Poof

During one of my rotations, I worked with the physical therapy department on a resource about medications that suppress the vestibular system for them to share with doctors when managing mutual patients. While attempting to review the literature (it's slim) and then designing a table of medications relevant, I often imagined the little circular deal in cartoon form saying, "Help! Help! I'm being suppressed!" 

(Nitty gritty aside: if we are retraining the body and the vestibular system so the patient feels not dizzy while doing ordinary things, suppressing the vestibular system is bad because it prevents the development of compensation, so while the meds help a dizzy person feel better in the short term, it hinders their ability to get better in the long run.)

Anyway, the vestibular system is what should help keep a person in balance. Fluid, little crystals, all that jazz with technical names I could bore you with. The cool thing about this particular type of dizziness that happens when the rocks get into the wrong place within the ear, the kind treated by PT that we can kind of manage with medications but not really and the side effects are big, is that the PT works very suddenly. One minute the world spins and then the patient is guided through some fancy falling in just the right way, and the world is right again.

Poof.

6 or 7 weeks ago, I was reaching into the closet for something at the back, diagonally from the far side of the open sliding door. I whapped my head on the frame of the closet and was immediately super dizzy. I thought it would go away, and it got better, but not much. I could barely move my head without getting super dizzy and sometimes a bit nauseous. No bending, certainly no bending and then getting up quickly or repeatedly (say to pick up the thousands of blocks on the floor and return them to a bin), no quick turns of the head to see Little Monster scaling the coat rack moments before it started to tip toward a table covered in books and no darting to rescue her, or picking her up from the floor when she tipped the thing over and banged her knee again.

After about 2 weeks of the dizziness, I went to see a doc and got referred to PT, but then had another 10 days to wait before the appointment. After just that first session I felt 60% better and I picked up the floor of the garage for 25 minutes before I nearly threw up. Then after the second session, I was miraculously all better.

I mean it's one thing to read the literature and hear from experts that the "poof" moment happens, often even when treating this condition. It's another to suddenly feel normal again, to remember what normal was like and to experience it again just like the memory. Whoa.

I think that "poof" sensation is what we are conditioned to think will happen if we've experienced infertility and/or a loss and then start parenting. It is certainly a lie we get fed and a myth we need to dispel. I must admit I was sure this "poof, now the dizziness is gone!" might exist for some people but based on my experience, I doubted it would work for me. I'm never so lucky as to have things go smoothly or simply of as expected. But then it did.

Maybe I will try being less jaded in the future. Mostly I plan to remain cautiously open to miracles and "poof" moments.