Sorry for the lack of an update this week – truth be told, I haven’t had the greatest weeks with most of it spent lying on the sofa with the comfort of a quilt and watching endless hours of television (or at least trying to!!) feeling particularly dizzy, weak, nauseous and with frequent episodes of the ‘room spinning’ motion.
It started Wednesday evening and I believe that the deterioration in my condition was due to the afternoon I spent at ‘Life 4 Living’; a local group I attend every week which promotes enjoyment, positivity and friendship. Don’t get me wrong, I love my time at the group, and is something that I really look forward to, however, this week we had a local singer coming to the group to perform and so we left the confines of our usual room to conduct the session in the Day Centre’s Main Hall.
Now as I may have mentioned before that one of the triggers that seem to affect me much more than anything else are high ceilings. The very first dizzy spell I experienced was in a DIY Superstore with vast ceilings and being in a place with high ceilings can bring on an attack of vertigo, causing my vision to become out of focus, balance becomes even more unsteady. I have no idea why these places affect me so much but they just do – if anyone knows any such explanation I would love to know!! The ceiling wasn’t particularly, much lower than what you would find to expect in a superstore for example, but as there was dips within the ceiling itself – progressing from higher to lower and so on just threw me for a loop – as if it was too much visual stimuli for my brain to process!
Unfortunately for me everywhere and every new store that is opening up seems to be big vast and open as well as the problematic high ceilings – as if the world I live in now no longer is fit for me, a lot of places coming out-of-bounds for me and my condition, nowhere being accessible for people ‘like’ me.
We had prior warning to the change of venue and knew what it was like in there beforehand so I was able to bring my Mum along for support and to help me if taken unwell. On a positive note, I did manage to stay in the hall for the entire group session (close to 3 hours) but even so I uncomfortable and unwell the entire time, and my balance was really bad also – thank god Mum was there to get me drinks and to help me get my food from the buffet. As much as I did want there, I just wanted to enjoy myself with my Mum whom I do not get to go out with anymore on account with the severity of my symptoms as well as the awkwardness of spending a long amount of time out causes due to the weakness in my legs, and Mum was also looking forward to seeing the singer perform so didn’t want to spoil it for her.
The most embarrassing part came towards the end of the afternoon when coming to leave my legs seized up on me causing me to crash to the floor!! But still a good time was had by all!
And since then, I have really gone downhill, legs weak I have hardly been able to stand and generally feeling weak and lethargic – as if those three short hours just took everything out of me. So here’s to a quick recovery in time for volunteering Monday and especially to the next meeting of ‘Life 4 Living’!!
