Not much balance

I lost a lot of money on Friday. Almost $1000 all up. First, I dropped the car off to get its $42 pink slip for registration and got a call an hour later to say it would need four new tires to pass.

Sigh.

Then I went to the doctor about feeling dizzy. I had to walk there because of the tire situation and it was very exhausting trying to stay in a straight line as I keep listing to the right like a drunken sailor.

The doctor got me to do all these hand-eye co-ordination things and everything went pretty well until he told me to reach out and touch his left index finger with my left index finger. I couldn’t. My finger started wobbling and it was really hard to keep it moving towards him.

Eeeeek.

So I’m getting a very expensive MRI this morning at 7.15am to make sure my brain/ear is OK.

Walking back home again from the doctor was even more difficult than walking there because I was physically AND emotionally wobbly at that point.

After I paid for the new tires I went home and stress ate every chocolate biscuit I could find in the house. So now I feel fat as well as dizzy.

I’ve spent the past few days touching things with my left finger and had no problem at all. I also don’t feel too dizzy in the mornings now, just the afternoons and evenings. But I think it will be worth getting the MRI just to check.

I’ve been dizzy on and off for about 18 months. It started with what I thought was a loose crystal incident in New Zealand, a day or two into my holiday. The doctor reckons it wasn’t crystals because I only had about three head spins then I was fine. Crystals cause problems for much longer than that.

I had a couple more head spins at the gym a few months ago and I’ve been noticing I get dizzy when I close my eyes in the shower. There’s also been a vague feeling of nausea that’s been dogging me for ages, which I put down to stress.

Actually, I am wondering if stress has something to do with this. Healthline says that even though stress doesn’t directly cause vertigo, it can contribute to dysfunction of the part of your inner ear that controls balance.

My body reacts in violent ways to major life events. A terrible workplace situation led to me having heart palpitations about 10 years ago. Having my second child kicked off multiple disaccharide deficiencies. My marriage breakdown caused psoriasis.

The past two years have been another difficult time. I would go to bed every Sunday night feeling anxious and wake on Monday mornings filled with dread.

I’m still a bit naive at 52 – I always think that if I do better, things will get better. But sometimes it’s not about that and no achievement will fix the toxic dynamic.

A friend asked me on Friday what I would do differently if I had my time over again and I said “left sooner”, which pretty much applies to all the major life events that have damaged my health.

Hopefully I’ve finally got that straight in my head … and will also start walking straight again soon.

Song of the day: Split Enz “Straight ol line”