Despite an unusual setback, I made a good-sized dent in my Christmas wrapping. This year, I picked neutral wrapping paper instead of the in-your-face red and green I usually go for, and I am really liking it! I tackled the packages that were either in a box or rectangular and used my wrapping paper on a roll. I also have a ton of gift bags I can use for items that don’t have a box or are a crazy shape. My dad always thought using gift bags was cheating, but in my opinion, they are the best thing since mascara was invented. What is your opinion on that subject? Gift bags that is.
My unusual setback was an attack of vertigo, which laid me low for all of Tuesday. What a complete waste of a day. Here I am, on my own, my husband away for three entire days, a to-do list a mile long, and I suddenly cannot function. I don’t know if you have ever had vertigo, but it is pretty disabling. It is caused by little calcium fragments that come loose in the inner ear and wreak havoc with your balance and equilibrium.
My episode came on in the middle of the night. I woke up and the room was spinning. If you have ever overimbibed alcohol, you may know the symptom of the room spinning. I can’t say, but that is what I have been told (ahem). That is what was happening. The room was whirling around like I was on a carnival ride. I fell back asleep, but the symptoms were still there when I woke up in the morning. There was no way I could drive anywhere. As a matter of fact, I had to hang on to the wall to walk to the living room, where I spent the day in my husband’s gazillion-dollar recliner with Archie on my lap. I dozed off and on, and eventually by the end of the day, the dizziness had subsided quite a bit.
Have you ever experienced vertigo? It is really ghastly! I had it once before, fifteen years ago, and my husband drove me to Urgent Care, where they said there really wasn’t anything to be done for me. There are some physical therapists on YouTube who show a series of complicated maneuvers in which you toss your head around violently in an effort to dislodge the calcium crystals in your ear, but I wasn’t up for trying them.
So, what fixed me up? Aside from the passage of time, a nice batch of chicken-and-wild-rice soup! I had a rotisserie chicken on hand, along with all the other ingredients, so it took no time to put together. Dennis was glad to have a good homemade meal after three days in a hotel, and we were both happy. The recipe was from Taste of Home, which I have always had pretty good luck with.
I hope your week is going well, and that you are enjoying the lead up to Christmas, if that is a holiday you celebrate. I am enjoying my decorations, the colored lights in particular, and am filled with excited anticipation of Ahren arriving this weekend. Oh my goodness, I wish I could see him all the time and not just a couple of times a year.
37 Responses
If anyone has this happen and persist, the physical therapy is absolutely wonderful. It can be life changing for those who suffer. They physically put the little grains of sand back in place by positioning your body and for a lot of people this is required to solve a persistent problem. Then the ongoing PT reteaches the brain.
Other suggestions include
– OTC allergy meds. Reducing the inflammation of the sinuses and ears helps a lot of people. I take allergy meds 365 days a year to avoid dizziness. Check with a doctor, specifically an ENT who specializes in dizziness.
– lowering salt intake. Salt intake can cause dizziness because salt causes swelling. Also check with doctor.
Others are backing up your comment about the physical therapy. If I hadn’t been all alone I might have tried it. I did watch a couple of demos on YouTube, but with my head spinning and feeling sick to my stomach, I wasn’t sure if I could repeat the movements properly on my own. If my husband had been around to coach me I think I might have given it a try.
I’ll be making some soup today, too, from a recipe in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune.
I tend to prefer gift wrap to gift bags. I turn to what’s on hand (shopping the stash, just like making a quilt) and I rarely have the right theme or size of gift bag.
About 15 years ago I was doing my morning calisthenics when those ear crystals slipped. It had never happened before. My PCP immediately got me into physical therapy. Even scarier was nystagmus — eye flutters. (Still don’t know how the BPV/ear crystals connect with eye muscles, but they do.) The Epley Maneuver that you refer to is easy (Barbara Kingsolver even had a character in The Poisonwood Bible use it!) and even more, it works! Though I had to learn about that from the physical therapist rather than Kingsolver.
I was lucky the vertigo subsided on its own. I just sat still in that chair for hours, dozing on and off, and eventually I felt considerably better. Still wobbly, but at least the room wasn’t spinning.
The soup was super tasty. I recommend the recipe. The rice called for was a wild rice blend, but I think any type of rice would work.
Oh yuck! So sorry you had to deal with vertigo! I have had it – actually just a bout 2 was ago – it’s nasty and can really wreak havoc. Glad you had Nurse Archie 🐶 hopefully it won’t rear its ugly head again anytime soon!
Love your neutral paper! Also, I love to wrap but use gift bags – think they are a wonderful “invention” as you can repurpose them!
If I am lucky, I won’t get vertigo again for another 15 years! It is so disorienting. Archie didn’t want to leave my side. He knew something was amiss.
Our pups are such a comfort!
I will definitely be making that soup! It will be perfect to go along with my cookie making next week. I think I need to get a rice maker though. I don’t have very good luck making rice.
I’ve had that miserable vertigo. Couldn’t put one step in front of the other, puking, it was horrible. The exercises really did help, but I am glad your symptoms went away on their own.
Have a wonderful healthy holiday! I am happy to see your hubby doing so well.
Your quilts are beautiful! Do you use them over a coverlet? I have some that lie on the top of the mattress very nicely, but then the sheets and blankets show, which I don’t like to see.
We have a rice maker and I always put Dennis in charge of it. It is super easy to use, really, and what I like best about it is that it is very easy to clean. So often in years past, I would make rice on the stove top and it would boil over and make a big mess. That never happens with the rice maker.
Physical therapy worked wonders for my vertigo. Just one appointment and it was gone.
PS: I love wild rice soup.
I wonder if you can just call up a physical therapy place and request an appointment? If I had to drive two hours back and forth to my doctor in the Bay Area and get a referral, it would be so inconvenient. If one of my local places would take a walk-in appointment, I’d do it in a flash.
Definitely try the exercise given for the vertigo. It works and is easy to do. My Doctor told me it’s common for gardeners… putting the head down , and those who lean under a faucet to wash their hair.
Interesting! I have no idea what might have set my episode off. Luckily it wasn’t as severe or as long lasting as the one I had 15 years ago. I also have no clue what I did to make it go away. All I did was sit unmoving in a chair for 10 hours!
Hello and good morning. I hope your vertigo is better. Do you have access to a physical therapist? It is the Epley maneuver that you can try. I can tell you from personal experience that it does work! Really. The dizziness is your brain literally trying to re-boot from the mixed messages coming from your whole balance system…haha…such a technical description! You can try it at home but a PT is worth the effort to get there. Feel better soon.
I have to try and see if a local physical therapist will see me without a referral from a doctor. We have some good ones in our town.
Yes, I have had vertigo and it is terrible! And I will attest to the effectiveness of the Epley Maneuver. It does work. Also it is handy to have seasickness pills on hand…..meclizine. The first time I had an episode it was really bad and the doctor said to go get a bottle of those pills. About mid morn I was able to get up and walk without nausea. I keep then on hand now!
About gift bags, I love them! I have a huge stash of the Amazon bags that I use over and over. I’ve gotten awfully lazy about wrapping gifts!
The soup looks delicious.
That is the best part of gift bags: You can use them again! I have to be careful not to recycle them too many times though. My mother in law used the same gift wrap for years and years and it seemed so frugal and sad.
It sounds as if you had a scary experience & being alone must have only added to the misery! Pets can sense when their humans are having trouble so Archie was on his game that day! Gift bags work for me! Often when I’ve wrapped gifts I’ll put them in a bag for ease of transporting or shipping. I can feel the excitement in your writing to have Ahren almost there!
Archie is very intuitive. Honestly, he follows me from room to room all day long. Leaving him home alone is going to be a problem now that we have taken down the big corral we used to put him in. A few times lately, if Dennis has been away, I have taken Archie with me to do errands, leaving him in the car briefly. Once the weather warms up that won’t be able to happen.
Yes, I am so excited to see Ahren. I wish he could be around all the time.
Nicole,
So sorry you went through that experience. Hopefully it will not be a recurring episode. My husband has been through it a few times. He found a physical therapist who specializes in doing the Epley maneuver and this was the best thing for him. Hope you have a wonderful non-vertigo day today!
I seem to be over it today, but if it ever happens again I will seek out a physical therapist.
I am so sorry you lost a day of “vacation”. alone time is so important and sparce. poo. kudos to the best boy, archie, for lending comfort. its the little things all round.
Archie was my little champ. He stuck right by me every minute. Of course, he seems to be Velcroed to me most of the time…
man, a lot of your readers have had it. I have not. I spent yesterday finishing up baking. today I’m making soup. so.much.to.do. so little time. the tree has been up for days with lights but no ornaments? seriously?
hope you get to sew or just read. having Thanksgiving so close to Christmas is just nuts.
I am really enjoying all the colored lights this year. More than the ornaments!
My sister Kate does a ton of holiday baking. She fills big tins with assortments of cookies and gives them out to so many people. She must fill two dozen tins with her amazing cookies. If one is on her cookie list, it is a very good thing!
Christmas was way too close to Thanksgiving this year! When I mention it, I get a “huh?” reaction from so many people, which I don’t understand.
So sorry to hear about your vertigo and hope it’s long gone and never to recur. Bother and bummer! A neighbor of ours when I was growing up was a nurse and she once asked my mother if the room was spinning or if she felt like she was spinning. I never heard what each situation meant as to diagnosis!
Thanks for the link to the soups! This is certainly a time when I miss being able to eat beef.
Hugs!
This is definitely a soup time of year. This persistent fog we have been experiencing is miserable. It goes straight to my bones.
Oh, that vertigo! I so hated that. Been there, done that. I heard about the physical therapy from my doctor and was able to get right in. The PT told me to lie down on the therapy bed and look at the door while I was lying down. I told her I would fall on the floor. I was very certain of this outcome. She promised me she would not let that happen. While I was going prone, she started laughing. I thought that wasn’t funny at all until she explained. My left eye was going bonkers trying to find equilibrium. That was the funny part. In short, two days of these simple exercises that didn’t hurt at all, my balance was returned! The world of normal was again mine! I was warned I could have more episodes within the next year and I did, but not as badly. I just did my simple exercises again. So I am a real believer in this. No surgery, no pain! Just results.
What do you do? You lie down with your eyes facing the wall straight ahead for a few times. Then you sit up and lie down on the side that seems the dizziest and look at that wall, windows, whatever a few times. You think you will fall, but you won’t if you make sure you are sitting far enough in on the bed!
Apparently, this puts those little stones in the ear right back in place.
Good luck! It is such story to have the world spinning!
I’ve got to try the maneuvers if the condition returns. Now that I am feeling better, I am afraid to move quickly lest I get the little crystals moving again!
Glad you are feeling better. PT is the best, but hope you won’t need it.
When I was in high school and early college I had a holiday job at a Wrap Store. Local gift/card shop offered gift wrapping plus you could bring in your own gifts and we would wrap. Seems like this was pre gift bags. We had the most amazing paper and ribbon that a customer could pick. Plus we had big counters and shelves and a very good system. Another service offered was packing the wrapped packages and mailing for customers. I loved to see what people were giving for gifts. My first bow making attempts were not so good, but I learned. No pre made bows allowed. At that time, most department stores did gift wrapping but the embossed stickers were too much of a clue to the contents. The Wrap Shop was happy to try to disguise a gift and put something odd in the box to make a rattle. For several years we had a gentleman that would buy perfume from a drug store for his wife but let us wrap it up special with silver paper and red velvet ribbon. So sweet that he wanted a pretty package. Another wrap customer was a grandmother, I presumed. She brought in 15 Rolex watches for her kids and grandchildren. As a result, I still love to wrap packages and make bows. Gift bags are not my first choice. My children and grandchildren do not get Rolex watches.
My other high school job? Worked at a bakery. Also very busy at the holidays. Now that I think about it, both places were very successful and had a developed system to keep track of customer orders. No computers, just a recipe type box with index cards and labeled shelves. Bakery surplus donated daily since everything was prepared fresh. Orders to the bakers (who came to work about midnight) just written on a chalkboard. Okay, too much. Sorry.
One of my jobs in college was that I was the gift wrap girl at a local housewares and gift shop. That is where I met my husband! He was the guy who helped with deliveries. It was his college job as well. We went to different schools, but ended up together over 50 years ago.
Oh, you poor thing! Vertigo is awful! I had BPPV a couple of times, but I never did the maneuvers to treat it. I also had it for about 2 months because of MS. I think the worst part of it all was feeling so worthless because I just couldn’t do anything but lie down. I hope that you can get to a physical therapist if it ever happens again, God forbid.
Your soup recipe looks so good. Taste of Home has been reliable for me as a recipe source.
Early merry Christmas.
I’ve had vertigo and I did go to a physical therapist and they did those contortions on me and it worked!
I’ve had vertigo a number of times, at one point was on medication for it because I had it all the time. I’ve never heard of that PT treatment, I’ll have to try it out. I’m delighted to see that Dennis can be away on his own for a few days at a time. Who would have thought that would happen a year or so ago? Such amazing progress!
People say the PT treatments are very successful. My issue is that I’d want to be treated immediately and not have to wait for a doctor’s referral, then for an appointment to open up with a therapist. It is so unsettling to experience vertigo, I can’t imagine suffering with it for weeks until one can be treated!
Isn’t is incredible the difference a year makes? Dennis is so improved!
I was so surprised to see your blog posts in Feedly again. How wonderful!
Oh, vertigo! I’ve had it off and on for a year and it’s awful. You can’t plan things because you don’t know when your head’s going to start spinning again. For me, it’s more like I’m spinning in one direction, whatever I’m sitting or laying on is spinning in another direction (and I’m holding on for dear life), and the room is spinning, too. I’m so sorry you had to deal with it. The physical therapist I went to recommended lots of water (at least as many ounces as half one’s weight in pounds, (such as 100# person should drink at least 50 oz. of water/day) and to sleep with my head elevated. That’s seemed to work for me, except when I miss drinking enough water, or decide to move the pillows.
I hope you don’t have it again very soon!
And one more note about the maneuvers: a physical therapist can determine which canal has the crystal out of place and do a maneuver specifically for that canal. There are four different maneuvers, not just the Epley. (If you go to a PT, make sure it is one certified to deal with vertigo.)
So glad Archie was there to help you through the day.
The soup looks delicious.
My posts are back on Feedly? I had been told they were blocked!