It has become very clear to me that my inner ears march to the unseen unheard drumbeat of fluctuations in air pressure. I am a creature of the weather. I did not anticipate this problem before moving to the desert. In fact, I didn't know what monsoon meant, except in a general way, like a whole lot of rain dumping all at once. It is that, and more. Sometimes monsoon is exciting. When the lightning gets going, it's really quite festive, in an electrifying sort of way. Not a good time to be out riding a bike, but there's nothing like a clap of thunder overhead to elevate the heart rate and make you feel alive. Sometimes in the desert, it's hard to tell. Siestas exist for a reason.
Last February, I visited an ENT doctor. I was coming off two weeks of relatively stable air pressure, feeling fine to the point of ebullience. She couldn't do much for me but clean the wax out of my ears and set me up for a follow-up appointment in six months. During monsoon. If vertigo was going to return, she said, now would be the time.
Well, here we are. The afternoon I saw her, it started raining. My vertigo returned the next day and it hasn't let up for more than a day here or there since. Now it's August. Monsoon is in full swing, and the bucket in my head is sloshing constantly. Unless the ENT is a weather god, there is nothing she will be able to do. Can she control air pressure? I'm predicting she will tell me I have vestibular migraine and I should stop drinking coffee. I wonder what she would say if I came to the appointment with a pencil jammed in my ear. She seemed like a pretty cool cookie. She probably wouldn't bat an eye. She's probably seen it all, here in the desert during monsoon.
