I have a new friend who is really special, at least for a neurotic person such as myself. Two of his sterling qualities are the letters that follow his name: MD. This is because I seem to have been chosen as one of God's test subjects for interesting yet nagging health problems that show up out of the blue and convince me I have only days, perhaps hours, to live. Having someone on the premises who can assure me that I should go ahead and order my snow tires for the coming winter with confidence is comforting.
The latest symptom which I assumed signified a brain tumor showed up yesterday morning. It turned out to be something fairly innocuous called "Benign Positional Vertigo" or BPV. (Right away I liked the name, since "benign" is possibly my favorite word in the English language, followed closely by "slender.") The syndrome comes without warning and leaves quickly in most cases--medical websites claim it can last only a minute or two, although my discomfort continued for about an hour.
What happens is something like this: Sometime during the night a minuscule, broken fragment of calcium deep inside your ear travels around upsetting your hearing and balance, and when you wake up and try to get out of bed, everything looks like the scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo when black and white spinning circles and crazy music filled the inside of Kim Novak's head. Mine was even more severe, closer to Mel Brooks in his own parody of that film, High Anxiety. My bedroom felt like this:
To have everything spinning around when you know you did not get drunk, take drugs, or do anything but put on your jammies and get into bed the night before is disconcerting; who wouldn't suspect a brain tumor, or at the very least a nervous breakdown? That's where a doctor friend comes in handy. Ed was able to put a name on my condition, allowing me to research it and learn it's nothing to worry about. My advice is to invite a GP or family physician to dinner as soon as possible. (Stay away from surgeons, they are little more than egomaniacal car mechanics.)
The latest symptom which I assumed signified a brain tumor showed up yesterday morning. It turned out to be something fairly innocuous called "Benign Positional Vertigo" or BPV. (Right away I liked the name, since "benign" is possibly my favorite word in the English language, followed closely by "slender.") The syndrome comes without warning and leaves quickly in most cases--medical websites claim it can last only a minute or two, although my discomfort continued for about an hour.
What happens is something like this: Sometime during the night a minuscule, broken fragment of calcium deep inside your ear travels around upsetting your hearing and balance, and when you wake up and try to get out of bed, everything looks like the scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo when black and white spinning circles and crazy music filled the inside of Kim Novak's head. Mine was even more severe, closer to Mel Brooks in his own parody of that film, High Anxiety. My bedroom felt like this:
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| Actor Mel Brooks experiencing BPV in the film "High Anxiety" |
who always think you need their services, pronto
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