Faith and Worry do not go together. Hmmm.
I was going over these things in my mind: moving out of my house for good by Tues morning at 10 am at which time I turn my keys over to the new homeowners. Hopefully all the attic rats will be dead and gone by then. Last night I heard one of them eating the block of green poison I had flung up there. Yea, I could hear it through the ceiling.
I have one mattress not packed in the pod, thrown on the floor for the last days of packing. Ok, so that is stress.
The other, is business, not mine, since I have no career other than my volunteer work that I have created for myself, in the form of mom, grand mom, teacher, etc. So, yes Gene’s work. The instability of it all. How he needs good people from the city of Enoch to work with, how he needs security.
Stressed about my leaving the big OC just when my granddaughter arrived to live here (my daughter and son in law as well).
Fears of “what if” — my husband died, I died, no money–all those dumb important aspects of living in this earth. I know, I know, Nibley, my hero, says we do not need to worry about that, that God provides us with those things so we can go about doing the real work. But, hey, he did have a fulltime professorship, paid, security. Easy to believe that –when you have tenure and pensions.
Ok, so that is basically what I was thinking about, lying in bed, on my back, and then I threw my left arm over my head, onto my husband’s back, and rolled to my ride side.
Immediately I thought the entire queen-sized mattress had flipped over with me, and I think I voiced my incredulous situation in the form of the verbal “oh, sh*t.” I sat up, and found that it was not the mattress that had flipped over on top of me, but it was me–my vertigo had returned with a vengence. I got clammmy, nauseous, and in the dim hours of the morning tried to focus on the open suitcase in front of me, waiting for the spinning to stop, keeping my head upright.
Thoughts of the Apocolypse of Abraham ran through my head. In it he talks about the experience he had when he was out of body and being shown the makings of a star, and became so scared and dizzy, looking for a place to put his feet, and not finding one, that he said–this is enough, don’t show me anymore.
Abraham, goes up and beholds the vastness of the heavens, he becomes dizzy. He has nothing under his feet; he thinks he is going to faint. He starts raving, etc. It’s too much for him to behold.
I am not even having the benefit of some vision learning experience. I just got some silly disorder. But don’t get me wrong–I am not signing up for that Abraham experience.
A Dramamine and careful maneuvering, and soon I was feeling a little more stable. I asked Gene to move the mattress which was situated in the middle of our room, over to the wall so that I could prop up some pillows and try to sleep elevated, on my back or left side–avoiding any movement to my right.
I am not at church this morning. Another round of Dramamine, and careful planting of myself on the floor, my back against the wall, writing.
I had a short episode last week after I sat down from sharing my testimony for the last time in this ward. But it seemed to go away during the week. Was it my testimony, or listening to my husband’s?
No one knows what causes it. It is called Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). There is a lot of information about it on the internet. There are even some cures in the form of repositioning maneuvers . It is caused by crystals called otoliths in the inner ear that get lodged in a canal and start the spinning sensation. The maneuvers are supposed to move the crystal to a canal that does not interfere with your balance (returning the otoliths to the urticle). I have never tried it, as it causes vertigo as you do it. I am too afraid to induce the spinning.
So I do the other thing–wait about two weeks for the crystal to dissolve, and avoid putting my head in the position that sets off the spinning–this time to the right–I cannot put my head with the right ear down, parallel to the ground. I must sleep on my back, head elevated.
Someone told me he thinks it has to do with stress. Maybe. I have stress.
Thinking back, the first time I had it was about 2003, we were in Costa Rica, Gene’s sister Pat had died and we were guests of her surviving two kids and husband. She died unexpectedly, falling into the icy Atlantic Ocean, on a new years day.
Yes, so we had this trip in her behalf. I had been on one of those canopy tours–not what I thought, a tour of the canopy trees of the jungle from a little grounded tram–
but instead I was belted up to a cable and zip-lined at incredible heights through the jungle.
Did I mention I have a fear of heights? And my 7 year old son was with me, and I had to let him go and be a man, turning over his safety to one of the Ticos.
Either one of those thoughts are scary enough to cause me some major stress meltdown.
That first time, I was back at my hotel room, and lying on the bed, looked backwards suddenly, and that set off the vertigo. Then I was afraid, and thought “great, I will die here in costa rica of a brain tumor, as big as a baseball.”
So maybe it is stress. The other times I had it, I can not remember the precise stress, but believe me, I have always lived with stress of some kind. Always “waiting for the other shoe to drop–“
Now, I have to finish my packing, and cleaning and refrain from moving my head in the wrong position. I just took another Dramamine, one Excedrin, and half a vicodin. And two chocolate kisses. For now, I am keeping it together.
