Spin

Two weeks ago. It's Friday night and my head suddenly wants to destroy itself. I'm stumbling to the bathroom, navigating a tailspin, piloting a paint shaker. Pushing the door with a numbing hand, I’m just in time to watch the entire night fall into the toilet. Even when there’s nothing left, my stomach continues to ring itself out like a bar rag, and I’m grateful for it. Such a strain acts as a kind of internal distraction; something else for my brain to focus on as I sit there waiting for the room to stop moving. Before too long I bring myself to my feet, flush the toilet, take one step into the hallway and immediately drop like a set of car keys as another bomb goes off in my head. Everything is spinning clockwise at 96,000 miles an hour and I can't raise a hand to steady myself. My only attempt at standing sends me into the wall and ending up prostrate to a black cat like an Egyptian slave. There is nothing I can do but lay on the floor in a sweaty heap and wait till this hellride ends. Thing is, I'm not alone. This isn't even my house. Still, even when that other person is dealing with this sudden situation in the best way possible and helping more than she realizes just by being there, I'm the one pushing my head into the carpet for the foreseeable future.

“Are you okay?” I hear her ask, equally curious and scared.

“No.”



Let's back up a little.



Early Thursday morning I go with a couple friends to hike at Pinnacles National Park. Seven miles of awesome views, pitch black caves lit by cell phones and ever-present condors circling for any dying hikers. I feel great the entire time. Afterwards, we go to Five Guys and I eat my weight in fries, because that’s just how much they give you and that’s just how stupid I am.

“How much do you weigh?”

“One-thirty. Why?”

“No reason.”

I get home, empty my Camelbak and see I'd only drank around 20 ounces of water. That’s basically one bottle and a big sip. I feel fine, but that’s not okay for a seven mile hike. I chalk it up to carelessness on my part and continue with my day, confident that nothing fucked up is going to happen or anything.

That night, I go out to eat sushi with my friend Dave. I reach for the door and feel everything start pulling to the left. The world sort of forces me to the ground and I sit there for a few minutes on the cement walkway, struggling to stay upright, wondering what the hell is going on. A Good Samaritan sees this and gives me a bottled water that’s somehow already cold. I thank her and realize whatever this is has died down. I take a breath before standing and we walk in. I don’t say much of anything the entire time, but not because I’m embarrassed or confused. It just feels like something in my head shut off and I’m operating on auxiliary power. Can’t brain. For the time being, I do not know what to say. Dave picks up the slack, because that’s what he does. As he speaks I stare at a fake plant near the door, trying and failing to focus on a single spot. I excuse myself to use the bathroom and just stand in there until my reflection stops moving. After dinner I drive home, which I probably shouldn’t have, even for the short distance back, because as soon as I sit down I am on the floor again, rolling around and wondering what the fuck is going on. Shutting my eyes somehow makes it worse. That alone isn’t weird enough, so my right arm starts to go numb, because WHY NOT. I call my parents to come take me to the hospital, losing feeling in my face as I speak.

The waiting room of San Leandro Hospital might best be described as a lost souls room with basic cable. Purgatory connotes that your situation will change and you’ll get to leave eventually. These folks are regulars. Some people just wear it like a birthmark. I can see it plain as day once I’m able to get a fix on someone without them breaking left. A few of them sleep through the wait, perched awkwardly in their chairs to keep the pain to a minimum or up on a table with the magazines pushed aside because who cares or a spot on the floor basically not in the way. I’m sitting across from my folks nearest the intermittently-unmanned registration windows, flanked by a security guard I’m reasonably sure I can take even in my current state. Mom and Dad look at me, their phones, or the door to their left. Anything else outside this loop would’ve just been depressing to focus on. Before too long, the opportunity to get an admission sheet and clipboard presents itself. I do my best impression of someone that can see straight and feel things and walk over to the desk without incident.

“Just go ahead and fill this out and bring it back and we’ll call your name when we’re ready for you, okay?” The desk clerk instructs me in a dead voice. Asks me without curiosity.

“Thanks…” I smile wanly, utter the name on his tag and forget it immediately.

I go back to my seat and fill out the sheet with my wrong hand. The numbness subsides as I finish and hand it back to no one. I go to tell my folks, both buried in their phones, and decide not to. Weeks pass. A man in the corner shifts in his chair, stifling a cough. Canned laughter emanates from the TV. I suppress the urge to tell them those are the same laughs from the Golden Age of Television and those are all dead people laughing and instead I say nothing and wonder why I do stuff like that. By and by I hear a woman with a heavy Southern accent somehow drawl my name.

After an EKG featuring another short attack, blood work done by a cute nurse I instinctively flirt with, a CT scan I had to be wheeled to because policy and a lot of waiting in a hospital gown to maybe hear the words “brain cancer”, they told me my blood and brain were fine and diagnosed me with labyrinthitis. Vertigo. Contrary to popular belief, vertigo isn't necessarily triggered by heights. It's an inner ear problem that affects your equilibrium, and it can happen wherever. Basically, calcium crystals that your body normally absorbs while you sleep get built up in your inner ear and throw off your balance, usually triggered by a sudden movement of the head. There are a few ways this can happen. In my case, after being sick for a long time, the illness manifested as vertigo, which isn't uncommon and is an entirely different type of shitty thing you don't want from walking pneumonia, which I had.

Just to be sure, I told the doctor about the hike and not drinking enough. He dismissed dehydration as the cause, but said delayed reactions can happen. Anyway, they told me it's temporary and to take it easy for a while. Sure thing. They also mentioned a slight potassium deficiency which explains the numbness, so they gave me an orange soda-looking drink that tasted like if Windex had sugar in it. Whatever works. The next night, I’m out with my friend Liz. We have a lot of fun eating too much Brazilian barbecue and bombing around San Francisco. We go back to her house and everything is going fine until it absolutely is not.