Driving to work the day after daylight savings time ends is always the worst drive of the year. It took me 40 minutes to drive 5 miles. Traffic was backed up everywhere – I think people forgot their sunglasses this morning.
(I’m not trying to elicit sympathy… just trying to chronicle my experiences living w/ vertigo for others who have the same problem.)
I woke up Monday morning with a full-on attack of vertigo. On my scale of severity, Monday morning was a 6/10. I couldn’t drive. I can usually manage driving with a mild attack but I wasn’t about to chance it. I did my vertigo exercises twice before I went to work and wished I had some topical phenugran (a really good anti-nausea medicine that you place on the inside of your wrists instead of ingesting it), but the last few doses I had in the refrigerator had expired in July. I’ve been trying to get a refill to no avail.
I knew on Sunday night when I turned over to my right side to sleep, that I’d have a bad morning. I usually experience a burst of vertigo when I lay down on my right side, but it normally goes away in 30 seconds or so. This time I counted to 160 and the world was still spinning.
Today is a 3/10. I’m functional, I can drive, but in the past 3 days I’ve made so many mistakes at work… I even brought down our entire development network yesterday. Vertigo makes me fuzzy-headed too.
I spoke to a friend of mine who’s training to become a TCM doctor (Traditional Chinese Medicine) – between him & a third-year friend of his, he diagnosed me with some liver dysfunction – and prescribed some herbs. After 15 years of vertigo, and “western” medicine failing miserably to treat it, I’m moving on to alternative treatments. This is the first…
These herbs are supposed to treat both migraines & vertigo… as well as stress – three things I’m dealing with a lot these days. I ordered it yesterday, to ship express. We’ll see.
One more interesting tidbit… I knew my body temperature rises & my blood pressure goes up when I have a vertigo attack, but never had the numbers to prove it. Monday morning I got a flu shot and the nurse took my temperature & bp – I had a mild fever, 99.3 and my bp was 130/70, which is high for me. Normally my bp runs 115/75.
I broke down & scanned some pages from my moleskine sketchbook from last year around this time and uploaded them to flickr. The Moleskine sketchbook is my first art journal…
here’s a couple of my favs:
When they decide to put chains across the tech department side of the building to enforce “discipline” on our part and a physical reminder to everyone else in the office that we should not be disturbed during the two hours per day we are to work on our “release” items.
Dear reader, I wish I were joking. I look outside my door and see a chain from one side of the hallway to the next with a “keep out” sign attached to it. I have to lift it to get out of my office (or go out the back door to my office).
It’s a fire hazard, I suppose – but as I said, management has a few screws loose, and I need to find myself a more sane workplace.
I love pens. Specifically pens with very fine nibs – 0.5mm is way too thick for my tastes, but it’s usually the finest point you can find in US stationary & office supply shops (not including artist pens… I’ve got lots of those, but to me they’re not really for everyday writing). That is, until I found the Uniball Signo RT pens that have a 0.38mm nib. These have been the only pens I’ve used for the past 4 years – nothing else will do for me. The fine, smooth, quick-drying lines are perfect for my moleskine.
One day I found Jet Pens – it’s a US-based site selling pens, pencils, deco tapes & such from Japan – and being a complete pen freak, I was in heaven. I was originally looking for some really opaque white pens I had seen mentioned by several of my favorite artists and found them there – the Japanese Uniball Signo White Gel Pen:
For months I was agonizing over how many to buy and what to stock my cart with to meet the $25 limit for free shipping.
Last week I finally took the plunge – after filling & emptying my cart about 6 times, I ordered three of those white gel pens and a Pilot Hi-Tec-C Cavalier Executive Pen with a 0.3mm nib in silver:
I checked the delivery confirmation yesterday around noon, and it was on its way to my mailbox. When I got home, I almost asked my husband where the package was before I gave him a hug & kiss hello… OK.. I did ask him where the package was as I gave him a hug and before I kissed him… I think.
Anyway, I tore open the package and dumped its contents on my junk-mail pile (aka the kitchen table). There they were. Three Uniball Signo White Gel Pens and the Cavalier.
I’ll put a review of sorts of these two pens when I get a chance to put them to some more use, although I did stay up a bit last night and play with the white pen…
