Showing posts with label Dizziness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dizziness. Show all posts

Monday 27 September 2021

The One Where I Whinge


Hello lovelies. I hope you're in much better spirits than I am. Strap yourself for a bit of whingey one today. Cue plaintive piano music. 

You see, I've been feeling quite craptaculer lately (totally a word), so I debated over boring anyone with my bullshit. But anyway, here I am. 

My issues with vertigo and dizziness have been a big fat bitch for the past few months. Made worse by the omnipresence of Agnes, aka anxiety. Which makes the dizziness worse and so on until it's this big cluster fuck of cluster fuckery where I don't know where one begins and the other ends. 




It's very dispiriting because I had been cruising along ok there for a while, working again, and now my confidence is rattled. Ultimately I used up all my sick leave. So I have negotiated some leave without pay while I see if I can get better. They have been pretty decent about it thus far though I imagine there's a limit to that. Sigh.

And of course there's the whole layer of "other people have it worse/it could be worse" guilt. Although I'm cognizant of the fact that just because someone else may be worse it doesn't negate my issues. All suffering is valid and to trivialize it won't help. 

We are all going through a really challenging time right now. I imagine that even super upbeat positive people who are generally blessed with robust physical and mental health are struggling at the moment. So it's no surprise that someone like me who is not like that would face a setback of sorts. 

I have an appointment to see a physical therapist who specializes in dizziness and balance disorders. I won't lie. I'm petrified because often the therapy involved means doing specific tests and exercises that trigger the dizziness. Not fun. Especially when you are already frightfully giddy and just want some relief.

While I feel like this I can't even take Chandler for a walk or do grocery shopping. Sniff. So I just mope about like a big wobbly lump of blah and exist with my spinning head. 



I might as well be an ancient invalid  pensioner named Enid. Or Doris. Or Ethel. Or insert any old lady name. 

Cue violins to accompany the piano. 

I also have a lot of neck pain. Hopefully they can help with that as well. I've also ordered one of those neck massager thingys. I hope it's not disappointing. 

I've been reading about something called PPPD (Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness)  In some ways it sounds like the closest thing to what I've experienced for years, in terms of there being a psychological aspect. I'm not sure. I know I shouldn't rely on Dr Google, but it's worth asking about. We shall see. 

My yearly mammogram and check in with my cancer surgeon is coming up. If all goes well I will reach the important five year mark,  and she will not want to see me again although I will continue to have yearly mammograms. Fingers toes arms legs eyeballs crossed for that. 

Presumably a lot of my underlying worry is re this important milestone. Hopefully I can get that out of the way with a positive outcome and begin to feel calmer and retrieve some equilibrium. That's my wish. 

Despite all this I've managed to have couple of zoom catch ups with friends with another one coming up in a week or so.  I'm still desperate to see my parents however. 

Well, I'm sure this has been an entertaining read. NOT. 

A big thanks if you made it this far. With any luck I'll have better news next time.

Until next time,

Ness


Monday 20 June 2016

I freak out when...

Hello dear people. Today I am going to tell you what really, completely and totally freaks me the fuck out. It's freaky.

Here goes: 


I freak out when I see a cockroach. Unfortunately I have passed this trait on to my boys. Mickey Blue Eyes reckons I could be hired for sound effects in horror films. All they would have to do is put a cockroach in front of me. I emit the most blood-curdling, chilling scream of sheer horror. It is rather impressive for some one who is normally so quiet.

I freak out when I get dizzy.  This is a massive phobia for me. Weird. I guess it probably has a name.

I googled it. 

Apparently it is called  Dinophobia.

It all started 22 years ago when I jumped up quickly out of a chair when I was freaking out from seeing something on the telly that made me squeamish. (Yes, blood and guts and all that freaks me out, too!). I had a massive panic attack, hyperventilated and passed out. At the time I didn't actually identify it as a panic attack, because I'd never had one before.

I'm not sure if it was ongoing anxiety from that experience or the result of hitting my head when I passed out, but I then experienced frequent attacks of vertigo. It still freaks me out so much that I won't talk about it too much here. 

I don't understand how people enjoy going on amusement park rides and making themselves dizzy.  They are demented. I am not. The end. 

This phobia has changed who I am. I guess you could say that I've always been the scaredy cat person who was afraid of anything that threatened my equilibrium. 

As a child I was terrified of both escalators and elevators. To be honest it was never a claustrophobia thing, I just didn't like the sensation of movement. The feeling of the ground dropping and moving under you. It  totally freaked me out. I often avoided lifts. 

I also feared being on a boat or ferry because I didn't like the rocking sensation. Are you seeing a pattern here? I'm a 'two feet firmly on the ground' kind of girl. 

I can remember being terrified on a merry-go-round. Yes, I was a fun child. My brother and I often went to a park around the corner from my aunt's house. It had one of those rides that spin around. My brother LOVED it and I HATED it. 


"Scary-go-round" is a very apt name for this, if you ask me
*shudders*

So it's comforting to know that I haven't matured beyond the age of eight. Nice. I would still be terrified to spin around on those things. 

Next month we're headed to the Gold Coast. You won't see me on any rides at the theme parks. I'll happily mind the bags and jackets while Mickey Blue Eyes takes the boys on rides. I might even take a book. That's my kind of thrill seeking. Shut up.

I have to also confess that I freak out quite a bit every time I think about my breast cancer 'journey'/diagnonsense, which is often. It's the first thing I think about every morning, and the last thing I think about at night.

I am totally freaked out by the realisation that it was just random 'luck' that it was discovered and diagnosed when it was. It could have been so much worse. All I did was decide to go to the doctor for my pap smear. I didn't even receive a reminder for it like I normally would. Somehow I just had it in the back of my mind that it was due. I also knew I had to have some routine blood tests done. However, my GP had said to me mid last year that I could have left it until January if I wanted to. Between her saying that, and not receiving a pap smear reminder, I could easily have said to myself "Stuff it, I'll wait until January", but I didn't. THANK GOD I DIDN'T. I would have been so screwed.

As much as I wish the whole thing hadn't happened at all, it did. And my doctors say it was an early cancer. I wish I didn't have cancer at all, but at least I was 'lucky' that it was found relatively early. It's still a freaky feeling to think too much about the future and what may happen. Mickey Blue Eyes assures me that this is something that takes time. It took him a good few years to get past this fear. (He had bowel cancer in 2004). I guess it will always freak me out a little. But I'm learning that you live with uncomfortable feelings. I don't have to like them, but I can make room for them.

Speaking of freaking out, is everyone else quietly alarmed by how fast the year is flying by? It's almost the end of June and term two! Cue all the Facebook posts counting down the days until Christmas. Please don't tell me exactly how many days it is. I don't want to know. I'm freaking out. 

Well, that's enough freakyness from me. Now I'm freaked out because I don't know how to spell 'freakyness'. Is it freakiness or freakyness? Is it even a word? Who knows? 

I need it a cup of tea and a good lie down after all this freaking out. Later, people!  



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What is your weirdest phobia?