Bibliographic 2.6: On Spinning
On the second day of the new year I was sitting on the couch looking at my phone when things got a little funny. I looked into the middle distance, squinted and then everything started spinning. I’d had vertigo in the past, but it would only last a moment before resolving. This episode was a beat longer and when it stopped, I continued feeling vaguely off, as if there was a frayed power cord, a blinking neon sign, in my brain.
I drank a mini bottle of Prosecco leftover from the holidays to calm my nerves because mini bottles of Prosecco are inherently a little ridiculous, something you drink when you’re not taking life very seriously. I went to bed early. The next day I logged in for work, sat in on a short meeting, and then, looking at my laptop screen, realized it was happening again. The room spun around me in perfect circles, but this time faster, more extreme. It didn’t stop.
I got up and sat in a different chair. I talked to Andrew and also my parents on the phone about what I should do. Make a virtual doctor appointment, go to the hospital? I couldn’t imagine going to a hospital alone, which, because of Covid, would be required. Also, it was the height of Omicron and it seemed dangerous to go to a hospital. Anyway, how could I walk into the ER when I felt like I was on a carnival ride? I specifically felt like I was on the Polar Express, which is legendary at the Ex, Toronto’s end of summer fair. I’m sure every state fair has their own version, the cars whirling around in a circle, first slowly and then progressively faster as a DJ yells over the music, do you want to go fasterrrrrr???? and everyone screams yes!!!!!!!! as if the pitch of the screams determines the speed. But it doesn’t; it’s beyond the rider’s control. Sitting at my dining room table with my head in my hands, I did not want to go faster. I did not want to be on the ride. I wanted to be standing on the sidelines eating a corn dog, my hands sticky from cotton candy. It was beyond my control.
During these deliberations, I started barfing every time I moved, so ended up going to the hospital anyway. The ER doctors ruled out scary things, gave me Gravol intravenously to help with the nausea and sent me back home a few hours later. The barfing eventually stopped and the spinning also subsided but then it came back. When the ride came to a halt more than 24 hours later, the Polar Express DJ finally clocking in and going home, I slept for hours and hours, utterly spent.
At first the vertigo was chalked up to “crystals” in my inner ear, which sounds poetic except for the fact that crystals belong on windowsills, tucked into your pockets, in your bra, under your pillow, in bins at the cringe-y new age shop you like to visit anyway. When they’re in your ear they fuck everything up. The solution to ear crystals is to do something called the Epley Maneuver, which sounds more official than what it actually is, which is just laying down and moving your head in a series of motions that somehow nudge the crystals back into place so that you don’t feel dizzy. It sounds as helpful as sleeping with a crystal under your pillow, but it apparently works, if that’s the problem. But the frayed power cord feeling persisted and my diagnosis was switched to something else, likely a virus (not Covid!), that was targeting my ears.
It got better and then it got a little worse, but it’s now a month later and I’m better again. The frayed cord is repairing itself. That being said: I’m tired, man. January was a slog, not just for me, but for so many people I’ve spoken to who’ve had their own version of fraying cords. What was supposed to be the fresh start we all craved was maybe the worst month of the pandemic to date. How have we gotten so far to still feel like this?
I suppose we’ve learned since March 2020 that things happen in waves. I kept reminding myself of this when I wanted to throw a tantrum about things being hard. I mean, I still threw some fantastic tantrums, but I wasn’t going to stop acting for the good of society or pretend like my freedom had been stolen from me. Hard things are hard, but we’re all adults here.
For a few days after the Polar Express, I would look at the room around me, either astounded that it wasn’t moving or worried that one wrong tilt of my head would set it off again. When I finally felt okay to leave the house and run a few errands, the relief I felt was palpable. I thought of the lyrics from “My Favourite Chords” by The Weakerthans:
Hey, I found the safest place to keep all our tenderness
To keep all those bad ideas, keep all our hope
It's here in the smallest bones, the feet and the inner ear
It's such an enormous thing to walk and to listen
On that day in early January it was an enormous thing to be out in the world, just walking, just breathing in the sharp winter air, my inner ear rebalanced, the horizon a clear, steady line in the distance.
Take care,
Teri