This has been a wild couple of weeks. With school starting back up and temperatures getting cooler (a high of anything less than 90 in August is cool in our neck of the woods), well times they are a changin'. New jobs. New classes. And kids who were kids in July seem more grown up now that August is almost over.
Unfortunately, in the midst of all these changes, I'm dizzy. Not from all the changes swirling around me but from some goofy diagnosis I was given almost a year ago. You see, about every five or six months it hits me. Out of the blue, I simply turn my head and suddenly my world is spinning. So, when I was reading this week before retiring for the evening, I looked to the left and felt my world turn upside down.
Walking is quite a chore right now. I couldn't walk a straight line to save my life! While I may take 4, 5 or maybe even 6 steps with nothing happening, all of the sudden with no warning, all or part of my brain seems to flip upside down, spin the opposite direction I am looking or just feel plain old gooshy. I find myself grabbing furniture, walls or whoever is standing near me when that tilt-a-whirl starts spinning in my head.
Now driving is a different story. As long as I'm looking straight ahead and not looking around, I'm ok driving. But turning my head at an intersection watching for traffic, oh boy. While the phone companies often remind us not to text and drive, so far I haven't been told not to have a swimmy head and drive. But I wouldn't be surprised that command is coming next.
The first couple of times I had this issue, there was a level of fear mixed with embarrassment. I even went through medical testing including a CT scan that revealed that, yes, despite what my family thinks, there is a brain in there and it appears normal. I'm trying, this third time in just under a year, to deal with this and keep plugging along. I get the usual jokes...."hey mom.....do we need to get you a life alert?" "Hey mom.....do you need a walker with tennis balls on the legs? Maybe we can get one with a horn." Co-workers hold up their hands and grin as they ask how many fingers they are holding up. And some even offer to be my legs and deliver to and from my desk.
In the middle of this brain tornado, something absolutely hilarious happened yesterday. Well at least I considered it hilarious. I was at work and trying to discretely text one of our sons. He had sang at a funeral yesterday and I was asking how it went. I tried to text back that I was sure the family appreciated what he did. Now I'm not one to proofread my texts. I figure texts are for convenience and I'm often in a hurry so whoever I am texting can figure out what I really mean.
Anyway, while texting with my phone under my desk, I sent a message to our youngest son that read "I sure they appreciated you." He responded with "I same". Of course I responded with "Huh". His reply, "More bad grammar/omitted words" followed by a smiley face. So I responded with "Oh" followed by "Well I'm at work and am trying to hide".
While I continued working, I noticed my phone received a text as it sat hiding under my desk. That dear son had sent a group message to our family where he had taken a screen shot of my "Well I'm at work and am trying to hide" comment and added "Someone might need to go check on mom. Something seems to be going down at the bank."
Yes, I laughed so hard I laughed off all my mascara. And not only could I not walk a straight line, trying to explain to my co-workers why I was laughing and crying to the point I couldn't speak, well it was just almost too much to deal with at once.
Did anyone in the group text check on me? Yes! I did get another text asking if I was okay. It was so sweet but made me laugh, and cry, even more. The moral of this story? Well I'm not sure there is one. Except that maybe, if you see someone trying to walk a straight line and they can't, they may just be dizzy. Or, if your mom is working at a bank and texts you that she's hiding, she may just be trying to not get caught texting at work, not hiding from someone in a ski mask with a fake gun in their pocket and a bag to carry out money. :)
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