My
experience over the years has taught me that it is invariably a good
idea to wait and think before I hit the “send” button. Today I
had the same experience all over again, and I am so glad that I
waited those few moments before I made the “send” or “not send”
decision.
Let
me set the scene: I came back from Thailand a couple of weeks ago
and promptly spent five days in the hot room. I expected it would be
a tough process for my body to rediscover this stuff all over again,
but it seemed to be going quite well until I turned over in class one
day to lay on my stomach, and that's when it hit me. Vertigo.
I
have had a few occasions in my life when the room was spinning or I
was a little dizzy, but never anything like this. The hot room was
moving rapidly around me, the floor was rolling underneath me – it
was all I could do to hold onto my mat to stop myself from rolling
off the edge. And then there was the nausea. It was quite a package.
I
spend the entire floor series of class lying on my front just praying
for the room to stop moving. At the end of class, I wait until
everyone has left the room and then shuffle on my backside across the
carpet to the door. Standing up is out of the question.
At
first I suspect an electrolyte imbalance – understandable given my
absence from the hot room for so many months and then five classes in
as many days. Yes, that's it – electrolytes. I can even feel the
pins and needles in my fingers to support the case. A coconut water,
and a heavy dose of potassium when I get home should do the trick.
I
stand up carefully and feel much better. After a few minutes I can
walk and things settle down and I can make my way home. Driving
seems OK as long as I keep my head still. Later that night, as I go
to lie down in bed, it starts all over again. It gets worse as I roll
over to one side so I try to sleep propped up on pillows with my head
upright.
I
believe that things get better in time; I cannot always support this
position and I don't think it will work with everything, like cholera or
frostbite or a gunshot wound, but my experience has been to wait
things out – be patient; don't over-react. Fortunately my wife
did not have this “wait and see” attitude, otherwise my children
would never have survived past infancy. An absence of medical
insurance also encourages this action. So I wait.
After
four or five days, there has been no improvement; I am still
incapacitated and my approach seems to be suspect. The next day I
start the internet research and begin to suspect some kind of problem in my inner ear. As I read more and see more
stuff on You-Tube and consult with my friends at the studio, I am
convinced that I have the most common form of vertigo, called BPPV,
or benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. It is a relatively harmless
condition caused by the dislocation of tiny crystals of calcium in
the inner ear (sometimes called “ear-rocks”) disturbing the whole
sense of balance and resulting in a serious case of vertigo. It is
amazing how messed up one can be by just a few specs of debris
breaking off from some other place in your ear and settling in the
wrong place. Normal life is interrupted.
Fortunately,
more research reveals that there are some relatively simple exercises
that can be done to dislodge the debris and restore the proper
functioning of the inner ear. I try the exercises and after about
the second or third attempt, I begin to feel some relief. The
exercises induce vertigo and severe nausea, but in time that all goes
away. There might have been other, more serious causes for the vertigo, but in this case I am convinced that it is this common BPPV.
So
back to today. I wake up this morning and the vertigo is so much
better but I feel like crap. Some alien body has invaded my
relatively healthy system: my head aches like crazy; my mind is all
over the place; I cannot focus or concentrate; I feel myself
slipping into a substantial well of self pity; I am miserable. I
want to do nothing but enjoy my suffering.
I
have promised my friend that today, ten days after the onset of this
rotten vertigo and about five days after my fix, that I will go back
to yoga – no backbends or movements that might induce the vertigo
again, but at least I will take class. But my mind is working hard to find
all the reasons why this is not a good idea. It has only been a few days since I "fixed" the vertigo; it could easily return; this is just way too soon. This is downright dangerous. I compose the
text message: “sorry but I cannot make it today; I feel like crap
and I am not going to the 6 pm class”. I hit “send”.
On
my phone, you have to hit “send” twice. The first time gets the
message into a queue and the second one actually dispatches the
packet of bits into the ether. I never hit the second time. I
stop myself and think about it. Many years ago, when I was in
the corporate world, I made a rule for me and the people who worked
with me that read something like this:
“If you receive an
irritating e-mail from somebody who needs to be straightened out, and
you are just the person to do it, then compose the message but wait
24 hours before you send the reply. Do not hit “send” when your
emotions are high.”
I remember that rule today and stop myself from hitting the second “send”.
I
know that once I send the message off into the ether, that would
be that; I would be off the hook. Then I would be able to get deeper into my
misery and refine how sorry I feel for myself. But I would not be
“straightened out”. There is a nagging uncomfortable truth that
pops up in the corner of my mind and will not go away. The truth
is that I know, deep inside, that I really need to go to that
class. It is going to be hard work and my head will ache and I
will feel sick and my vertigo will come back and I will be hot and
sweaty and, and, and...
And
I knew that I would feel better at the end of class. I always have
and I always will. There has never been a class that I have
regretted taking, and there never will be. I know that to be true.
So I didn't hit the second “send”. And I went to class. And
Jayna helped me. And all the students in the room helped me too.
Because that is what always happens. And the headache went away in the first breathing exercise.
Like Robbie says, "It's only a miracle if you turn up to receive it".
It's
good to be back.
