Caught red-handed

I whine a lot to my friends about the broken state of my brain. Yes, I am referring to the meatball in my head that I joke is constantly trying to kill me. It's one of those cynical kind of jokes that never gets a laugh, the kind where with your next breath, you throw your hands in the air and say, Universe, just kill me now, ha ha. Then when lightning fails to materialize and you keep on breathing, you say, well, not today, I guess, and keep on living and complaining your brain is trying to kill you. You know what I mean. No? Well. Ahem. Maybe it's just me.

Well, it's not all just me. My brain really is trying to kill me. Or at least, disable me. The evidence is on tape. Film. Whatever gets produced when you get an MRI.

I had another MRI, this one on my head, and an MRA for good measure, because why not, it was twofer day at the magnetic resonating center or whatever it's called. I put on blue scrubs and pretended like I was a healthcare worker, sitting in the waiting room with my blankey, nodding reassuringly to the other patients waiting their turn in the interrogation chamber. After an MRI, a CAT scan, an echocardiogram, and umpteen ultrasounds, not to mention an endoscopy and a colonscopy, I'm an old hand at this internal organ interrogation stuff. I ho-hummed through the insertion of the IV into my vein (yes, there is a valve there, yes, go ahead, keep digging, I'm used to it). Inside the room beyond the glass command cubicle, I laid down on the bed (which resembled the conveyor belt that trundles coffins into the oven). I smiled with gratitude at the tech who put a block of foam under my knees. I willingly put my head into the tray, like the prisoner going to the guillotine who still has faith that God will intervene up until the moment the blade comes down and liberates their brain, and gave the tech a thumbs up when the headphones started playing oldies.

I admit I got a tiny bit anxious when the tech put the cage over my face, six inches from my nose, but I shut my eyes and let myself drift away with Smokey Robinson. Thirty minutes in, the tech stopped the giant machine to inject me with the gunk. I had some trepidation, remembering an uncomfortable moment in the previous MRI, but this time around I didn't feel a thing. I had a bulb to squeeze in case I panicked, but I didn't need it. My veins (or arteries?) apparently said oh boy, yummy stuff, dye contrast! Let the magnetizing recommence! 

Forty-five minutes later, feeling like I'd been pummeled by an incompetent masseuse who was being yelled at by a gruff drill sergeant, the test was over, and I walked out into the hot morning sunshine.

Two days later, I got the report.

I am not crazy. It is not my imagination. It's not just a smoking gun. I see the gun, I see the bullet. My brain really is broken. The radiology report indicates I have the vascular problem that can cause vestibular paroxysmia. Not everyone who has this particular vascular condition gets my type of recurring vertigo and tinnitus, but the patients who have my type of recurring vertigo and tinnitus almost always have some kind of artery or blood vessel encroaching on the eighth cranial nerve. The good news is that there is no evidence of a tumor, lesion, or cyst that could be causing this paroxymia.

In other words, I'm a textbook case. Well, wait. I doubt if this condition is in textbooks yet. If it were, the ENTs I have met so far might not have been skeptical when I told them about it. I know doctors sleep through med school, who can blame them, but you'd think somewhere along the line when they learned about vestibular migraines they might have at least heard of vestibular paroxysmia.

For a brief moment, I felt smug satisfaction that I had diagnosed my malady correctly. Yay, me, so competent with Dr. Google! That wore off fast. Now I'm impatient and frustrated to get my hands on the remedy for the malady. I've had enough of being a doormat for some stupid artery that decided to get a little too cozy with a very sensitive nerve. I mean, come on, brain.

Well, I know you can't reason with a brain, anymore than you can petition the Universe with prayer. Arteries do what they do. Idiots, wackjobs, dictators, and politicians are similar. We can't cure it and we can't control it. If biofeedback, yoga, and aroma therapy would work, you know I would have been all over it. The futility of trying to reason with any body part, let alone an artery I cannot see or touch, is like shouting into the void. I feel the effects of its bad behavior, though, and now—ha, ha!—its inappropriate nerve cuddling has been caught on film. The red villain has been caught red-handed. Like to see you wiggle out of this one, you stupid artery. If I could get in there and strangle you, I would, although it would probably give me a stroke, but just for a moment, to express my extreme displeasure and frustration at the three years of torture, every minute of every hour of every day for three years, to listen to you horndog making out constantly with my vestibular nerve . . . surely I could be forgiven for my desire for revenge. 

I hope by next week's blog I will have received a call from the (highly chagrined) ENT (one can hope) telling me, yes, you were right, Ms. Patient We Didn't Believe. We see it right there, and even though we would still like you to see the neurologist (whose earliest appointment is the first week of February 2024), we are going to prescribe you one of those antiseizure medications as your reward for being such a patient patient instead of the raving puddle of whining anxiety we usually see. 

I have hope. But I know what happens when you wish for something. Sometimes you get it, and it ends up being worse than the disease. So (if you care), watch this space.

Spinning like nobody cares

A life lived in fear is a life half-lived. I know that is true because Fran said it in my favorite movie, "Strictly Ballroom," and Fran was a wise woman. It is possible to live one's entire life in fear. People do it all the time. I've been doing it. I can't think of many stretches of time when I didn't live my life in fear. Fear is as familiar and uncomfortable as a pair of old running shoes that have sprung a hole in the sole and are now taking on water with every step. 

Some fears are reasonable. We need those fears, and I will most likely keep them, the ones I have gathered close around me like a hazmat suit. For example, when I complain about being afraid of things, I'm not talking about fear of tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. Fear of those things is rational. I'm not talking about the consequences of runaway climate change. I'm not talking about specific cases of insane or deluded people with guns. Those fears are rational. 

I'm talking about the fear of alternative lifestyles, fear of unusual self-expression choices, fear of appearances and actions that fall outside the norm, way out there on the bell-shaped curve. Outliers used to scare me. I used to be afraid of anyone who looked weird. I viewed people who didn't conform with wary disdain. What kind of person leaves their holiday lights up all year round? That's just laziness. Who would patronize a store that opened inside what used to be a house? That's just wrong. It's so easy to be afraid of something unfamiliar, and from there it's an easy leap from that's scary to that's wrong to that should not be allowed to I need to join that mob over there and shut that thing down.

No worries. I'm not a joiner, not for Bluebirds and not for mobs, so I won't be coming for your Christmas lights anytime soon, or ever, actually, because in my old age, I have learned to appreciate people who tread the road less traveled. Go ahead, leave those lights up all year, and what's more, go ahead and turn those suckers on in July! Why not? We could use some holiday cheer in the dog days of summer. Feeling like wearing pajamas all the time? Me, too! Let's do it. Feel like swearing sometimes at the inanity of life? Me, too! No need to stand on decorum around me. Let it rip. 

Fear of dumb things is dumb. I think you get my point. But what about the options that fall in between? 

What if one person's fear is another person's adventure?

My head is spinning from the constant rise and fall of the barometer. It's monsoon in Southern Arizona, finally, and now it rains almost every day. It's great, don't get me wrong, but even as I'm out twirling in the rain, my head is a slushy mess from the sledgehammer pounding inside my brain. I sleep when I can, just to exit stage right for a while. The only time I know I'm safe is when I'm lying down. But I know I have to keep moving. I walk in the evenings to keep my arthritic hip from seizing up, but walking doesn't help the aberration bashing my cranial nerve every sixty to ninety seconds. I fear the side effects of the antiseizure drugs the ENT might prescribe, but at some point you just have to say, bring on the side effects, what could be worse than the maelstrom in my head? I have not been offered drugs yet, just to be clear. I see the ENT dude on Friday. I've been told another MRI is in my future.

I knew a cat who, when confronted with an earthquake in his house, ran fast and far and didn't stop until the shaking subsided. He ended up across the street under a neighbor's house. I feel kind of like doing the same thing: running fast and far until the quake in my head subsides. I fear I might be running forever. 

On my last nerve

During yet another hopeless search through the medical literature, at long last, I found a description of my vestibular symptoms. I could hardly believe it. I was so relieved, I almost started weeping. After all these years, maybe, just maybe, I can get a diagnosis and maybe find a treatment.

Of course, I'm a doctor's worst patient, self-diagnosing with Dr. Google, but in this case, I'm relying on academic research articles published by the National Institutes of Health. I feel confident that the sources are reliable, even if my interpretation is not.

This particular phase of my chronic dizziness has morphed from BPPV and maybe vestibular migraines (I'm not sold on that idea) into something called vestibular paroxysmia. My symptoms are as follows, in case you know someone who has this weird and annoying malady:

• recurrent (for me, that means occurring every 45 to 120 seconds, it could be different for other people)
• spontaneous (I cannot trigger it, but I can make it more intense by moving my head)
• postural vertigo (some people have rotatory vertigo, which would be the absolute pits)
• 10 to 15 seconds in duration (others might have shorter or longer duration)
• Accompanied by ear crackling in right ear (others may or may not have some kind of tinnitus)

My head is possibly affected by changes in air pressure (causing narrowing and widening of blood vessels). That is why I went on that epic roadtrip searching for a place at low elevation that might have less variation in air pressure. 

The symptoms are no longer treatable with gravity maneuvers (Epley, Foster, etc.), thus, not likely to be BPPV. My hearing is not affected except for some minor hearing loss in my right ear during an attack, thus not likely to be Meniere's. Vestibular migraines don't come in recurrent waves with tinnitus.  

Apparently it is a biomechanical problem stemming from a vascular compression of the root entry zone of the eighth cranial nerve. That means a blood vessel, probably an artery, is encroaching on the vestibularcochlear nerve and wreaking havoc in my balance (vertigo) and hearing (tinnitus). I always suspected it was something mechanical. Why else would the waves of vertigo be synchronized with the ear crackling? Now it makes sense. A stupid blood vessel is interfering with the eighth cranial nerve. 

The nerve! 

The good news, vestibular paroxysmia is probably treatable with antiseizure medication. In fact, that is how they often diagnose this illness. They give you the drug first and if the vertigo stops, then you have it. If it doesn't, well, then there are other avenues to pursue. The down side is, the drugs can have side effects, so it's kind of like testing for witchcraft by waiting for the person to sink to the bottom of the pond. Oh, well. Guess she had it. 

The alternative to drug treatment is brain surgery, but I'm not going to think about that right now. Next step is vestibular testing, coming up this week. I can hardly wait. I'm so excited. From what I've read, it's a grueling, puke-inducing experience. 

I can't disclose what I've learned the moment I walk in the door. As a researcher, I know I need to keep my mouth shut and not proclaim my belief that eureka, I have discovered the problem. I don't want to skew the tests. I don't want to influence their reports. I will let the ENT do his thing. Then, when he looks at me and shakes his head and says what I expect him to say, sorry, Carol, we think you need to see a psychiatrist, then I can say, well, have you considered this?

I don't have the energy to fight. Today the barometer nosedived this morning, a steep 16-point decline in just a few hours. My head has been going crazy. On top of that, an old friend of mine has dementia, and it's heart wrenching to see her struggle for words. Plus, the weather in the Sonoran Desert is stupidly, ridiculously, unbearably hot. You can see I have many things to ponder. Meanwhile, the train keeps rolling through my head every minute like someone tapping me on the shoulder reminding me I'm here, I'm still here, pay attention to me. 

I can't think anymore. It's late. Tonight, the moon is full and golden. The AC is resting, so it's blessedly silent in the Trailer, and tomorrow will be another day to try it all again and maybe get it right this time. 

Elevation is not the same as transcendence

Who knew elevation matters? Maybe you know all about elevation and air pressure. I'm a slow science learner. The experts tell me air pressure decreases the closer one gets to sea level. I associate low air pressure with S.A.D., clouds, wind, and rain. In most places I've been (which isn't all that many), air pressure drops when crappy weather moves in, which is why I prefer not to stay in places with crappy weather (like Portland). So should I head to sea level or not?

I don't understand the mechanics of vestibular disturbance. When the air pressure decreases, subjectively my inner ears sometimes feel more stable. However, when clouds roll in and rain starts pouring, my emotional health tumbles. (I think probably Hawaii is the place for me, but where would I park my home on wheels?) 

Last night around 11 p.m. a strange thing happened. I had a five minute respite. It took me a couple minutes to realize what was happening, so I missed enjoying the entire five minutes. Five minutes of not being off balance, of not hearing the crackling in my Eustachian Tube. It was a surprising phenomenon, to be set free. I felt normal. I couldn't believe it. I had to test it, of course. I bent over. I moved around. My head behaved normally, that is to say, I was not dizzy or off balance, and my crackling ear was silent.

Ah, blessed silence. 

I could hardly believe it was while it was happening, and I knew it wouldn't last, because why would it suddenly resolve after all this time? I hadn't done anything to warrant a miracle. That would definitely be evidence of god, and I'm not going there. Thus I was not surprised or disappointed when a few minutes later, as soon as I went to bed (which means getting horizontal), the pressure and noise were back, my old nemesis, the recurrent chronic oscillating freight train in my head. 

Oscillating is a new word I found to describe the intermittent recurring pattern of this chronic affliction. There is a thing called persistent oscillating vertigo. It is associated with mal de debarquement syndrome, which is a vestibular malady some people get after traveling by plane or boat. I don't have that, because I haven't traveled for years except by car, but apparently it's possible to have POV without having traveled, so maybe I've diagnosed myself. Kudos to me. According to Dr. Google, ETD and MDD are both rare and poorly understood disorders that ENTs would rather ignore. Which is probably why my ENTs proposed solution was to poke a hole in my eardrum. 

The remedies for almost all the vestibular maladies are the same. Drugs, therapy, and vestibular rehabilitation. For now, I'm choosing to soldier through on my own, doing my best to ignore the whole annoying mess.

You might say, well, Carol, you clearly aren't ignoring it, because you write about it every damn week in this stupid blog. Well, you would be right. I complain here in this blog because I'm not taking drugs, getting therapy, or doing physical rehab. I think if I were doing any or all of those things, I might be a happier (but poorer) person and therefore less inclined to complain here (about vestibular issues, there's always more to whine about). 

Speaking of complaining, the road trip to Quartzite has been delayed a day due to inclement weather. The storms destroying California are moving into Arizona, bringing high winds, rain, and chilly temps. I'll get there eventually. I have to find out for myself what it looks and feels like in other places. Quartzite is about 1,000 feet lower in elevation than Tucson, so it is possible my head will be happier there. I doubt it. I don't want to assume anything. However, the five minutes of respite I had last night gives me reason to hope.

One way out

As I walked along the bike path next to the Rillito River this afternoon, dodging bicyclists and enjoying the winter sun baking the back of my neck, a bicyclist rode by and said, "I saw a prairie dog." He could have been talking on the phone using invisible Blue Tooth earbuds, but I assumed he was talking to me, so I said, "Prairie dog?" He was long gone but I looked around to see if I could spot something poking its head up out of a hole in the ground. The dry riverbed was wide, full of sand and scrubby trees, probably good habitat for a critter who burrows, at least until monsoon floods sweep it into the next county. 

Not five minutes later, another bicyclist rode by me and asked, "Did you see the pigs?" She sped on by before I could ask, "Do you mean javelinas?" I assumed she wasn't from around here, maybe a newbie to Tucson, unlike me, the almost two-year resident to whom javelinas are as common as possums. Ho-hum. A couple days ago, I saw a dead one on the side of the road as I was driving by. If you see one dead javelina, you'll probably see more. They travel in squadrons. After the bicyclist had gone by, I thought, there is a possibility the woman was talking about pigs on the phone with someone in Nebraska, not addressing me at all. 

I always make everything about me.

Speaking about making everything about me, yesterday was the second anniversary of the death of my maternal parental unit. The whole day had a bit of a gray tinge to it. I try not to think of her last hours. I try to remember her from before 2016, but it's as if I'm conjuring two different people. Before she moved into the retirement home, she was strong, independent, and opinionated. Dementia was chipping at her brain, though, and soon the foundation of her independence crumbled. Now the mother I remember is the one I moved into the care home at the end of October 2020, the one I saw every evening after dinner, the one I bundled up in fleece so we could sit outside six feet apart, the one I tried to keep alive even though we were both trapped with only one way out.

I went to the care home every evening, thinking to myself, someday I won't be doing this, also thinking, god, I hope I don't have to do this for the rest of my life. 

And then it was done, and now I'm here, and I need to be someplace else, but I don't know where yet.

I used to welcome the new year, but not anymore. Tomorrow is the third anniversary of the death of my beloved cat Eddie. That day scrapes a hole in my heart every time I think of it. I guess I should be thankful Mom and Eddie didn't die the same year. That would have been the end of me.

No wonder my heart stutters. No wonder I can't get my balance.

After the latest heart scan, I'm ignoring my heart, even when it swoops and pounds. I don't want to fret about it anymore. I'm not imminently dying so what else is there to do but pretend like it isn't happening? Works for me. As far as the balance problem goes, the remedies seem to be the same, no matter the diagnosis. Do I have BPPV, PPPD, MD, VM, or something else? Who knows, who cares (not the ENT, that's for sure). The usual treatments are changes in diet (for migraines), medications (for migraines, seizures, depression, and anxiety), vestibular rehabilitation therapy (to retrain the brain, eyes, and ears), and cognitive behavioral therapy (for depression and anxiety).

Adjusting my diet seems to have no effect on my disequilibrium, unless I eat processed food, which gives me migraines but doesn't affect the vertigo. As for the second option, I'm not willing to add to my meds list, period. I already feel like a drug addict. Third option: Am I depressed? I don't think so. Am I anxious? Sort of, but not to the point of panic attacks. I think anyone contemplating moving everything without knowing their destination would be entitled to feel some anxiety. As for therapy, I'm always happy to dump my problems on someone who gets paid to listen to them, but it seems like a lot of work, and I don't think it would be all that productive. What would they tell me? It's okay to feel anxious, your life is a mess? Thanks, I already knew that. The only option worth pursuing in my inexpert but essential opinion is vestibular rehabilitation. I might try to get a referral but each session with a vestibular therapist will cost me, so I'll probably stick with Dr. Google. You can bet I've been reviewing all the videos I can find, and there are thousands. 

Meanwhile, I didn't think I was much of a gambler, but maybe I was wrong. I'm putting all my money on location, location, location. I recognize that packing up and heading west might not produce the desired outcome. What I mean is, doing a geographical might not make my spinning head feel better. What is Plan B? Thanks for asking. I have some ideas, but for now, let's stay out of the wreckage of the future. 

Making it visible

 

Happy new year, Blogbots. I've had this drawing ready to go since 2016. How are you doing so far on your resolutions for the new year? Great, glad to hear it. Me neither. I don't see the point. I don't know if I will get out of bed tomorrow. 

My computer has been warning me all day of sleet and rain, starting and stopping. Sleet! It's chilly here in Tucson, but not that chilly. Now the widget is cautioning me about wind. Heavy rain moved in, taking my head down with it. The sound of rain on the metal awnings at the Trailer de Tesserae is alternately soothing and unsettling. Rain here is rare enough that when it happens, it comes as a shock.

I grew up in rain, probably was born while it was raining (3 a.m. on a mid-October morning in Portland, Oregon), so rain is not a stranger to me. For some reason, though, I missed out on the downy feathers and webbed feet. I got S.A.D. and a desire to head for drier climes. 

I did not factor in this stupid inner ear problem. When the clouds roll in and the air pressure drops, I know the washing machine in my head is going to go full-spin cycle. 

I'm tired of having an invisible disability. Nobody knows I'm suffering unless I complain. From the outside, I look pretty normal, not counting the occasional nystagmus and faltering gait. The noise in my ear is not audible to anyone else, including the ENT, which is why her suggested remedies were for me to stop drinking coffee and allow her to poke a hole in my eardrum. I said no to both suggestions. 

To get the sympathy I seek, I've been working on a facial expression I can use when the symptoms take over my head. This is so you will know I'm suffering. I'm dabbling with a gritted-teeth, squint-eyed sort of look. If I do it right, every 45 to 90 seconds, a look will come over my face. I'll hold it for 10 or 15 seconds and then relax when the ear crackling subsides. I guess I could just wear a sign around my neck. One side would say malfunction in progress, please stand by. The other side would say, talk now and make it snappy.

It probably won't work. Anyone who sees me with that expression will just assume I'm passing gas. That means to avoid social humiliation, I will still have to explain that the model freight train in my inner ear has just roared into the station. It's on a track. It just keeps going in circles, pulling in every 45 to 90 seconds, hissing for 10 to 15 seconds, and then pulling out again, whoo whoo, round and round and round. 

I've trained myself to ignore the hissing and rattling in my ear, mostly. However, it's like those parents you see sometimes in the grocery store checkout line, ignoring their child as the child yells repeatedly and increasingly loudly that they must have candy now. The parent can hold a long conversation with another person while tuning out their child's moans and pleas. The child knows there is a risk in keeping up the demands. Sooner or later, the tone of the child's voice will penetrate the carefully constructed dam protecting the parent's tenuous internal calm. When the dam is breached, all that pent-up fury comes boiling out. It's not a happy sight to see a parental meltdown in a public place. Those things are best left to the privacy of the home, which is how my mother handled it.

This malady is a slow-drip faucet from hell, wearing a hole in my skull. Every now and then, the carefully constructed barrier protecting me from awareness of this incessant ear rattling and pounding vertigo breaks down. That is when I'd like to shove a pencil in my ear while driving my car off a cliff. 

Speaking of driving my car off a cliff, road trip! Coming soon.

Ho hum, another gorgeous sunset in the desert

I don't have much to report this week. Here's a quick follow-up to the ENT appointment from last week. I know you are following the story closely. There is no surefire remedy for the malady, as I anticipated. However, she did offer me something. Can you guess what it was? I wasn't far off the mark. It's the hygienic equivalent of a pencil in my ear! You heard it right (ha). She offered to poke a hole in my ear drum to equalize the pressure.

"It probably won't work," she said. "It will hurt like hell. And insurance won't pay for it."

I said, "Well, when you put it like that . . . "

She booked me for another follow-up in six months, no idea why. Meanwhile, my ears keep on rolling and hissing, sometimes more, sometimes less. For the past couple days, the incline in air pressure has been gradual, more like Portland's graph. My head has been relatively calm. Earlier today, the altimeter hit a peak at 30.13, and now it is dropping again, a little more abruptly than it rose. That means two things. My head is reeling, and rain is coming. How about that! I can predict the weather (for the local area). Very handy talent to have. I probably missed my calling as a meteorologist. Well, I've missed multiple callings over the years. They called. I did not answer. I was hot in pursuit of other pursuits.

Now that I'm back in the Trailer, I am trying to be more active. Sometimes I ride my bike around the mobile home park. Sometimes I walk. Whatever mode I choose, I have found it is best to keep moving. If I stay still, I'm eaten alive by no-see-ums. I hope they are nearing the end of their life cycle for this season, although I fear as long as it is raining, they will keep on hatching. They don't go far from the river, but they go far enough to find me, tasty morsel with uncovered hands and forearms. If I go out while the sun is still up, I bake. If I wait until the sun goes down, I'm eaten. 

It's critter season here at the Park. The human residents I encounter on my evening sojourns often get this funny look on their faces when I get close. That is how I know something is up. Last night a tall old man with a well-trimmed white beard stared at me. I took my earbuds out of my ears to hear what he might say. Good evening? How's it going? Lovely sunset? No, none of those. 

"There's a big javelina roaming around this intersection," he said, pointing toward my street. "Be careful."

People here are obsessed with javelinas, large and small. They are interesting animals, if you like weird pig-like creatures that smell like skunk. They aren't pigs, though, in case you are thinking javvie on the barbie. I don't know what they taste like. I don't eat meat, javelina or otherwise, but you are welcome to try it. They might be easy to catch, if you can dodge the tusks. I hear they don't see well. They hear well but have poor eyesight, I mean. I have neither good hearing nor good eyesight. However, I have the superior intellect. Except with my earbuds in, while I'm listening to oldies on my mp3 player. Then I'm pretty much too stupid to live.

The sunsets here are stunning. Even my sister thinks so. She's a connoisseur of all things cool and beautiful, and she expressed amazement at some of the photos I sent her. The colors are rich and deep. But you have to act fast if you want to capture them. They disappear into gray very quickly. I'm not amazed at the sunsets anymore, ho hum, but it still catches me off guard that the sunset comes so quickly, followed soon after by solid dark. When I say solid dark, I mean pitch black. Except for a few streetlights, the mobile home park is a dark place. If I weren't avoiding no-see-ums and javelinas I would probably spend more time standing out in the street staring up at the stars. 

I do not heart monsoon

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.

The air pressure graph for Tucson is a series of jagged peaks and valleys. No smooth transitions here, no gentle slopes signaling the serene passing of highs and lows. The line is either shooting to the top of the scale or plunging to the bottom, no refreshing pauses in between. My ears never have a chance to catch up. The bucket of mucky goo in my ears is constantly on the move. And being a human, I'm constantly on the move too, at least when I'm not laying prone on my bed with a pillow over my head, trying to block out the crackling and hissing in my right ear. It's very hard to hold completely still. Have you tried it? Sooner or later you have to breathe. Monsoon sucks.

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.

One year in Tucson

Happy Sunday, Blogbots. Another gorgeous day in Tucson, marred only by gusty winds. Yes, the same winds that are blowing wildfires around the Southwest. Thankfully, the smoke is going the other direction. I am in more danger from tree pollen than I am from wildfire smoke. I feel guilty enjoying the 80°F heat when homes are burning and bombs are falling. I guess I'd feel less guilty if I were curled up in a ball in the closet, but sooner or later, I would have to get up and use the bathroom. The mundanities of life really detract from the drama.

Speaking of drama, my friend E got Covid! I'm bummed, but only a fraction as bummed as E is. It sounds like utter misery. Vaccinated and boosted! Is there no god? E is in California. There's nothing I can do except pick up the mail, flush the toilets, and pray for a speedy recovery.

I was dismayed at the images of (mostly) happy airline passengers ripping off their face masks with joy after the announcement that the mask mandate was over. I felt for the passengers who clearly weren't happy. It's like they'd been warily riding in a safari jeep among a pride of tigers when most of their fellow tourists suddenly pulled squirt guns out of their pockets and shot everyone up with meat juice. 

How could a virus say no?

I think it is dumb luck I have somehow managed to evade this disease. Luck and the fact that I don't have any friends. I mean, people I see in person. I cannot count the people working at Sprouts as my friends. Especially because most of them are not wearing masks anymore. Sigh. Don't get me started.

Have we all just given up? If so, then why not bomb the crap out of Russia? If we are all going to hell in a handbasket, might as well go out with a bang. If all we are afraid of is a few nuclear bombs on some major cities most of us don't care about anyway, well, why worry? We've already destroyed a third of the species on the planet. It would be fitting if we destroyed ourselves as well.

I probably wouldn't be writing this if I had kids. No, I would be swinging wildly back and forth between apologizing for ruining the planet and begging them to use their nimble young minds to come up with a magic solution. 

Speaking of magic solution, do you have one for vertigo? The ENT thought I might have vestibular migraines, rather than BPPV. I started doing some digging, and turns out, it is possible the little pipsqueak was right. Actually, I'm starting to think I might have both! Well, it would be typical of me. My usual M.O. is to never do things halfway. For example, if you are going to move to a new city, just pack up the car and go, don't bother to scout the place first. Just hit the road or board that train, and see what happens. I've done it twice; so far, I'm still alive.

Excuse me a moment while I go out and murder one of my neighbors who is sitting in his car with his car stereo bass turned up so loud, his car speakers are shuddering. My stomach is shuddering in time to the beat. There is no actual beat, just that juddery sound you get when you know you've just blown out your stereo speakers.

Okay, I'm back. He turned it off just as I got off my chair. I probably wouldn't actually have murdered him. You know, Covid, and I don't have much in the way of weapons or an army. Just a couple of forks and a little herd of badly trained cockroaches. I'm all talk and no action, as you can see.

Spring is over in Tucson. Summer starts tomorrow, sounds like. Upper 90s are in the forecast. Once it warms up that much, I believe it really won't cool off significantly until November. It's a good thing I got the  beast's air conditioning fixed. Living in the desert without AC is foolhardy. I repeated that to myself a few times as the car repair guys efficiently sucked $441.32 out of my bank account. Apparently the price of Freon has gone up, too, just like the prices of everything else. What is the deal with Freon? Is this a case of if you love something and want to keep it, you have to be willing to let it go?

Oh, hey, I almost forgot, happy one year anniversary to me. I moved to Tucson exactly one year ago. 

Searching for stability

I have been ruled by weather and climate all my life. Even as a kid in Portland, I clung to summer. I dreaded fall because it led to winter. I despised clouds. I wrote poems with gushing titles like Ode to Spring. I hated being cold. I used to stare in confusion at people who said they enjoyed Portland's cloudy moist days, people who actually reveled in rain, people who went up to Mt. Hood to—gah!—play in the snow. Even after chasing the sun to Tucson, I get cranky on cloudy days. Most of my adult life, unless the temperature tops 90°F, wherever I have gone, I have worn a hat on my head and socks on my hands. People are sometimes shocked to see I actually have hair. 

Weather is ruling me here in Tucson, just as it did in Portland, and I suspect it is influencing my vertigo. One day when my frustration with the rattling in my ear turned into action, I searched Dr. Google for information and found some articles that linked vertigo to migraines and barometric pressure. One helpful Netizen offered a ton of great information about migraines and air pressure. The place in the U.S. with the most stable air pressure, this amateur scientist said, was San Diego.

I continue to search for home. Is San Diego or environs the place for me? I don't think San Diego is within my budget, but who knows. I could live on the beach in the Beast. People are doing it. 

To help me make my decision, I wanted to find out if what I read was true, that San Diego barometric pressure is most stable, and further, I wanted to know if San Diego barometric pressure was different from Tucson barometric pressure. To answer my questions, I downloaded three days of air pressure data from the NOAA website. I used the altimeter data because it has been adjusted to account for elevation. Tucson is at 2,389 feet, compared to San Diego, which sits at just 62 feet above sea level. Air pressure changes with elevation, and that is what the altimeter readings account for.

I used the same three days for four locations: Portland, San Diego, Tucson, and Yuma. Weather on the west coast tends to move from west to east, so weather happening along the coastline might take a day or more to reach Tucson, but the days I chose didn't seem to be particularly dramatic in terms of storms or high pressure, so to keep it simple, I just used those data. 

I calculated the minimums and maximums for each city and subtracted to get the range, which is one measure of variation. The range (difference between maximum and minimum) for Tucson and Yuma were similar at 0.26 and 0.28, respectively. Portland was higher at 0.37. San Diego came in the lowest at 0.10, indicating that city showed the least amount of fluctuation in barometric pressure over that three-day period.

THREE DAYS	YUMA	TUCSON	SAN DIEGO	PORTLAND
MAX	30.06	30.11	30.09	30.22
MIN	29.80	29.83	29.99	29.85
DIFF	0.26	0.28	0.10	0.37

The data seem to support the idea that San Diego has stable air pressure. San Diego had less than half the variation in air pressure that Tucson and Yuma showed for this three-day period. Tucson had just barely more variation compared to Yuma. 

Portland had a lot more variation, but the waves were very slow, not choppy. You might like a chart.



What does this tell me? It might be true. In terms of my vertigo, San Diego might be better than Tucson. 

Next, I am considering the possible effects of my diet on my vertigo. I personally am not convinced that my vertigo relates to migraine headaches, but the spunky little ENT I visited earlier this month seemed to think I don't have garden-variety BPPV, that maybe it has something to do with a type of migraine. I think she's wrong, but what do I know, I'm just the ignorant person living inside this out-of-balance body.

In my experience, six things affect vertigo:  movement, gravity, sound, temperature, air pressure changes, and stress. I've lived with this condition since 2015. You can go back in this blog and read about it. I've complained a lot over the years. It's what I do.

Anyway, diet. My nemesis. I blame food for everything, even as I whine to the gods about how unfair it is that I can't eat like so-called normal people. If I could subsist on pancakes and ice cream without blowing up like a balloon, you better believe I would. Just looking at pancakes is good for a two-pound weight gain. My problem is I don't know how to stop once I start. I'm such an addict. But what if some of the foods I'm eating—and there are only, like, a dozen of them—are contributing to my vertigo? That would be sad, if I'd had the solution all along. Just click your heels three times, nibble on this root vegetable, and all your balance problems will be gone. Right.

According to the info sheet the ENT gave me, to head off migraines, I should avoid, reduce, or limit these foods: chocolate, nuts, peanut butter, coffee and caffeinated tea, many cheeses, eggs, yogurt, fresh bread, green beans, lentils, onions, raisins, and avocado. 

I don't eat all of those things regularly, but many are staples in my diet. Eggs, for instance. Yogurt. I don't eat meat, so eggs and yogurt are my protein sources. I am not sure what I would eat instead. I tried the soy/tofu diet, back in, like, 2010, during my vegan meltdown. Been there, done that, almost killed me. 

Guess what foods are supposedly "safe": American cheese, ice cream, pudding, milk, white bread, potatoes, rice, oatmeal, fresh meat/fish/poultry, many root vegetables, and apples. Basically white things, dead things, and sugar. Bright side: Pancakes would be on this list, as long as they have no yeast in them. 

I am left with so many questions. Why is milk okay but not yogurt? Is it the probiotics? Why is American cheese okay but not Swiss? What do we have against the Swiss? I'm so confused. 

Nothing makes sense. I keep trying to order the thoughts in my head. It's like herding lizards. I shake my snow globe head almost constantly, trying to keep the ear rocks suspended. I'm sure these stupid ocotonia have wandered far and wide since they started their journey in 2015. Now they are exploring all the ear canals, far from home, going on their endless river cruise. I wish the spunky ENT could shoot some dye into my ears, put me under a scope, and see where the crystals are actually gathering. I bet my ear canals would light up like a playroom full of kindergarteners. 

Speaking of little dudes, good news. After repeated sprayings of insecticide around the Bat Cave, I believe I have secured the perimeter. For the past few days, I've seen only tiny stupid babies, easily dispatched with no compassion. I am sure my cockroach dreams will eventually subside. 

I wonder if the bug spray has an effect on my vertigo. Hmm. More to be revealed.

The general dissatisfaction of being alive

Nothing is truly wrong, but nothing is right, either. The space in-between has captured me like a sticky bait trap. I’m mired up to my knees in malcontentedness, waving my dead bug arms at the sky: Curse you! What am I cursing? I don't know. Life? When I curse, I curse at everything, just like when I cry, I cry for everything. I’m sensing that the time for whining and grieving is over, like, move on, Carol, and yet when I hear about others’ losses, it refreshes my own grief and I crash all over again.

On the bright side, the sticky in-between place traps my brain but it doesn’t trap my body. I still get out of bed in the morning. I still get busy tackling my to-do list for the day. I show up for my commitments. Even though most of the time, everything I do seems pointless, I still do my best under the circumstances of the day. I don’t expect much from myself or anyone else, and I don’t berate myself or anyone else if outcomes fall short. Expectations are part of the sticky trap.

Sometimes I look in the mirror, see my mother, and laugh. Sometimes I look in the mirror, see how my shape resembles what I remember of her shape, and a sense of rage washes over me. I don't want to be my mother, yet my body seems compelled to mimic hers, five sizes bigger. I hope my brain will fall further from the tree, but the odds aren't in my favor.   

Since I’ve been taking the bisphosphonate for osteoporosis, I am regaining weight I lost over the past year. I hope my bones are rebuilding, knitting back the framework that holds me upright so I don’t fracture a hip the next time I trip on a curb while gazing at the Tucson sky. I’d rather not regain the flab that drags me down, but aging is a neutral phenomenon that does not consider my desires or feelings. I was thrilled that I was able to fit into my old blue jeans, the two pairs I’ve kept in a drawer for twenty years, waiting for the magical day I would be able to wear them again. The day came here in Tucson. Oh joy. After wearing them a few times, I realized, hey, they make denim with spandex now, for a scoche more give in the thighs and butt. I'm not into being restricted by my clothes anymore. Now that I can fit into the jeans, I no longer want to. What is the lesson of this story? Sometimes you get what you ask for, and it’s not what you want after all? Change happens? It doesn't matter how you look, it only matters how you feel? I don’t know, you figure it out.

For the most part, in real life, I don’t care what I look like. I wear men’s pajama pants to the store. I don’t care what I smell like, either. In the past two years, I’ve worn deodorant exactly one time, when I went to the ENT last week. Now that my life is on Zoom, though, I care about what people see on their screen, for those brief moments they are actually looking at me and not at themselves. What is my background, am I tastefully blurred (can they see I live in a basement?), what are my colors (do I blend artistically with the blurred background?), am I wearing my “public” hat (fleece beanie) or my “private” hat (old stocking cap)? I don’t care what they think of me, but I like to enhance their Zoom viewing experience if possible.

Nobody else cares. I’ve “visited” so many homes over the past couple years, and seen umpteen screens showing people’s cluttered dining rooms, unwashed dishes, disorganized home offices, unmade beds, dusty ceilling fans, annoying pets, and prominent nose hairs. Besides me, only the PBS Newshour crew seems to pay attention to their backdrops.

I had two and a half weeks of relief from the vertigo. The bucket in my head stopped sloshing day and night, just gently rippled now and then, and the hissing in my right ear was mostly silent. My mood lifted. I felt reborn. Amazing how everything seems better when you feel good, even though nothing is different.

Then I went to the ENT.

The day after the ENT appointment, the vertigo poured over me like a tidal wave, and I was back to life on the boat. I can’t blame the ENT. All she did was clean the wax out of my ears. I blame the fluctuating air pressure. The day of the ENT appointment, we had a storm. Low pressure. The next day, clouds, the next day, sunshine as high pressure swept down from the north. Then low pressure returned. Then high pressure, and now we’re in for another rain storm. You get the picture. I’m a creature of the barometer, it seems. I can’t figure out what else it could be. I have lived my life the same way, every day, month after month, eating more or less the same thing, going to bed at the same time, watching the same late-night TV shows, spending half my days on Zoom, trying to write my next novel. Same old, same old. As far as I can tell, the only thing changing is the air around me.

Speaking of stuck in a loop, I’m still searching for meaning and purpose. I guess I’m living proof that it is possible to have a functional, productive life without having a purpose. I get a lot done. I’m the only one who decides if what I do has meaning and value. Is it all pointless? Perhaps. In the big cosmic picture, life has one purpose: to persist. In that sense, I’m fulfilling my purpose, although I have failed to procreate, so this line of DNA dies with me. I don’t believe my manifest destiny is to pass on my genetic code to a new generation, so why do I believe I need to believe in some sort of higher purpose to give my life meaning and value?

I would go nuts without this blog. Even if no one reads it, this blog is the one place where I can say what I want, spin my experience into something that makes sense to me, make fun of myself (and others, sometimes), and reveal my absurdities and foibles. I could pay a therapist to perform this function, but I can just imagine how that might go. Tell me about your childhood. I don’t want a solution, I want a witness, and this blog is that for me. Sometimes I have to stay stuck in the in-betweenies until I’m ready to lift my feet out of the muck and move on.

Growing a pear

The old suburban farmhouse in which I did most of my growing up had a Bartlett pear tree just outside the back door. Every few years we collected bumper crops in cardboard boxes and fought the fruit flies to see who would get to eat the pears first. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my mother and the neighborhood women, paring and cutting slippery pears and soaking pieces in lemon juice in preparation for canning. To this day, nothing says summer is over, prepare for hell to me like the taste of a perfect ripe Bartlett pear. 

I'm doing a lot of remembering this week, probably because I can. Now that most of the obstacles associated with moving are resolved or being addressed, I have the luxury of letting my mind roam, and it seems drawn toward the past. I'm thinking about my cat. I'm remembering my mother. I'm missing the tooth I lost. And it's pear season, so I'm remembering pears.

There might be another reason I am looking backward. I'm reaching a milestone in a few days: I'm turning sixty-five. 

Yep, thanks for noticing. I'm coming of age—again. This coming-of-age marker isn't quite as appealing as turning twenty-one, or forty, or even fifty. This time I'm crossing the threshold into early old age or whatever they call it. I'm entering the neopleisticine dumpy sagtime epoch. If I'm lucky enough to somehow fall into a pit of tar and gradually be encased in amber, future anthropologists (if there are any in the future) will peruse my DNA, rub their depilatoried chins, and say, "Hola, she seems a bit droopy for someone who clearly subsisted on yogurt, nuts, raisins, and twigs."

Turning sixty-five reminds me of an anxious time when my elderly Mom fainted and fell on her condo patio and didn't tell me for a few days. (She was much older than sixty-five then, more like eighty-five, and I was her sometime caregiver with no idea of what was coming.) Mom mopped up the blood and went to bed with a couple cracked ribs, a banged up ankle, and a scraped elbow. She knew what would happen if she told anyone about her fall: An endless, tedious round of visits to various specialists, which is exactly what happened. She couldn't hide her injuries for long. A heart doctor, a heart monitor, an ankle doctor, and the usual EKG and MRI and CT scans all had a go at diagnosing her problem. The outcome: no obvious cause was found for her syncope. It was just one of those things.

The upshot is now I understand why she left her sliding glass patio door unlocked whenever she was home. She prioritized her fears. She might worry that drug addicts would sneak in and steal her television, but she was more worried that no one would be able to get inside to save her should she fall in the bathroom. 

I get it. Without a key, there is no easy way to break into the Bat Cave. That's good, if I want to be secure, but not if I want to be saved. Now I'm officially old, and coincidentally, I happen to have the luxury to think about such things. Time for another round of Swedish death cleaning.

Speaking of death cleaning, is it fall where you are? Fall has fallen here, I think. I'm not sure. I'm learning the desert seasons in real time. The night-time temps are forecasted to descend to the mid-forties. I hope the sky will settle into a steady blue dome. If it's sunny all the time, maybe the air pressure will stop fluctuating wildly up and down the barometric scale. Monsoon has been hard on my head. The ear crystals in my inner ear canals crash hither and thither, unable to figure out which way is up, or out, or whatever. It's near-constant ocotonia upset in the vestibular maze, which means I'm staggering the decks of the USS Vertigo day and night, under near-constant assault from the salt shaker in my right ear. It's very distracting.

Luckily, turning sixty-five means Medicare, here I come! Meanwhile, I'm eating fresh pears and thinking of home. 

Monsoon stampede creative vertigo head mess

I'm working on my second novel. What else is there to do when it's 110°F outside, I don't have a television, and moving day isn't until August? I'm a writing machine. Who cares if it is any good? The goal is to amass words into an irresistible mass of persuasion, otherwise known as a story.

In a coincidental instance of life imitating art, a couple days ago, I wrote a scene of about a small herd of escaped cows. That same evening, I saw on the news that a herd of cows had escaped from a slaughterhouse and were rampaging through a California neighborhood. My cows were not escaping from a slaughterhouse, they were escaping from a movie set in the hills above Malibu. However, any story about cows running amok in a city neighborhood makes a fun story. I watched the online video to see what a herd of forty cows looks like. I originally wrote thirty cows into my herd but I changed the number to forty. If you need a herd of stampeding cows, forty is the minimum, in my opinion.

I run my errands on Mondays before it gets too hot. On my way to the grocery store this week, I stopped to get gas. I always feel my heart rate go up when it's time to get gas. For one thing, my beast of a car takes a lot of gas, compared to my old Ford Focus. For another thing, here in Arizona, we pump our own gas. I haven't had to pump my own gas in over twenty years. Now they have gas pumps that are computerized. They even talk to you. I don't do a lot of driving so every time I have to pump my own gas, I have to relearn how to do it. This time, the pump screen was showing a news program. How long do they expect me to be standing there? I mean, the thing holds a lot of gasoline, but it's not the Queen Mary, for heaven's sake.

There I was pumping my gas, watching the ticker tick higher and higher, sucking money out of my bank account, when I saw a driver in a sporty white car drive away with the gas nozzle still in his gas tank. He was oblivious. I was like, uh, hey? He had his music turned up and didn't hear my plaintive little voice. And being an older white woman, I already know that I am invisible. 

He took off down the street with the nozzle dragging on the pavement behind him. I was concerned about the gas pump. I went over to look at it. Nothing seemed to be leaking. I finished pumping and paying for my gas and locked my car and went inside to see if the guy at the counter knew that someone had driven off with one of his gas nozzles. He looked at me like I was crazy. I thought I might have been invisible to him too, but finally he understood my pantomime. English was not his first language; I'm not sure what was. My first language is always self-conscious self-deprecation. Still, we managed to communicate, even with masks. He came outside and stood there looking around. Then we both laughed and shrugged our shoulders. 

I wonder what that driver thought when he realized that banging sound was him dragging a gas pump nozzle after his car. Maybe he didn't realize it until he pulled up into his driveway. Oopsy. I wonder if he came back to make amends. I guess drivers drive off with nozzles frequently. Gas stations have breakaway gas nozzles because drivers are stupid sometimes. I'm sure it will happen to me someday. 

It's hot here, but hotter in Portland where I moved from two months ago. Instead of my brother listening to my hour-by-hour announcements (now it's 107F!), I'm listening to his. Looks like today topped out at 112°F where he lives. Tomorrow could be worse. Welcome to the hot new world. We broke it, now we will have to wallow in it while we whine about how it wasn't our fault. 

Monsoon is here. That means the summer wind direction in the desert has shifted. In the evenings, wind comes rampaging up from the south. Sometimes it brings thunderstorms and torrential rain. The sprinkle of rain we had last week was just enough to sluice off the back end of my car. I helped it along with a yogurt container of water. No soap, I just wiped the dust off. As I mopped the dead bugs off the front, I said a prayer that the metal awnings covering the carports in this trailer park are all securely battened down. Awnings that come loose and go flying create bad hair days. 

My writing isn't great today. Vertigo is clawing up the inside of my head. I am pretty sure it's because of the vacillating air pressure; the readings are yawing up and down the barometer as storm systems ride across the land. The little ear crystals in my inner ears apparently want to ride along with them. Yee-haw. I feel like I'm galloping on horseback most of the time. Vertigo makes it hard to think. The waves in my head slow me down some—I have to do some acrobatics sometimes to get things to settle. Still, vertigo doesn't stop me. It's been six years, after all. I just keep writing. 

The chronic malcontent butchers the scientific method

Howdy, blogbots. How are you holding up in this bizarre war of masked versus unmasked? Have you figured out which team you are on or what exactly we are fighting for? In light of everything plaguing human civilization, including this new plague, politicizing facial coverings sure seems like rearranging deck chairs. I can't assimilate any of the strife so I'm opting out for a while. My sister sent me an excellent video of fluffy white sheep grazing in a green vineyard under a blue sky. Have you seen it? I recommend it if you are feeling like committing murder. 

Speaking of wishing you were anywhere but here, I'm sure you are tired of hearing me whine about vertigo and ear crackling. Yep, still going on. I've had no luck treating the vertigo, even after carefully studying the mechanics of the inner ear. Just goes to prove the old adage, knowledge avails us nothing. You'd think I'd have everything figured out, considering my lofty education level. Inner ears are complicated mechanisms, and my "knowledge" is in the social sciences, not the medical sciences, which explains so much about me. Including how I've haphazardly applied the scientific method in my attempts to treat my malady.

You've already read about the many treatments I've tried, most gleaned from those helpful folks out in cyberspace, thank you, all you BPPV and ear crackling sufferers. Sadly, the only thing that reliably produces silence is immersing my head in hot water. The golden silence gained from tubbing lasts a good fifteen minutes. Not quite long enough to get to sleep but certainly better than zero. I've tried without success to replicate the conditions outside the tub by pouring hot water into my ear while leaning over the kitchen sink. I get wet but the hiss goes on. I admit, I've considered hot oil and hot wax, but I'm pretty sure that would lead to a sheepish trip to the ER, which is not where we want to be at this point in the burgeoning plague. 

Ever hopeful, I've been trying other things willy-nilly without keeping good records, so I can't really tell what might be working. For example, someone on the Internet suggested chewing gum. I went to the store to buy gum. Gum is an impulse item, found near the cash register. Who knew! Generally I ignore everything that is not related to arranging my groceries on the conveyor belt according to how I want the items to appear on my receipt. It's easier to do my record-keeping that way—the zucchini and broccoli aren't disrupted by the toothpaste and coffee filters. Nice and organized, you should try it. 

Anyway, so there I am actually forcing myself to look at the impulse items. I have no idea what I'm looking at. I see something that looks like it could be bubble gum. I don't care, I grab it and toss it on the belt. When I get home, I'm sort of excited to see what it feels like to chew gum. I haven't chewed gum in years. What a miracle it would be if chewing gum was all it took to open up my dysfunctional Eustachian tube. I opened the package and discovered what I had purchased was some sort of chewy candy. I sucked on it, disappointed, peering at the package. Two hundred and forty calories! Per piece! I spat it out in the trash and chucked the package after it. 

I refused to admit defeat. On my next weekly foray into the dangerous grocery store, masked and gloved as usual, I applied myself again to the challenge of identifying gum at the checkout line. I found some! Sugar-free, this time, spearmint flavored. That sounded good. I bought the economically priced jumbo pack, feeling rather pleased. When I got home, I peeled off the plastic, unwrapped the silver foil covering, and popped a stick into my mouth. Yum, spearmint. Weird, though, to be chewing on something that wasn't intended to be swallowed. Still, I'm not a quitter, so I chomped diligently on the wad, monitoring my ear to see if it seemed inclined to settle down.

Like a mail-in election, results were not immediately forthcoming. I tried again with another stick. Then I had lunch. About an hour before it was time to visit Mom at the nursing home, I started feeling some alarming pains in my gut. Things clenched and unclenched, as they are wont to do, I won't give you the sordid details, but I was pretty miserable standing outside my mother's window, clenching my butt cheeks while she was in her bathroom trying to unclench hers. (I am sure I have never written the word clench so many times in my life.) As I danced in agony on the pavement, I called the Med Aide on my cellphone to send help to Mom stuck in her bathroom. She got help, and ten minutes later, she collapsed exhausted on her couch. I made it home, and after another trip to my bathroom, I looked up xylitol on the Internet. I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that xylitol can cause digestive distress among some subset of the population. It's like winning the reverse lottery. 

No more gum for me. 

My sister suggested maybe I needed a dose of negative ions. I remembered that my therapeutic light box emits negative ions (according to the manufacturer), so I plugged in the box and pressed the button. The green light came on and a slightly acidic smell wafted toward my nose. Is that how a negative ion smells?  How would you know if you were receiving a dose of negative ions? I'm asking out of curiosity. I can't imagine I'd be able to differentiate a negative ion from a coronavirus, could you?

I also heard that spices can open up sinus congestion. Ears, sinuses, Eustachian tubes . . . now I really get why those Ear Nose Throat doctors cover the territory they do. It's like a miniature version of the universe, all connected. I put some hot red pepper in my tea. That produced a coughing fit, which made tea shoot out my nose. You don't see that everyday. I hope the next time I get an ear infection, I remember to reread this blog post. I'm sure I will forget.

Well, I give up. This afternoon I sit in the dark cave surrounded by votive candles lit to honor St. Eustachian, the patron saint of crackling ears. The blinds are drawn against the heat of the day. Summer is here, more or less. It's 90°F today. We'll have a few days of heat, and I hope that will help my head stop swimming. Maybe the heat will burn out the ear infection as well. If the heat doesn't work, my last resort is telemedicine. You know what that is, right? Some kind of newfangled way to talk to a healthcare professional. Stay tuned. 

The Chronic Malcontent waits for summer

Two weeks after spending an afternoon in the ER, the maternal parental unit came out of quarantine and joined her fellow inmates in the dining room for the first time in three months. Earlier in the day, the nurse called me to tell me they were changing Mom's care plan to allow her to take her meals with other people. Mom hasn't been eating well in her room. She'd just as soon sleep as eat. Consequently she has been losing weight. 

I wasn't there to see her triumphant entrance to the dining room. I could have peered in the window but I didn't want to scare anyone. I assume all social distancing protocols were followed. When I visited Mom at her window after dinner, parental baby monitor to my ear, she said it was nice to go to the dining room but she still couldn't talk to anyone. I can only imagine what any conversation might have sounded like. Even on a good day, she doesn't always make sense. Well, who does, really. Nobody is having good days, these days.

Speaking of sense, when it comes to vertigo and ear infection, nothing makes any. I can't figure it out. I thought if I treated the vertigo, the ear rustling would cease. I studied some videos of the ear canals to see where my renegade ocotonia were vacationing. Wow, I know we studied the ear in elementary school but I'd forgotten how complex a structure it is. Amazing. And so tiny. It feels as big as the ocean when waves of vertigo sweep through my head. Who knew such a tiny contraption could reduce me to head-banging.

Three semicircular canals. Remember those? Horizontal, posterior, and anterior. Somewhere in there, maybe in more than one canal, are some wayward ear crystals dancing on nerve endings they were never supposed to see. I'm trying to think of them fondly as little dudes gone astray, enjoying a walking tour without proper permits. I'm not feeling much benevolence. It's very hard not to want to rip them out of my head like the lousy gravel that they are.

YouTube is great. People, especially chiropractors, naturopaths, and physical therapists, are so helpful, if you can endure the interminable ads. I found conflicting remedies but in desperation, I tried them all. The Deephead, the Epley, of course, my traitorous maneuver that never works, and a new one, the Barbecue Roll. I now know where my mastoid bones are, and I know what happens if you use a vibrator on them (temporary clanging bells). 

This is nuts. 

I'm trying to treat the vertigo on the theory that the ear hissing will subside, because the hissing seems to be linked to the vertigo. The hissing is rhythmic but not regular. It's as if someone is tapping you on the shoulder every five to thirty seconds, saying "Hey." More like, "He-e-e-e-e-e-e-y-y-y." For three to five seconds, a really long h-e-e-e-y. Like, hey, don't forget me, here I am, hey.

I'm a doctor's worst nightmare: the self-diagnosing patient. What did we do before WebMD? I think my Eustachian Tube needs a major overhaul. I'm ready to try the Modified Muncie, so you know how far gone I am. That's where you poke your tonsils with a finger to massage the malfunctioning Eustachian Tube opening. I'm also treating the ear infection with Valsalvas, antihistamines, nasal sprays, hot packs, ginger tea (by mouth), nasal rinses (with distilled water so I don't get amoebas in my brain), and ear lavages with alcohol and white vinegar. 

The only time I get relief is when my head is immersed in a hot tub of bathwater. These conditions are difficult to replicate sitting in front of my computer doing Zoom calls. I'm operating under the assumption that heat opens the Eustachian Tube and stops the ear rattling. Therefore, I have a new remedy in the works. It's only in the design stage so don't get too excited. It's called the Fire Turban. I don't have much hair anyway, so if something gets singed, probably my usual black hat will cover it.

I'm holding out for summer, my solution to all my problems. I've always believed summer will cure what ails me, which is why I moved to Los Angeles when I was twenty. You can imagine the rest. Usually summer starts on July 5 in Portland, but this year, summer is late, and according to the forecaster, it doesn't seem to be wafting over the horizon any time soon. Man, I need some high pressure. It's my last resort. If I don't get some relief when summer finally arrives, then I'll give up. I crawl to my doctor (virtually of course, via a telehealth appointment I'm sure will cost me $100) and I'll admit defeat. 

Next weekend is the first class of my five-week series on business tips for artists. Luckily it's on Zoom so I can keep my feet warm with my heated rice-filled foot warmers. I'm a little anxious that I will be distracted by waves of dizziness and relentless hissing in my ear. It will be hard to explain to the class if I suddenly break down weeping. Well, we either survive or we don't. Meanwhile, we are intrepid: We carry on.

Living on the edge with a notebook on my head

I'm sitting at the computer with a notebook balanced flat on my head to remind me to sit still. It's another ploy to defeat the vertigo that drives the waves that set off the crackling in my right ear. Apparently I move my head around a lot and that upsets the ear crystals. It's harder than you might think to stay perfectly upright. Plus it hurts when the notebook slides off my head and hits my hands. As a preteen, I used to mince across the bedroom with a book perched on my head. (It's what girls did in the early 1960s before they got the message that love was free and didn't require poise.) This is not that. Maybe a neck brace would be better. However, I don't happen to have one, and I know from experience, wrapping a long scarf tightly around my neck is not an ideal solution.

Speaking of breathing, yesterday I went for a walk in the park after visiting my sleeping mother. I've avoided the park, mostly, because I want to avoid people. But I'm tired of wandering the neighborhood. I wanted to see my reservoir. I donned my plaid mask like a good citizen, jammed in my mp3 player's ear buds, and hiked into the park. I saw dozens of people, and not one was wearing a mask. Maybe they all feel invincible in the outdoor air? Maybe I'm the overly cautious canary?

Amazingly, no one was on the trail through the trees. I had the 87°F shade all to myself. Early summer is a luscious green season here in Portland. I came down the hill above the tennis courts and saw all three courts occupied with players. No masks, but some nice social distancing going on, okay (nods in approval). When I came out into the sun by the big reservoir, I saw a some people strolling, a few running, but fewer than I had anticipated. I saw not one wearing a mask.

Excuse me, time out while I remove my suddenly chirping smoke detector from the ceiling. I may have ear troubles but I'm not deaf. Oh darn, I don't have a replacement battery. I guess for a few days I'll be living on the edge. Oh well, aren't we all. Hold on while I put the notebook back on my head. There.

Where was I? Oh yeah, walking around the reservoir, contemplating the nature of virus particles. How many times have you passed someone on the street or in the hallway and held your breath so you didn't inhale their perfume? Or their body odor, halitosis, farts, whatever cloud they left in their wake? Come on, you probably do it instinctively. It's a social-dissociative mannerism adopted to help us maintain our personal bubble and the illusion of safety. 

I did the same in the park yesterday. I passed a chubby shirtless tanned man walking his bicycle. I passed a man and woman, obviously a couple, who walked shoulder to shoulder. I passed two young women walking while looking at their phones, ignoring the beautiful reservoir mere feet away. I passed several people walking dogs, singly and in small family groups. After I passed each person or group, I held my breath to avoid inhaling their perfume plumes, covid clouds, and fart mists. 

I walked three times around instead of my usual four because it was getting dark and the wind had kicked up. Low pressure was moving in. I could tell because my vertigo was cranking up. I think I'm going to start a local weather blog. Are you interested in checking the weather in a small region, say, a ten foot diameter circle around me? Great. I'll just access my right ear. Currently, the weather around me is medium crappy. That means, it's not raining, but it's not sunny, either. It's medium crappy. I think tomorrow high pressure will build in and the hiss in my ear will lessen. 

Wow, holding your neck in one position is really hard on the back. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be helping much with the vertigo waves, either. So much for that remedy. My best option is still to immerse my head in a hot tub of water. It's very difficult to do that outside the tub, though. I've tried. Big mess.

Mom sleeps most of the time, less like a napping cat and more like a soon-to-be dead person. When I visit in the evening, she is always sprawled loosely on her couch. Sometimes her mouth is open. Sometimes she twitches. Once she took her life-alert pendant and wrapped the ribbon around her hand quite neatly without opening her eyes. A few times lately, her TV has been on. Last night someone had turned on her air conditioner. 

I talk into the baby monitor: Hi Mom, howdy, Mom, Mom, Mom, wake up, Mom, it's me at the window, look, Mom, it's me. I watch and wait. I try again. Wake up, Sleeping Beauty, Mom, Ma, Ma, Mommy, wake up. Sometimes she'll twitch. Rarely does she open her eyes. Sometimes I sing, but I don't yell. It seems cruel to make her wake up just to entertain me. If I were her, I would prefer to sleep through to the end. I stand at the window, a morose peeping tom, and watch her chest rise and fall. Proof of life.