I have a confession to make: I think I’m pregnant. And I thank a man named Vertigo as the father of my child.
That’s what I told my doctor and she, too, got dizzy of laughing. But, really, my doctor countered, vertigo is no laughing matter.
Two Wednesdays ago, I woke up to a seemingly normal day. Outside my room, the 6-a.m. sun was already scalding. In supine position, I stayed a few seconds more in bed — my eyes wide open — as I murmured a little prayer. After a silent yawn, I got up, ready to do my toilet visit. The very short distance between my bed and my bathroom all so suddenly became labyrinthine. I managed to inch a few steps but already my world was rotating. It was a dizzying world in black and white, spinning like a frayed pinwheel even at the slightest breeze. I thought I was dreaming. I was alone in my room. And before I could shout for help, the dizziness knocked me out, leaving me literally flat on my face. Good thing I still landed on my bed.
Even with the air-con in my room still on, I woke up with kernels of sweat sprinting down from my nape. I could feel my sweat glands opening like a spring. The arch of my back became a little lake of perspiration. The part of the bed where I buried my face for about an hour after I collapsed was wet from my profuse perspiration. But like a real trooper, I woke up, again, and said, this time, a lengthy prayer.
There was light-headedness this time. No more pinwheel-world of existence. Finally, I made it to the bathroom. There must be something with the scent of Listerine mouthwash that made me feel well when I gargled after brushing my teeth.
Three more hours of lounging around the house was all I needed to feel okay. That day, I still made it to the office. As if nothing happened.
Thursday saw me readying for the gym early in the morning. I stooped as I looked for my jogging pants in my cabinet drawer. Suddenly, a million stars came into my system, blinding stars. I felt like an infanticipating woman, experiencing the morning sickness in her first trimester — complete with throwing up. No position was comfortable until I discovered that the most tolerable position was lying face down on the bed. If I turned my head either side, I saw the diaphanous canopy of the bed dancing like White Ladies, terrorizing my wit. I tried to lay flat on my back and I felt the ceiling was opening up, ready to eat me, the whole of me. So, I went back to lying face down. I was literally faceless the whole day. When I managed to stand up later in the night, I thought I left my eyes, my mouth, my nose on my pillow.
The following day, Friday, was no different. There was still unsteadiness. And my sense of balance was challenged. My sister Michelle at the Royal Orphanage where I live (I will tell you more about the orphanage again next time and my loving, beautiful family in this house in my future column) checked on me that morning. Sensing that I was still not well and that I had an ample resistance for a check up, she handcuffed me with her loving kindness and brought me to the doctor. I wanted to be brought to an obstetrician but she burst my illusion by delivering me to an EENT.
“Doc, I feel dizzy, like I am having morning sickness. I need to undergo a frog test,” I told the lady doctor. She laughed. And ordered me to have a hearing test instead.
Vertigo is a symptom, not a disease. That I learned last year when I was diagnosed as suffering from benign positional vertigo. It goes with age, with old age. I never knew being 38 is already old. Vertigo is characterized by dizziness, the spinning, whirring type that occurs as a result of disturbance in the equilibrium. And when balance is being talked about, the ears have something to do with it.
Vertigo itself, many doctors have told me, is not life threatening. What is dangerous is when it occurs while one is driving or going down a flight of stairs. Or in my case, it was threatening if I fell and hit my head hard on the floor. Vertigo is disconcerting. I had to stop going to the gym for a week for fear that the plates would crush me if vertigo would make love to me again while lifting. A friend had to let go of his love for diving because of vertigo (a diver needs to equalize a lot under the water). Though it does not occur for a long period, a person suffering from vertigo is clinically advised to take a rest for a week. Vertigo takes a while before it totally leaves one of the dizzying discomforts. It attacks with no signs.
The first time I had vertigo attack was when I over cleaned my ears. Yes, my doctor told me, over cleaning the ears affects one’s equilibrium. It was the eve of my birthday last November and I decided to part from my group and stroll alone in the Kuta area of Bali. I walked past a salon that offered all kinds of massage including ear spa. Fascinated, I tried the ear spa which was actually ear waxing. A very thin pane of wax was rolled — the tip was inserted in my ear while the other end of the wax was lighted. The process was akin to having a ventosa treatment, except that it was being done in both my ears. It was a very relaxing experience. I went back to my hotel room feeling rejuvenated. Only, when I woke up the following day, I felt I somehow lost my balance as I began to feel a little bit dizzy and unsteady. That nauseating feeling did not last for long. I still enjoyed Bali for my birthday. A few weeks after I arrived in Manila, I had successive spell of dizziness. That was the time my doctor told me I had benign positional vertigo and put me on Serc every time I would feel dizzy.
Anyway, going back to my pregnancy test, este, hearing test, I was found to have normal hearing threshold after a series of tests that included tympanometry, pure-tone audiometry and speech audiometry.
“What could be the cause this time of my feeling like pregnant? I asked the doctor.
“Have you been under stress lately?” she asked back.
I mentioned that to this day I still grieve the passing of my father early this year. She said the stress it has caused me added to my vertigo spell.
“What have you been eating the last few days?” she asked again.
Like a spitfire I told her everything that I put in my mouth the last few days. I wasn’t conscious that I sounded like I was ordering from a menu the way I enumerated the food I had been eating of late. And found out that all that I ate was very rich in salt. The salt did me. It was the cause of my pregnancy! And please, I was not ready to have a salt baby!
“Don’t worry, vertigo is manageable,” the doctor told me as she scribbled Serc on a prescription pad.
“Take that, you don’t want to feel pregnant all your life,” she laughed.
I, too, laughed as I took her prescription seriously.
(For your new beginnings, please email me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. You may follow me at www.twitter.com/bum_tenorio. Have a blessed Sunday.)