TREES SHOULDN'T JUMP!

I began this blog, not only to educate friends and family about my condition, but to share my experiences with others who may be in the same situation; to give them the comfort of knowing that they are not alone.  I have been too shy to share it with the world and have not actually published it.  However, I think it is time.  The blogs that I have read on the VEDA website seem so professional that I am intimidated fearing that mine will seem extremely amateurish in comparison, but I'm about to take the plunge.  For those reading it for the first time, while I encourage you to respond with your experiences and advice, I hope that you will read from the beginning and not respond until you've caught up with me on this adventure of discovery.  I am learning as I go.  

A word of advice when learning of someone's VD (That's Vestibular Disorder…not the other one.  My cousin with MS came up with that little joke and we can't help giggling about it.), please don't say "Oh, yes, I get those little dizzy spells all the time if I stand up too quickly."  What you are doing is trivializing the problem; not empathizing.  Consider what it is like to have those "little dizzy spells" all day, every day, with every little movement you make.

I had been without my left hearing aid for over a month.  It was sent out to be refurbished and got lost.  Turns out it wasn't lost at all, but, because it was purchased in a former surname, the records carried that surname and it ended up on a shelf at my audiologist's office unclaimed.

Because the vestibular system is aided by the ears and I temporarily had only the use of one, I had become increasingly wobbly.  The oscillopsia (everything moves with my every movement) became worse and, on my fitness walk, glancing up at a tree along the path and back down again the tree seemed to jump.  Sidewalks wave up and down in front of me.  My world is a bizarro world!

If you have VD (tee-hee) and haven't gone through Vestibular Therapy, I encourage you to do so and to practice your exercises often.  It is vital, though exhausting and often nauseating.

I sometimes feel that, if I don't push through and do certain things for myself rather than asking for help, I am surrendering to this "thing."  For that reason, I had not considered requesting a handicap placard or plate for my car.  I still drive but only during daylight hours and only in familiar areas.  I have almost been run over a couple times in parking lots recently because I can't move out of the way fast enough.

(Come on!  Move it, Granny!)  I finally "gave in" and ordered a placard to limit that risk.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

First, a reminder that the original intent of my blog was to educate family and friends so they might have a better understanding of what this "thing" is and, hopefully, how to help me to cope.  If one doesn't know or remember, for instance, that, due to cochlear degradation, I can only understand what is said if you are speaking directly to me in close proximity, both you and I will become extremely frustrated.

An article noted early in this blog, discusses the fear that haunts many vestibular disorder patients that they may be in the early stages of alzheimer's disease or senility because of mental fogginess and embarrassing faux pax.  The consensus is that the balance impairment requires so much concentration that the mind tires easily.

Recently, during my fitness walk, I was rambling on to my friend about something and suddenly said "What the heck am I talking about?"  I realized that what I had said made no sense; that I had confused people and places in my mind sort of like what often happens in a dream.  It was a frightening realization.

I have had moments where I totally miss a common word, as we all do, just as I'm about to speak remaining blocked and unable to get back to the thought at all.

I borrowed a pen at lunch a couple weeks ago and couldn't figure out how to work it.  I stupidly kept twisting and pushing and turning it around until I was told that the cap comes off.  DUH!

I know that I have asked my bachelor grandson on two different recent occasions if he cooks at all.  Much later, I remembered that I had heard his answer before.

I waver between laughing at myself and being frightened to the point of tears.

I had a wonderful, but exhausting, Christmas with family in my home.  As mentioned in previous posts,  the concentration needed to maintain balance and the need to strain to hear zaps my energy.  For that reason, preparing for company for the holidays was a two-week endeavor.

I laughed hysterically when, while making roll dough, I lifted the beaters of my stand mixer slightly out of the bowl while it was still running to fling the dough off.  When that wasn't working, intending to turn it off to lift them entirely, I mistakenly turned it to high and flung bits of dough everywhere…my glasses, the backsplash, the window shade, the floor…

Living alone, one develops routines of daily functioning.  Living alone with a handicap, one adapts the home to those routines.  My furnishings are all strategically placed for watching TV with ease and to eliminate any obstacles that I must step over or around. Lamps are connected to outlets operated by a wall switch so that I don't ever need cross a dark room.  I keep a "grabber" nearby so that I needn't get on a step-stool to get something from an upper cabinet or bend over (which sometimes results in tumbling all the way) to pick up something I've dropped.

Christmas morning was joyful.  I loved spending it with grandchildren; watching them open presents.  Afterward, though, the room was strewn with wrappings, gifts, boxes that would have required balance to step over or around.  They obviously forgot that there was an elderly toddler in the house.  I just sat at my dining room table until the floor was cleared because I feared falling toward the TV on one side or the glass-top coffee table on the other.

Being the last one to bed and turning off lights, I was momentarily trapped in my kitchen.  The living room lamp would not turn on with the wall switch so that I could cross the room and turn it off at another on my way to my bedroom.  It had been turned off by the lamp switch.  Of course, it was a simple remedy.  I simply turned the kitchen light back on to give me enough light to cross the room to the lamp, then back to the kitchen to start over again.  Those who haven't read my blog or been around me often aren't tuned in to my needs.

I spent two days looking for my "grabber" because it had been used, probably to retrieve a Nerf bullet,  and not returned to its usual resting place.  I have a rolling chair at my little kitchen desk.  Without my grabber but with a bit of ingenuity, I rolled myself to the item I had dropped and kicked it near a cabinet so that I could hold on when I bent from chair level to retrieve it.

I'm grateful to my son and grandson who came by NewYear's Day to help me take down and put away the tree and ornaments. It will take another week, at my one-"major"-thing-a-day pace, to replenish groceries, wash linens, etc. and put my house back in order.  But, it was well worth it!

My new resolve went by the wayside over the holidays, but, with the encouragement and companionship of my walking and yoga partners, I am already back on track to make 2014 a year of major accomplishments.