The Selfish Hours

This wasn’t the summer I had planned.

Three weeks ago, a change in my medications triggered a vestibular flare, and just like that, my plans for the summer got drastically changed. No gym, no puttering in the garden for hours, no walks with the dogs, no easy mornings on the deck with a tea and a good book. Some days I could barely move through my own house without the world tilting sideways.

I had grand plans for this summer, the first one where my time was actually my own in over 40 years. Strength training, my garden, the birds, the books. And instead, my body had its own plans entirely. The hardest part was the timing. I had just finished work 5 days prior and the day my mom was arriving to visit for two weeks…whammo. The vertigo hit like a freight train. I was dizzy for the entirety of her two week visit. I had made reservations at my favourite spot in Jasper so I could show my mom the mountains and all of their beauty. Those plans were cancelled pretty quickly when I realized I couldn’t make the drive, even if someone else was driving the car. We did manage one outing while she was here though. We went for high tea at the Fairmont Macdonald Hotel here in Edmonton. It was lovely. If you haven’t had that experience yet, I highly recommend it.

As lovely as that afternoon was, I was not able to shake the disappointment of having my mom here and not being able to give her the visit I had wanted to.

After three long weeks, I’m finally on the mend for which I am genuinely grateful. I’ve started vestibular rehab therapy which is basically controlled bouts of making yourself dizzy in order to help your brain recalibrate so that the dizzy signals eventually disappear. If you have been lucky enough to never have dealt with vestibular issues, the timeline for recovering is very unpredictable. You don’t just feel a little better each day until you’re fine. You’ll have a good day, feel like yourself again for an hour or two, maybe push a little harder than you should because it finally feels possible, and then the next day you pay for that. You are right back where you started, or worse. Frequently it feels like one step forward and two steps back with no clear pattern to the when or the why of it. My first experience with vestibular issues was in 2016. Since then, whenever a flare has hit I always hear the phrase from the Simon and Garfunkle song but sung by Disturbed…Hello Darkness My Old Friend. Because to me, thats what it feels like.

That unpredictability of recovering normal functioning is both frustrating and exhausting honestly. It tends to feed fear and anxiety because you have no clue how long it will take to feel better. Its hard to stay in a positive mindset when you can’t trust your good days to mean something.

After three weeks I am able to tolerate limited screen time and can now watch tv if I sit far back from the tv, but I am able to read a physical book for 40-50 pages at a time before my eyes need a break. I am so thankful for that. For two weeks I was only able to sit in my chair in the living room listening to podcasts or audio books occasionally glancing at the tv screen while the family was watching. The days seemed to drag on.

So I count my blessings that I’m able to function more normally now and I try to take each day as it comes, with gratitude for what I am able to do and without needing to promise anything about tomorrow.