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I have SUCCUMBED.

~ thedailydish ~ 15 Comments

Some of you already know what I am talking about.  But for those of you still thriving on your own, who haven’t been party to my day-long ramble of comments, pokes and pokings, I am hear to say.

I have LOST MY FREAKING MIND.

I have joined the Borg-like collective otherwise known as Facebook.  Unbelievable, I know.  I have resisted for SO LONG.  I hate Facebook.  Still do.  But when I googled my best friend from HS yesterday and saw she had joined, the urge was IRRESISTIBLE.  WHY???  I have no idea.  Perhaps the thought of interacting w/ her even marginally proved too enticing.  Our friendship has waned over the years, and we now live 5,000 miles apart.  But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my first 24 hours on Facebook, it’s that none of that matters.  It’s not how long since you last spoke or interacted, nor whether you’ve even actually met in real life.  Once a friend, always a friend.  At least on Facebook.

Unfortunately. one day on Facebook has taken 2 weeks off me in real life.  I stayed up till nearly one o’clock in the morning last night.  Facebook took control.  I was searching for names as fast as I could type.  Anyone and everyone I’ve ever known.  To see whether they too had joined the massing throng.  And many more of them were there, than weren’t.  Oh some I knew would be there.  Others I’d never have imagined.  After 5, 10, 20 years, some I wouldn’t recognize if we passed each other on the street.  Others – WOW.  Time has stood still.

In the past 24 hours I have reconnected with over 60 people.  I can hardly believe it.  From one to the next – reaching out to each other like we’ve never been apart.  Like a cyber-reunion on crystal meth, it’s been SPEEDY FUN.  But it’s also exhausting.  I haven’t thought about half of these people in years.  Many ask what I’ve been up to.  How do you summarize such enormous parts of your life w/out omitting crucial details & emotions?  I left a doctoral program.  I worked professionally.  I got pregnant, I got married.  I was consumed by motherhood.  I lost a child.  I have been plagued by a disease.  We’ve moved.  A lot has gone on.  And not just for me, but for ALL OF US.  Every person I’ve friended on Facebook has a dozen or more stories to tell, not of minutia but of monumental change.  Frankly, it’s a little hard to digest overnight.  Last evening, I went to bed late and I didn’t sleep well.  I found myself waking periodically, wanting to check my Facebook page.  I spent this morning half-awake, absorbed by the thought of him or her, and them.  The Collective.  Trying to wrap my head around the concept I had resisted for so long, and the reality that is Facebook.

And also wondering.. inevitably.  WHY?  Why has so-and-so NOT responded to my friend request.  Hmm.  Maybe they are not obsessive computer users?  In hospital?  Out of the country??  WHAT IS GOING ON?!  Am I not COOL?  Facebook.  Although it brings pleasure, all this reconnecting and reminiscing w/ old friends also makes you feel a little like that person back in high school.  Wondering whether you are popular.  Or popular enough.  Whether so-and-so is thinking bad thoughts about you.  Or, conversely, someone is thinking about you a bit too much.

Twenty-four hours in.  I am spent.  Too much time on the computer does that to me.  It’s why I don’t Tweet.  Why my blog posts are often few & far between.  I much prefer living my life outside. in the real world.  Where I have far fewer friends.  Till tomorrow, anyway.  When that urge to check my Facebook page rises up, and once again.  Our thoughts are one.  Linked together by a billion strands of interwoven cyber friendship stretching far, far into space.  That’s right.  I am now on Facebook.

Living with Meniere’s

~ thedailydish ~ 32 Comments

I get a lot of hits on this blog. Some of you visiting are my friends and family, but others of you are strangers desperate for answers.  Whether you’ve found me through a google search, or have clicked through from The Daily Dish, it is for you that I write this post.  You have been drawn here b/c you, like me, suffer from Meniere’s Disease.

I don’t talk about Meniere’s very often, mostly b/c it’s so damn depressing, but today I am breaking the silence.  Yesterday the dizziness came out of nowhere.  One minute I was fine, the next – nearly on the floor.  Why?  Good question.  It could be a myriad of things, from food to motion to emotion.  But often it’s simply a change in the weather.  Barometric pressure can do funny things to a girl.  And as fun as it might sound to be a human barometer, it’s really not.  Right now I am practically strapped to my chair.  I walk the hallway, steadying myself with the walls.  Living w/ Meniere’s Disease is a literal roller coaster, and most often I try to ignore it away.  But today I can’t.  On days like this, the best I can do is stay calm.

What is it like, one of these episodes? Well. For me, they vary. Take today. I feel dizzy. Unbelievably so. There’s an intense pressure in my head, which gets worse if I move a certain way, or stiffen up, or cough or sneeze or chew – or pretty much do anything. I feel like a top that’s been wound too tight, about to spiral off into the universe.  I am trapped inside my own body.  Like a prisoner, I have no control.  So here I sit. Feeling sorry for myself. I know these episodes pass. It’s not forever.  But it’s hard to reason w/ yourself when you’re feeling so bad. Today it’s the dizziness. Other times, it’s my hearing. First comes the pressure.  I try to coax my ear from its hissy fit.  With increasing desperation, I try to keep it open.  I pop it, over and over.. but it’s no use.  Soon my ear closes off to the world.  The tinnitus grows, my hearing recedes.  Once again, I am half-deaf.  I am alone again, inside.

The doctors try, but they can’t do anything for me. Really. It’s amazing how medicine has made such strides, but so much remains unknown.  I get very philosophical when I’m like this. Forgive me. But I can’t stop thinking about it all.

Why I hate vitamins.

~ thedailydish ~ 17 Comments

Growing up w/ a nurse mother, I was hounded daily to TAKE MY VITAMIN!  Flintstones chewables weren’t bad, but b/c they were mandatory I resented them.  Their grainy texture, metallic taste, the stain they sometimes left on my teeth & tongue.  By comparison, my best friend (one of seven children) was never offered vitamins at home.  She used to come over and when my mother wasn’t looking, she’d take the bottle and eat them by the handful.  This always scared the crap out of me, as my mother cautioned against that sort of thing, but the over-supplementing never seemed to do anything to my friend, good or bad.

From childhood through early adulthood, I took a daily multivitamin.  Every single morning, along w/ my frozen waffles, cereal, or scrambled eggs.  It was rote.  Once I hit my twenties, I added calcium pills to the regimen.  My mother, the nurse, was always going on about preventable osteoporosis.  How too many women my age were forgoing milk in lieu of water or diet soda.  How my entire generation was going to be hunchbacked by 2040.  So I took them, thinking I was doing myself a true service.  Unfortunately, vitamins didn’t keep me from getting Meniere’s Disease.  Something I was diagnosed w/ at the age of 31.  As a Meniere’s sufferer, I was put on a strict low sodium diet, limited to 1500 mg or less per day.  I had to account for everything I consumed.  I noticed the multivitamin I was taking listed several types of sodium on the label.  Not salt, but sodium.  Hmm.  Was this “bad” sodium?  I went to the pharmacy to compare brands.  All of the vitamins contained at least one type of sodium, more often several.  I was stumped.  Should I worry about the sodium in multivitamins?  Could it exacerbate the Meniere’s?  I asked the pharmacist.  Who didn’t know either.  I went to a different pharmacy and then another.  I asked my mom, I asked my doctors.  No one knew.  So I stopped taking vitamins altogether.

That was 6 years ago.  Recently I have begun thinking about osteoporosis, wondering whether I am getting enough calcium.  I’ve always had a tendency towards slouching.  I slump when I sit in chairs, I’m hunched over right now as I type.  I hear my mom’s voice echoing through my head, I envision myself having to shop at Big & Humpy.  For the past week I’ve mulled over the idea of supplements.  Yesterday I happened to be at the pharmacy and finally said what the heck.  I picked up calcium pills and a multivitamin for good measure.

I took them first thing this morning.  I thought YES! as I swallowed them down w/ a glass of water.  But after a short time, I noticed something.  Everyone says vitamins are good for you, but I felt sick as hell.  First, they made me burp.  I have no idea why, but they did.  I burped all day long.  These burps smelled (and tasted) terrible.  Before you say OH YOU FORGOT TO TAKE THEM WITH FOOD, no way.  I took them after consuming a full breakfast.  But even w/ the food, they still made me feel queasy.  Like having morning sickness all day long.  And no I am not pregnant.  I normally have a stomach of steel.  These stupid vitamins, which everyone touts as being supremely good for you, they make me belch, they make me want to wretch.  It is awful.  I hate these terrible sick-inducing vitamins.  Earlier I went to the supermarket, and felt dizzy.  Yes, I do have Meniere’s Disease, and feel dizzy quite a lot of the time, but this was different.  I was pushing the cart and felt like I might topple over from gag-producing illness.   That was VITAMIN dizzy.  I am sure of it.  I hate you vitamins.