20 January 2013

I'm not drunk, just dizzy. Yes they are different....

    Everyone that knows me knows that I love hockey, and they know that I believe in standing (if you possibly can) for the National Anthem.  These two things clash for me now at each game when I stand with my hand over my heart and look up at the flag.  As I stand there during the song, I began to sway.  People think I'm drunk or disrespectful.  I often times almost fall.  Last year when I mentioned this to my ENT, he laughed and said "well don't stand". 

Uh, no.

    I and my hubby served our country.  He was in the Air Force and I was in Army ROTC in college as well as a firefighter protecting my community.  I walked into the venue, so I WILL stand for the National Anthem. 

    But its not just at the anthem that I sway.  Its every time  I stand for more than a couple of minutes, or stand for a couple of seconds with my head looking anyplace other than straight ahead. I feel embarrassed that I can no longer stand up straight in public without assistance, and I feel scared when I'm doing something mundane like putting on my socks, or washing my hair.

    Yea, its not just at hockey games that I sway and lose balance. Its every time I stand.

    So, no I'm not drunk, I'm just dizzy.

18 January 2013

I'm sorry did you just say "Spiffy Blitzkrieg"?

    So I know that I can't hear well, but I can't help but to ask when I think I heard something weird or strange if it was correct.  Most of the time I'm pretty sure what I'm going to ask is going to sound silly, but I promise that's exactly what I heard. 

    I make light of going deaf because if I didn't I'd spend everyday crying.  I can't hear the things I used to be able to hear, and although its been a year since my last hearing test, I can tell that there are changes. Lots of changes to my hearing.

    I can't hear the alarm clock most of the time now. I can't hear some of the kids at school when they ask me questions.  I can't hear my dear hubby when he says something mundane.  I have to turn up the radio WAY past the "19" I used to set it on. "34" or "40" is closer to what I set it on these days.  Sometimes I can feel the music more than hear it, but that is because of the fluctuating hearing loss. It goes from bad to gone sometimes and I have no idea why. A couple weeks ago I had a terrible head cold and was stone deaf in my left ear for about 12 hours or so.  I literally could not hear anything. Its still not "normal". My right ear was also affected, so for about 12 hours everything was one-sided and muffled.  It was frightening.

    I say "what" way too often now.  I get so frustrated when I have to ask people to tell me again what they said, and even more irked when I'm told to be quiet because I'm talking too loud.  I really can't tell. 

    In the new apartment there are lots of new sounds, and things I should be able to hear, that I simply can't. 

    I suppose once the hearing is gone I will have to walk around with a pistol to feel safe.  I can not hear the door open, I can not hear the doorbell, and if someone broke in, I'd not hear it until they came down the hall.

   What's going to happen if my hubby and I ever have kids?  How will I hear my babies cry if they need me? What if they are hurt, or scared? Will that make me a bad mother?  Deaf people have babies right? So what do they do?

    Lots of questions.  Lots of fear. Lots of miscommunication.





(I really did think my hubby said "spiffy blitzkrieg" once, in case you wondered)

14 January 2013

Breaking the mold.

Mold.  No, seriously, the fungi kind of mold.  We lived and breathed it for months that we knew of, and for possibly a year. It can cause Meniere's like symptoms.

Could that be the trigger or cause of my horrible spins? 

Back in 2005, when I had the first vertigo attack of my life, I was working dispatch at the airport for the police and fire departments.  I was waiting patiently for an opening in the fire station, and worked as a dispatcher and security specialist.  Sometime in 2006, (its all kinda foggy to me) I awoke one morning with a horrific vertigo attack complete with ear discomfort and vomiting.  Then the family doc thought it might be Meniere's, but I spiked a fever some weeks into the dizzies and after a round of antibiotics I was "cured".  He wasn't totally convinced, but thought had it been Meniere's my dizzies would have remained. 

At about the same time as the dizzies, we had a leak in the wall of the dispatch center and it made the sheet rock soft.  I managed to put my butt through the wall (my butt-hole as it was affectionately called) and it was weeks before it was fixed.  In the meantime a dreadful moldy smell lingered and I got sick.  About the time I spiked the fever and was "cured", the wall was repaired.  No mold, no dizzies?  Maybe.

Time passed, I got a job as a firefighter and moved downstairs.  I'd eventually get married and move into my husband's grandfathers old house.  We found mold almost right away.  It was a small amount, so we fixed it, as we were told to do by the guys at Home Depot, and all was well. 

We found mold, heaps of mold in the fire station a few months later.  Then a few weeks after that, I got sick with a horrific case of vertigo. 

I lost my job and was at home for several months recovering from the initial vertigo attack that June.  As the months past, we pulled the moldy carpet out of the house and made some small repairs. Then there was a small water leak in the bathroom and it made the wall soft.  I, you guessed it, put my feet through the wall.

Then all hell, or mold as it were, broke loose.  We started finding mold EVERYWHERE.  My hearing started to go, I developed all kinds of weird symptoms and my other ear became affected.

When we found mold in the hall closet (not near the bathroom or adjoining walls) I got worried.  We had to toss a lot of really nice clothes, and try to clean others.  Then we found mold in my closet.  I rarely used it because it contained all those skinny clothes. (Ladies you know what I'm talking about here).  Once we opened that door, we all started to get sick. Both cats made vet trips.  (Orion had been sick off and on since we adopted him)  The hubby got sick, and stayed sick.  I started having migraines again, and felt horrible.

So we moved.

The cats and the hubby are better.  I'm still a work in progress, but I feel better.  Well except the dizzies.

Stress can trigger Meniere's.  So can mold. 

Mold can kill you.

I hope we got out in time.