the world just pitched out from underneath me. I didn’t fall, but I started hugging the walls just to get back to the computer room office.
Once I got through the computer room door, I staggered over to my desk. Our office is wide and open. I sat down in my chair and I began to feel my heart pounding so hard that it felt like it was shaking my whole body with each beat. I was feeling nervous and foolish all at the same time.
There were some guys from Alltel working on the phone system and Clay and Chris were talking with them and didn’t really notice me zig-zagging my way to my chair. Clay walked over to his desk, which is next to mine, and I sort of gasped to him “Clay, I don’t feel so go. My heart is really pounding.”
He looked at me quickly, then said something like “Then go home and quite whining!”
I was feeling more and more like I might pass out, so I said something like “You might need to call somebody.”
He got serious and said “Look, do you want us to take you somewhere? I’ve told you to go to the doctor, do you want us to take you there? Do you want me to call 911?”
I waved him off at first, and said “Nah, let me just call Penny to come and get me. Then I’ll go to the doctor.” Clay has been after me to go to the doctor for awhile anyway, so he said “Well, finally!”
I picked up the phone and called Penny and asked her to come to the office and get me, after I explained what was going on and how I felt. Then I called my doctor’s office and they put me on hold.
Then the second wave of dizziness hit me and I began to feel my skin crawl right off of me, from the waist to the top of my head. It was the most disgusting feeling I’ve ever had. Even though my head was resting on the desk, it felt like someone was twirling the desk around me like a top.
Then I started thinking, “Please don’t let me throw up” which gets my heart to beating faster and harder. Man, the adrenaline was pumping. I decided that I must be dying, right here at my desk. (Your mind does crazy things when it feels like it is out of control.)
I got tired of holding so I hung up the phone and told Clay to go ahead and call 911 (yep, that’s right, two 911 calls in the span of 5 days!) Then I called Penny back and and told her not to worry about coming to get me since I was probably going to the hospital. She wanted to know what she should do, so I told her I would call her back and let her know but to sit tight.
The paramedics got there about 5 minutes later. By now, I was beginning to feel not as dizzy, but my heart was pounding so hard that it felt like I was bouncing in my chair with every beat.
I still didn’t know what was going on with my body and it felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest, but at the same time I was thinking that I was probably over-reacting by calling 911.
The paramedics came in the office and started asking questions and I explained that I felt like I was going to pass out but didn’t. I explained that my heart was pounding, but that it was probably due to the nervous energy from the feeling of pitching that I was having.
They took my blood pressure (slightly elevated) and listen to my heart (fast, but strong) then asked me if I could go out to the ambulance so they could hook me up to the heart monitor and do more tests.
I told them that I could probably walk to the gurney but not all the way outside. Then I realized what this scene was going to look like to everyone else in the building as they wheeled me out. The humiliation factor was really beginning to skyrocket and realized what Penny had gone through.
They helped me walk over to the gurney, then lifted it up into the locked position. They wheeled me toward the door which leads into the next office, which in turn leads to the foyer and out the building. I was facing backwards, and Clay and Chris were following me out.
As they wheeled me out, Clay asked me if I was humiliated enough yet. I thought, “Sheesh, this is so stupid.”
Everyone was looking at me in wonderment as they pushed me through the next office and down the stairs to the foyer.
When they got into the foyer and turned me toward the front doors, they stopped for a second. There are stairs leading down to the first set of doors, then there is a second set of doors that lead to the street. They hoisted me up and started carrying me down the stairs through the first set of doors, which were being held open.
No one seemed to notice that, due to the angle I was at on the gurney, which was elavated pretty high, my head was actually above the top of the door frame. I thought I heard someone say “Watch his head …” then, Wham! The back of my head bonked into the door frame, so I leaned over to get under the frame, which made the world spin again. Whoohoo!
They finally got me in the back of the bus and started checking my vitals. They attached a three-wire lead to check my heart, which looked good. I suggested that they check my blood sugar because diabetes runs in my family. It was normal. Then they asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital.
It was at this point that I decided that it was probably a good idea because I still felt disoriented but I also considered that I would probably never hear the end of it from my wife. I even told the paramedic that she would probably tell me that I had to one-up her since she didn’t get taken to the hospital when she passed out.
I called Penny on my cell and told her to meet me at Baptist Hospital and told her that everything looked good so far.
When I got to the hospital, they wheeled me into the ER and gave the nurse the initial report. I was classified as a “near syncope,” which means I almost passed out. (Gosh, if only I REALLY had passed out!)
The admitting nurse, named Trish, was very friendly and began to do the initial work up on me. I explained everything again and told her I was actually feeling much better, but that I really wanted to know what had caused this.
She told me that they were really busy and that they had only two doctors on staff at the time with over a dozen patients. She told me one of them would get to me as soon as they could.
Penny arrived and I explained everything to her, as well.
After about an hour and a half, the doctor showed up and, after reading the chart and looking in my ears, he said he new exactly what I had. He said I had viral Labyrinthitis, which is an inflamation of the inner ear caused by a virus similar to the common cold.
He told me I needed to take the rest of the week off from work and just basically gut it out. He wrote me prescriptions for Anti-Vert (dramamine), Valium and Methylpredisone, a steriod that might or might not speed up the healing.
I was discharged and Penny drove me home, then went and picked up my prescriptions. When she got back home, I took an Anti-Vert and went to sleep.
The next 6 days were pretty disgusting. I never threw up, but felt like it a lot. I would get up and work at the computer for 30 minutes or so, then have to go lay down again to let the spinning stop.
Then on Sunday, the day I was to take the last steriod, I had another episode like the one on Monday. Everything just pitched wildly and my heart started beating out of my chest. So I just laid down and waited for it to pass.
The next Monday, I felt better and decided to go into the office. I made it until around noon, then things got to spinning out of control again. I just laid on the floor until Penny got there and took me home again.
Then on Wednesday, I still wasn’t feeling any better so I called my doctor and set up an appointment to get checked again.
When I arrived at my appointment, I was feeling pretty bad. Something about being out in the world while your dizzy makes you feel pretty panicky. I went in and the doctor looked in my ears and said there was a little fluid behind one of them, but that he agreed that it was just Labyrinthitis. Then, he told me he wanted me to take the Anti-Vert three times a day (I had been only taking it occassionally) and stay on it.
He also said that there wasn’t much evidence of the steriod making any difference in the healing time for it.
So here I sit, still spinning a little waiting for it to go away. I’m up to about 3 weeks of it and it’s really, really old. But I can tell that it is better and at least I know that it will go away eventually.
I’ve actually read that some folks continue to have spells for even a few months after the onset. Super. I can’t wait.
Hi Toby…I just read your story and it’s a mirror image of what hit me last August. I’m still not over it either and it’s been 11 months. much better but what a long and shocking road it’s been. Have you recovered? i’d be interested to know how you went.
Cheers….Scott
Scott,
Well, I haven’t actually recovered completely (I am living a normal life, if that is what you mean, but there are days when I just feell kinda nauseous and dizzy at times.)
The biggest thing was the panic I was starting to have. I have been on Paxil now for over a year and it seems to be doing well, I don’t really have any problems with that anymore.
The final diagnosis seems to be BPPV, which I’ve posted about as well. It is probalby just going to come and go.
Good luck! Let me know how things are going with you.
Cheers,
Toby