Not the cool Alfred Hitchcock kind of vertigo

So Saturday, as I laid back on the floor in my stretching routine, the room — not so much spin, but it felt like it was rocking. I had vertigo. Which is way unpleasant, even in mild cases.

As it could theoretically be something serious, I hit the nearby urgent care. They said as it could theoretically be something serious, I should go to Duke E/R for a CAT scan, just to determine it wasn’t intercranial bleeding, a stroke or the like. TYG drove me down (as I mentioned Monday) and the staff went into emergency triage mode because strokes are manageable if they’re treated fast. Much to my amusement, several residents showed up to watch the process, just like on an episode of Scrubs. I was a teachable moment!

Impressed though I was with their swiftness, once they determined I was not in peril mortal, the swiftness disappeared. I got out of the CATscan around noon. 4 PM we were still waiting for someone to wrap things up and remove the various wires and IV hooked up to me. And we couldn’t get to the cafeteria — I just had to wait on the bed, staring at my surroundings (above).  Good thing we both brought plenty to read.

The fun trip finally wrapped up a little after four; while I don’t doubt they had higher profile emergencies to tackle (this was, after all, the emergency room) it wasn’t as if they had to give me a long consult before sending me out into the world. Just here’s the money, here’s the prescription, here’s a flyer on anti-vertigo exercises. bye now! So it felt very long and frustrating, particularly as we couldn’t get from where we were to the cafeteria to eat during our stay.

This sucked up most of Saturday and with my vertigo, I had to settle for Amazon delivery Sunday rather than food shopping, or doing much else. Still I do appreciate the speed with which everyone got me treated. Just in case it hadn’t been harmless.

Tuesday I say my regular doctor and she went into more detail about the exercises. It’s a lot of head twisting to get everything inside back in alignment, and it’s helping. It’s unpleasant, and involves a lot of initial nausea, but I do feel better afterwards. So I’m feeling much less miserable now.

#SFWApro.