as some of my family members know, i have had minor tinnitus virtually all my life. at least, i think, since i fell off a 1.5-meter diving board straight onto the side of my head when i was in fifth grade.

this past summer, i managed to catch a hard-kicked soccer-ball on my right ear (the side with the tinnitus) as it rebounded off a goal-post, and the tinnitus naturally got a bit more pronounced. after a couple of months of dealing with it, i finally got a referral to an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor, who did a full hearing test (including conduction) who determined that the tinnitus was caused by nerve damage and was not the result of anything wrong with all those little bones in my ears.

i’ve also had an old root canal “go bad”. one of the roots had cracked and it was infected up under the tooth itself. earlier this year, the dentist sent me to a specialist, who ultimately determined with the crack in the roots there wasn’t anything he could do about it. great. i waited to talk to the dentist about it at my next scheduled checkup, which happened to be on Halloween. this was right in the middle of harvest out here, so my allergies were very active. so, i got my teeth cleaned, and afterwards, the dentist poked and prodded around on the infected tooth, causing it to leak a bit straight into the back of my inflamed throat.

the next day, i was sick as a dog. i got prescription and knocked it down to a dull roar, but since the tooth was still continually supplying infection into my bloodstream, i really didn’t get over the infection until a week or so after the tooth was extracted towards the end of November. so, here i was in December now, actually feeling pretty good, except i began noticing that my tinnitus was getting progressively worse. up through about the day before yesterday, when i decided that i would rather be deaf in my right ear than to constantly hear this damned noise, which effectively has hearing stopped in that ear anyway: the tinnitus is that intense. it has also changed from being a straight noise that isn’t affected by anything (pressure changes, etc) to a noise that markedly changed by alterations in pressure, direct contact, chewing, anything.

so yesterday morning, i’m sitting here at the computer working on a blog meme for the otherwhirled (i’ll get it posted after i post this), and i turn my head to the side, looking at one of the kittens coming into the room. my head stopped, but my center of gravity felt like it kept going. “That’s weird,” i thought. i turned my head back to the computer, and it did the same thing in the other direction. “Great,” i thought, “i had just a bit more than usual to drink yesterday and NOW i decide to get tipsy? what the hell….”

ten minutes later, and i was attempting to detangle myself from three cats (one on my lap and two at my feet), because i had to majorly hurl. my center of gravity seemed like it was literally anywhere. i wasn’t dizzy; the room wasn’t spinning, but i couldn’t stand unassisted. hell, i couldn’t sit unassisted. realizing it was primarily an issue of vertigo, which i have dealt with all my life when in high places (yes, even though i used to jump out of airplanes and rappel), i forced myself up the stairs to where i’d left my phone. i got hold of the Spouse Unit at work and asked if we had a Carbon Monixide detector in the house. we do. it wasn’t going off. (i thought of that first because we had some friends who got CM poisoning several years back, and that’s how they said it started). i was on the front porch, and began to realize that every time i move, it set off the hurl. and that’s move anything: head, arms, feet. it didn’t matter. it was sub-20 outside, and i was sweating like a pig. lovely. so, back inside to our master bedroom, then. on the way there, one of the kittens who was with me down in my office, and who is very concerned, very nearly got me killed by twining between my feet as i was trying to navigate past the staircase with the not-very-sturdy banister. i made it to the bathroom and just had to live there for about an hour. every time i moved, the hurl came on. didn’t matter which way i faced, up or down, left or right. i tried laying down and simultaneously realized we hadn’t cleaned the floor in a while and that laying down didn’t help. eventually, i tried calling the Spouse Unit again. sitting up to do that, i was so overcome with vertigo and shakes, hyperventilating, that all i managed to do was lean on the number “3″ on my phone (her work speed-dial). i don’t think i managed to say anything. eventually i just lay down again and worried about the fact that every movement made me hurl, including turning my head to the side, which i needed to do so i wouldn’t choke. i was pretty much helpless and extremely pissed off, and all i could do was listen to the tinnitus raging so loud i couldn’t hear anything else in that ear, including when one of the cats came in to check on me and was meowing like crazy. i thought he was on my left, and i reached out that way, only to feel him bump me with his nose on my right cheek.

i don’t know how long it took, but the Spouse Unit got an ambulance out there to me. nothing like having strangers walk in on you laying on the floor in your own bathroom. (like it was the morning after a frat party or something. at least i was fully dressed.) they got me off to the hospital, where eventually the Spouse Unit hooked up with me. the intern and the doc checked me out, and eventually determined that i’ve got Benign Positional Vertigo. apparently, the infection didn’t completely go away, or it at least left behind my semicircular canals (your balance center between your ears) full of fluid. that’s why the tinnitus is so pronounced and why it can be affected in ways it couldn’t before (pressure changes, etc). so now i’m on motion-sickness medicine, and fighting the drowzy. they gave me a double-dose there in the ER, and i was a good boy and took a dose later yesterday evening, but i didn’t take one this morning. now that i know what to expect, since i’m not having to drive anywhere in the next few days, and i’ll take some meds if it starts coming on again. at least it gives me a few minutes to react to it. and i’ve got to be awake to do client work, which i’m now another day behind on.

but that’s where i’m at, and why i was incognito yesterday. i’m fine, i believe. the meds incidentally help dry up the inflated canals, so i might take one tonight just to keep that going. but the tinnitus, though lessened, is starting to drive me crazier than i already was. am. whatever. but, i’m back among the living, and feel like i owe the Spouse Unit my life…again.