Vertigo

I wish this were a blog post about the classic Hitchcock movie with the cool poster.

I woke up yesterday with the room spinning. I thought, "Hm, that's weird. Maybe I'm still groggy." I got out of bed and proceeded to quickly fall back down on it. "What the heck is happening?"

Oh, vertigo.

The best way to describe it is like having "the spins" after drinking too much. Only without the drinking part.

Unfortunately, the web has a ton to say about the possible causes of vertigo, including Meniere disease (hearing loss), acoustic neuroma (tumor and hearing loss), cerebellar hemorrhage (brain bleeding), Multiple Sclerosis, etc.

But there are also the less serious inner-ear-infection-induced vertigo, migraine-induced vertigo, and Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). Although not verified by a doctor, I'm pretty sure I have the last variety.

So news to me, there are tiny calcium carbonate crystals (otoconia) that hang out in the inner ear and usually dissolve naturally. But when just one of these crystals decides to take a field trip into the semi-circular canals, it pushes on tiny hairs lining the canal. The hairs act as sensors, giving the brain information about balance. Vertigo happens when the rolling crystal stimulates the hairs.

Treatment?

This:

Apparently this particle repositioning technique (which I tried yesterday) gets rid of the vertigo on the first try about 85% of the time. I am in remaining 15% because I still have it today -- although not as bad. I guess the little crystal has a little further to travel, so I'll try it again tonight. If BPPV isn't the culprit, well...... then it's back to the drawing board.

Meantime, If you'd like to join me in the vertigo experience for a second, just stare at this painting entitled "Blaze" by one of my favorite artists, Bridget Riley. (You can thank me later.)

Deadly drink

I have to start by saying I feel like kind of a hypocrite writing this post. I drank in college. I continue to enjoy wine and beer and the occasional mixed drink, and sometimes I get a little carried away and pay for it the next morning.

But this morning I'm writing about a young man who didn't have the luxury of paying for it the next morning. Because he died.

Just before I left the office yesterday, I learned that my coworker's nephew had been found dead of alcohol poisoning. He was in college, pledging a fraternity.

So many words come to mind.... horrible, tragic, heartbreaking............... preventable.

So often we hear news reports of situations just like this, where college frat parties quickly turn into alcohol binge fests where the goal is to out-do one another to see who can down the most booze in the shortest amount of time. Drinking games like the "power hour," "century club" and others often can -- and do -- result in DEATH.

"Alcohol poisoning occurs when a person consumes an excessive amount of alcohol. Alcohol can depress or stop nerve signals that control breathing and the gag reflex that prevents choking. As drinking increases, the person will become sleepy, or fall into a stupor. Ultimately, the respiratory system becomes depressed, and the person can stop breathing, causing death. Commonly, comatose patients aspirate their vomit, resulting in vomitus in the lungs, which can cause asphyxiation and death." (WebMD & Wikipedia)

The story told to my coworker's sister-in-law by one of her son's roommates is that his soon-to-be fraternity brothers set a case of beer in front of him and said, "drink." And he did. And he died.

The really sad and angering part is, there is nothing that can be done to change this. Even with all the preaching and lecturing and fact-presenting and awareness campaigning and M.A.D.D. and S.A.D.D. demonstrating, fraternities and sororities will continue with their drinking rituals, college students will continue to drink to excess, and young men and women will continue to die.

Scary.

Scary that alcohol can have such power. And even scarier that we let it.

My heart breaks for this family. There is now a mother without her son, a sister without her brother, an uncle without his nephew. And now, the "if only's" and "should have's" will begin. Because that is human nature. We punish ourselves in situations like this because our feelings of helplessness and guilt force us to. But nothing can bring him back, and that fact alone is punishment enough.

There is no happy ending, no silver lining. This kid is dead. A senseless waste of a precious human life.

That is all there is to say.