The Hellish Handbasket Blog

  • Happy 11th anniversary to my vertigo

    I don’t actually remember the day I first experienced benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, commonly known as BPPV. It was 2015, I remember that. My mother was contemplating a move into an independent retirement community. That was the summer my Ford Focus emitted its last puff of toxic smoke. After we moved her in, I walked home in hot sun, feeling so light, so free. I thought, now finally, my mother is safe and reasonably happy in a place of her choosing. Maybe I can get my balance back.

    Alas, ’twas not to be. BPPV dogged me no matter what I did. I got in the habit of shaking my head to keep the ear crystals from settling. Unlucky for me, by the time COVID wrecked our lives, my malady had evolved into something else, something that my increasingly desperate Epleys and Carol Fosters could not cure.

    2020 was a bad year for all of us. I’m fortunate I didn’t have to deal personally with illness, other than facemasks, bleach wipedowns, and fear of running out of TP. However, my cat died in January of that first terrible year. The heat in my apartment gave up. Black mold outpaced my efforts to hold it back with bleach. My vertigo and rattling ear took on a one-minute rhythm. I started counting: How many seconds of torture (15), how many seconds of relief (45).

    My mother died in January of 2021, not from COVID but from an ordinary blowout in her gut. Old age catches up with us all, if we live long enough. I moved to Tucson four months later. April 24 would have been my 5-year anniversary in the desert.

    As is often the case, wherever we go, there we are. My head went with me to Tucson. The new ENT couldn’t help me. I was sent to vestibular testing. Nobody knew what was wrong. I did my own research and found a name: vestibular paroxysmia. I was referred to a vestibular neurologist. I had a brain MRI/MRA. Was there a vestibular nerve problem? The results were inconclusive. I was diagnosed with vestibular migraine. I started taking a drug for both illnesses, just in case.

    More than ten years later, my rattling ear and recurring dizziness are a part of my life. I still shake my head, even though that habit doesn’t do anything but strain my neck. The medication helps with the vestibular paroxysmia. However, when the barometric pressure changes, up or down, the vestibular migraines kick in. The pressure in my head can be intense, and the rattling in my ear ratchets up to intolerable.

    If the weather stabilizes, my ears adjust. Sometimes I feel close to normal. Normal for me means I can tune out the noise. I can stand upright without fear of falling. Spring weather in the Pacific Northwest is volatile, so these days, I’m toughing out, hoping summer will be better. If it gets really bad, a nap is the only remedy.

    All this rehash of years of blogposts is preface to some trivial news: I bought some special earplugs. They were designed to help with pressure changes during airplane flights. They are also recommended for migraine prevention and mitigation of symptoms. They weren’t expensive so I ordered them, and I’m wearing them now. They are a pleasant shade of lavender. They look like corkscrew-shaped silicone earplugs but the documentation says don’t immerse them in water or they won’t work, so maybe there’s some magic in there. I can hope. Like I hope unicorns exist.

    Do I notice a difference? Is the placebo effect real? Does a bear crap in the woods? I can’t say for sure, because I’ve never seen a bear crap in the woods, but it’s possible I feel a little better. Even if it’s just my brain trying to fool me.

  • A rabid introvert walks into a writer’s group

    It finally happened. I joined a group. You might not think this is odd, probably because you are somewhere further toward extravert on the introversion-extraversion spectrum. I am an extreme introvert, therefore I rarely join groups. And if I do, I endeavor to remain on the fringe, preferably near the door, so I can bolt back to solitude at anytime.

    My sister suggested I need to make friends in my new town. I always listen to my sister’s advice. Thus, on Friday evening, I joined a writer’s group.

    At 4:00 p.m. I walked from my apartment to the local library. Before I left, I checked the sky. Cloudy. I hoped the rain would hold off for a couple more hours, but it’s the Willamette Valley: You never know. However, I chose to carry my mother’s cane instead of my umbrella: I knew it would be dark when I walked back, and I figured keeping my balance over uneven sidewalks would be more important than staying dry. It was one or the other, I couldn’t carry both.

    I got to the library early, as is my wont, and after a few minutes, a woman arrived and entered the conference room. I followed and introduced myself to Vicki, the leader of the group. She was friendly and welcoming. Later, after I found out her last name, I looked her up. She seems to be a prominent member in the local nonprofit world but I couldn’t find an author website.

    Soon other writers arrived, until there were seven of us. We sat in cheap wheeled office chairs around an oval conference room table. People introduced themselves by their first names and reported their writing genres. Science fiction/fantasy, poetry, slice of life, and me, cozy fantasy. Although to be honest, my first book wasn’t all that cozy, and I don’t think my new project will be terribly cozy either. But that is another blogpost.

    Anyway, the assignment was to come up with five words as a prompt to write for twenty minutes. Breakable, inevitable, levitation, hope, and my contribution, tornado (or some variation on those words). I had brought a lined journal in anticipation of taking notes, so I was ready. Vicki set a timer, and we got busy writing. Three people had laptops, one of which failed at the outset, much to the vocal dismay of the laptop owner, so most of us wrote on paper.

    Twenty minutes later, we stopped writing and started sharing. Vicki chose the person to my left, going clockwise, so I was last.

    It quickly became clear that (a) I was not a terrible writer, and (b) everyone wrote significantly more words than I did. While I spent the twenty minutes paring the five words into a concise, tight, minimal paragraph, they were writing pages of somewhat aimless ramblings (that’s my opinion as a listener). Good news for me, though. Apparently, conciseness is not a requirement. (So noted for the next meeting.)

    One of the poets wrote a poem—no big surprise. The other poet wrote a description of something that happened to her, I guess a slice of her life. The guy to my left wrote some kind of quasi-philosophical self-reflection. The fantasy writer across the table (who teaches math and science at the local high school) wrote something about magic, levitating elves, and forests (I can’t remember details, sorry, I’m not an audio learner). The woman with the dead laptop wrote about her chickens. Vicki wrote a scene from her current project, a science fiction novel. (The legs of the landing craft stirred up small tornadoes.)

    Not realizing the assignment was about maximizing quantity over quality, I wrote what I thought was a smart witty little gem:

    When the tornado ripped off the roof, I knew I was in trouble. I thought my best hope was to cast a levitation spell, but the magic was slow to rise. I sighed. Breakage was now inevitable.

    Yep. That took me the entire twenty minutes.

    After that, only Vicki had something to read to the group, so she proceeded to regale us with the ongoing story of outerspace miners coping with life on a spinning asteroid. A husband and wife leadership team showed some lovey-dovey, and then the captain got to work on the day’s dilemma: Who could she hire to deliver their next shipment of water?

    I drew pictures in my journal to stay present while she read in a flat tone. To be honest, even if she had read with some excitement, there would have been nothing much to get excited about. I could not discern any real conflict. No envy that the wife was the captain, not the husband. No fear that the station might run out of water. Not even much worry about how a supply ship would deliver supplies to a spinning, tumbling asteroid. As bored as I was, I was relieved that my writing was no worse than hers.

    My conclusions: (a) She needs an editor, and (b)I’m going to fit in well with this group. If it’s not snowing, I plan to return next week.

  • Welcome back to the land of S.A.D.

    Now that I’m housed, instead of doing van chores, I do apartment chores in my nice warm dry apartment. Doing van chores in the rain sucks. Getting wet while fetching tools from the trunk gets old, especially when you have only one jacket and a limited number of dry pants and socks. Doing apartment chores is easier in the sense that you don’t get wet while you do them (unless you are scraping turkey poop off the back patio). However, indoor chores, for me anyway, are hard because I keep stopping to stare morosely out the sliding door to see if the rain has stopped.

    Rain west of the Oregon Cascades is named based on intensity: Mist, sprinkles, drizzle, showers, downpours. I’m sure there are more labels. A day of rain has often been referred to as a slogfest by one of my favorite former Portland meteorologists.

    I’ve set up my computer desk, AKA camping table, facing the patio door so I can monitor the current rain status. If the clouds appear to be thinning or lifting, if I can see a hint of blue sky or see a patch of sun on the grass, I quickly throw on my rain jacket and put on my walking shoes. If I’m lucky I can get a half hour of dry walking before the rain returns and I get drenched.

    I have seasonal affective disorder, AKA S.A.D. I’m pretty sure I’ve had it all my life. I dread fall because it inevitably leads to winter, my least favorite season. When I was an adolescent, if the sun was shining, no matter the temperature, I would lean against the thick trunk of a fir tree staring at the sun through my eyelashes. Not a good idea, I know, but I was driven by desperation.

    S.A.D. for me manifests as brain fog. You could call it mild depression. If I get enough daylight, the brain fog lifts. During the winter, it takes hours of being out in daylight. Sunshine is the cure. I used to have a lightbox. Maybe it was my imagination, but sitting in front of it close enough to smell the negative ions pouring from the vent seemed to help.

    As I got older, my S.A.D. symptoms shifted to spring. April and May became months of melancholy. At one point, I made the mistake of telling a doctor about my brain fog. The doctor sent me to a psychotherapist, who prescribed Prozac. The antidepressant depressed a lot of things but did nothing for the brain fog. In June, I felt much better. The improvement in symptoms confirmed my S.A.D. self-diagnosis. Now I consult Dr. Google, who in my opinion is a lot smarter than that psychotherapist.

    Household chores right now involve unpacking and organizing. I like being reunited with all my possesions, meager as they are. I don’t have any furniture yet, so I can’t access some of my stuff, books, for instance. But it’s satisfying to see them in the clear tote bin that is serving as my credenza. It’s fun to get organized. I now have three analog clocks ticking on three different walls. No matter where I am in this tiny apartment, I always know what time it is. Well. Does anyone really know what time it is? But let’s not get all philosophical. I’m just talking about cheap Target wall clocks.

    In addition to getting organized, it’s fun to fix things. For example, after I perused a helpful DIY YouTube video, the stove burners are now level. I’ve scraped a little paint off the floor. I applied a few drops of “tranquility” aroma therapy oil, which I’ve carted around for 30 years for some unknown reason, along the baseboards by my bed where I saw a few ant scouts. The ants find it distasteful. I’m not sure I like it either. Just a few minutes ago, I squirted extra strength spray glue to readhere a couple fake wood vinyl floor planks that were lifting up in front of the patio door. I’m not sure if it worked, but it’s always fun to spray glue.

    If you’ve read this far, and I’d be surprised if you have, you’ve probably figured out that I have basically nothing to blog about. Nobody bugged me over the holidays. Walmart was calm, even a few days before Christmas. The cashier wasn’t snotty. The weather has been typically wet and chilly but not snowy or freezing. The shower water is hot, the toilet flushes (toilets are amazing), the fridge works . . . really, I can’t find anything to complain about. Didn’t I post last week that I’m still a chronic malcontent? Maybe I was wrong. Other than this stupid cold season, I don’t have much to moan about.

    You are probably saying, but Carol, if that is the case, what’s the point of having a blog? To that I would say, go spend your time doing something with actual value, like, I don’t know, watching a Heather Cox Richardson video or getting sucked into a Korean romcom. Just about anything you can think of would be more enlightening than reading this blog. But don’t expect me to stop posting. For me, this blog is better than any psychotherapist.