This blog post has been 15 years in the making, almost half my lifetime. If you're thinking we didn't really have the internet and blogs back then, you'd be right. It's not that I've been writing this post since then, but the events detailed here have taken this long.
Trust me I'm a doctor
If you take two things from this post, morals if you will, they are these: never taken a doctor's word as gospel and the things you thought you knew change on you. This post will be of interest to anyone who feels disappointed, short-changed or unsure after an appointment with a doctor. I too often accepted a diagnosis from a doctor, even when it didn't feel right. I have a problem with authority figures, underneath I see them as humans, just as fallible as the rest of us, but I always quail before them. Carefully rehearsed speeches go out the window when I enter their office. So I quietly defy them in that I do my research afterwards and thank goodness for that or I wouldn't be where I am today. The registrar wrote me off yesterday; it was my last appointment with him and I'm now in the hands of the physios. In the nicest possible way, he hopes to never see me again and I couldn't agree more. My Mum got a bit teary as this has been years in coming and she praised me for sticking with it, holding my ground and forcing the doctors' hands. I just see it as coming down to a mixture of desperation and stubbornness, but there must have been some self-belief in there too. The victory is bittersweet for me because of the time it's taken, the toll it's taken and the things I've missed out on because of it. But finally, it's at an end. I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down.
One word of warning: I've always been open and honest about things, so here's me being open and honest about my health and if it helps one person either understand me or themselves better, then this post has done its job. So if you ever wondered about me, my clumsiness, vagueness and my anxiety, or your own clumsiness and dizziness, then read on.
Have you ever felt dizzy with no apparent cause? Does vertigo plague your life that can't be put down to anything else? Do you get anxious for no particular reason? That's been my life ever since I was 16, when I started to have attacks of vertigo that came out of the blue, that incapacitated me so I can't lie down without making it worse, I can't walk in a straight line and I can only find one position when the room isn't spinning: half sitting and half lying down in a weird position. These attacks steadily got worse and more frequent. They lasted one or two days and knocked my energy for longer. A common misconception is that vertigo is the fear of heights, but that's acrophobia. Vertigo is one of the symptoms of acrophobia, like when you look down at the world far below and everything starts spinning, that's vertigo. It feels like a combination of being drunk without the good bits and the worst hangover of your life. Some car journeys, especially those along winding country roads, can feel like a rollercoaster. General day to day life is made harder, particularly with concentration levels and my energy is sapped quicker.
Vertigo
Over the years, I've been diagnosed with many different things, as the symptoms got worse. First a GP diagnosed me with labyrinthitis and was given tablets, but when I went to see a specialist, they told me it couldn't be labyrinthitis because the vertigo didn't last long enough. Then I got diagnosed with migraines, but the next specialist palmed me off with tablets which gave me distressing side effects. So I stopped taking them, plus I didn't think it was migraines as I didn't get headaches or any other symptoms apart from the vertigo. Then after a particularly bad bout, I was told it was Menieres and that there was nothing that could be done. I couldn't accept that and researched it. I'm stubborn and curious, a bad combination most of the time but not with this and it was just as well I am. One of the firm symptoms is hearing loss, so I went and got a hearing test. You can get a test done for free from Boots, but you have to pay for a copy of the results. So I went back to the doctor, again being referred by my GP and was told it couldn't be Menieres as I would have hearing loss if I was experiencing vertigo. My hearing is actually better than average and one good thing that has come out of this protracted diagnosis is I've discovered why I am so acutely sensitive to high pitched sounds like cutlery, because I hear it louder! The amount of doctors I've seen, pills I've taken and shouldn't have and diagnoses I've been given is depressing. Anyway, after a few simple balance tests last November, I received the diagnosis I had been waiting for: a correct diagnosis at last. I have vestibular damage to my right balance organ.
No one knows why it happened; it could've been a blow to the head, lack of blood flow or a virus, which is the most probable. But suddenly my life made sense, why I'm clumsy and am always bumping into things, why I can't walk in a straight line in the dark, why I have difficulty travelling and always get car sick. The attacks of vertigo over the years were the organ gradually degrading. It was a confusing but enlightening time for me. I was a gymnast, I've even got a certificate to prove I could do a cartwheel across a beam, so why did I suddenly have no balance? As the attacks of vertigo only happened once in a blue moon, I never connected the two until much later.
Blue moon
However after this epiphany moment, I received no more help; I just had to live with it. The only suggestion was to exercise, maybe do some martial arts. I exercise every day and I tried to do some martial arts, but it was impossible, because I couldn't balance. But like the passive, non-confrontational and introverted person I am, I let it slide and just carried on regardless. Until a heavy head cold knocked me sideways and I had to go on heavy duty motion sickness medication to even function. I wasn't going to take medication if I could help it, so I forced an appointment with a specialist and finally found a doctor who not only listened to me, but gave me time. He was as determined as I was to get to the bottom of it. From this point on, I couldn't fault Addenbrooke's Hospital or the NHS; they have been brilliant. After years of suffering, just living with it and getting on with things, I've finally been told the definitive cause, well, two causes: BPPV and a damaged balance organ on the right-hand side. The BPPV is easily fixed though.
BPPV stands for Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. It's basically where calcium deposits in the brain are dislodged and float around where they shouldn't be. The fix is a series of nauseating and mildly painful head manoeuvres to move them back. BPPV causes positional vertigo, which means vertigo if you look up or down, or hold your head in a certain way and if you roll over, or if you do anything with your head too quickly. It blighted my sleep as I toss and turn a lot in bed. So whenever I rolled over from left to right, I'd wake up or sleep more shallowly because of the vertigo. to be fair to the doctors, mine was very subtle and it's not surprising that they missed the eye movements that they look for by hanging my head over the edge of a bed.
They did quite a few tests, including an MRI of my head to rule out anything sinister, pumping my ears with water which was horrible, tracking my eye movements with funky knightrider glasses and balance tests. As for the damaged balance organ, it is very weak and may yet get worse, nothing is certain with this. I've lost 77% and it means I'm permanently off kilter and unbalanced. This may seem very very bad, but apparently like you can live with just one kidney or just one lung, you can live with just one balance organ. You just have to retrain your brain and reset your balance. So I'm seeing a physio and hopefully I will have my equilibrium back. My body grounding itself and my sight, they are as much balance organs as the balance organ. I know everyone gets motion sickness to some degree, anyone who has tried to navigate around their own house in the dark or rides rollercoasters for instance, knows what I'm talking about. My body gets royally confused and takes ages to reset itself. The symptoms may wear off for you after 10 minutes or so, but for me, it could be days. After long car journeys, I've lost a day before due to not being able to sleep because even with the light on, the room starts spinning the second I close my eyes and with no sleep, the next day is shot. Your balance comes from three things: your eyes and brain, your body and your balance organs. With one of them out of action, I only have my eyes and body. When either of those are compromised, I'm screwed. So if it's dark, if there's a disconnect between my body and eyes like when I'm travelling or even in crowds and everything is moving so fast around me, that's why I get the vertigo.
Here's a rollercoaster I can't believe I went on: the Dragon Khan at Portaventura, Barcelona
Lastly, I've written about this before, written about it on this blog before, but for the same amount of time as I've been living with vertigo, I've been living with anxiety and panic attacks. I always thought that the vertigo was a symptom of my anxiety and it can be. But it turns out, while it doesn't help as hyperventilation and irregular breathing can make your head swim, tense your body up and cause dizziness, the anxiety can also easily simply be a symptom of my balance problems. If the world feels off kilter, if you're permanently off balance, if you have no equilibrium, then of course you're going to feel anxious. And anything that exacerbates the symptoms would make you feel anxious, like public speaking when you have stand up for a while, often higher up than everyone else, like travelling and like socialising. I always thought that the anxiety caused my physical symptoms, racing heart rate, sweating and yes dizziness, but it seems too much of a coincidence as the anxiety and vertigo attacks started around the same time, that they are completely connected. My anxiety has a physical cause and if I can get my equilibrium back, maybe I can live anxiety-free. But that's a false hope as it's been too long and my body has got used to being anxious. If I get stressed or excited, by going on a rollercoaster for instance, which I wouldn't do anymore anyway because of my balance problems, but I would get the same symptoms as anxiety and it would bring on a panic attack as the increased adrenaline is now a signal that my body takes to induce a panic attack. So there are certain things I have to be careful of doing now. I even had to leave Centre Court at Wimbledon when I was there for the London 2012 Olympics because the excitement at just being at a place I had longed to go to ever since I was a kid became too much and it induced a panic attack. Stupid, right?
Me at Wimbledon Centre Court
My body has been doing a good job over the years of compensating, of living with the low grade nausea, of the world whirling around me. It never ceases to amaze me how adaptable the body is. But it also means I have many habits to break that I have built up over the years to cope with it all, some may be too ingrained to change, but we'll see. The physio has already identified a few bodily and posture problems. She has given me the exercises to reorientate myself, to allow my brain to get used to having only one balance organ. It's the only treatment. But she's also given me exercises to help realign my knees. I felt like a fraud in the gym at the hospital as there was a guy in there with an obvious brain injury just trying to get his limbs moving again, so I have him in mind the next time I feel too tired and want to shirk doing my exercises. I have a long body and short legs and I hunch over, not from being lazy, but because I'm trying to lower my centre of gravity to help me balance, or at least that's what I tell my Mum now after her years of nagging me to sit up straight! I also can't stand up for too long and when I do, I put my knees together for support, I even cycle like that. This has weakened my knees and I could start having problems in 10-15 years and even with my hips if I keep cycling the way I do. The impact that this has had on my body and mind is incredible. It will be interesting to see which things are genuine causes of anxiety and which are generated by the vertigo. It will be a journey of discovery, but one I'm more than happy to embark on. I'm determined to get over the anxiety if I can, to sit up straighter and to live my life more. Battling the balance problems took a lot of energy, so here's hoping I have more to play with! Most importantly, I have an answer, a reason and explanation for something that blighted my life for far too long and this bittersweet victory is all mine. I can change.
If any of this seems vaguely familiar to you, any of the symptoms, then read on.
BPPV symptoms
Does your Mum always tell you off for not sitting up straight? It may not be laziness, but because it isn't comfortable dizziness-wise. Having your head at a weird angle may help and you may be doing it unconsciously like I have.
Have you always thought you have low blood pressure, even though you've had it checked and it was fine? Do you find it difficult to stand up for too long, feel dizzy after standing or sitting up too quickly and get head rushes? This may be BPPV because sudden head movements or prolonged time with your head at a certain angle can cause dizziness. You can imagine what it was like working at a computer for me. My concentration was shot!
Did you used to be a heavy sleeper, turned into a shallow sleeper and then a very light sleeper? It could be down to rolling around, tossing and turning in bed at night. This might be due to stress sure, but it could also be rolling from right to left or left to right, depending on what side these damn crystals are at. I used to wake up with vertigo, with my covers off the bed or tangled up because of it.
Vestibular damage symptoms
Do you dislike travelling, not seeing new places or holidays, just because of the travelling part? Not for the usual reasons of the time it takes, airport angst, fear of flying, traffic jams, motorways and sea sickness? When the plane banks, does it feel like you're going to pass out? Can you not look out of the side windows of a car without feeling dizzy, even on the shortest of journeys? Do busy places make you feel anxious? Anything going at speed around you, whether it's when you're on a train or in a car or people walking fast around you, anything that confuses what speed you're actually moving at can bring it on.
Have you never particularly liked theme parks or rollercoasters? Going upside down is the worst thing you can do for balance and to disrupt BPPV as well, for obvious reasons.
Have you never liked, not enclosed places or due to claustrophobia, just places you can't get out of easily like planes, lifts and caves? Banking in planes makes me feel like I'm going to pass out. Lifts make me anxious. Caves are usually dark so see below.
Are you scared of the dark, or did you not get over your childhood fear of the dark until later in life? For me it was my 20s, was this why? No light means I have no means to orientate myself. The balance organ is the only thing you can rely on in the dark and mine is compromised.
Are you clumsy, always bumping into things, falling off curbs, up stairs...? Do you have to look straight ahead when walking, can you not look down or up or side to side? I can't count how many times I've injured myself or sprained my ankle because I haven't kept my head on an even keel, I've been looking at something up in the sky, behind or around me. Of course, again, bad things happen when you're not concentrating or concentrating on something other than walking, but you don't get dizzy generally.
Are you teetotal or near enough? I never really got into alcohol, apart from a brief misguided time as a 16-17 year old. Was it because the vertigo attacks were like being drunk, but without the nice bits? Why would I induce that, make it worse?
Question these symptoms and see what you come back with. You'd be surprised how many of us are wandering around with damaged vestibular organs and/or BPPV.
Right, please dismiss the words that follow as completely naive, but I've been moved to write about library branding after being inspired by all the fabulous blog posts I've read on the subject, such as those from Library Wanderer, Blog On and rampersandk. The same as the first two, when I google myself and check my online identity, there are millions of people with the same name as me as I also have a very common name, but it was mostly taken up with a certain wedding dress designer. Despite being intimidated; some of the posts made me feel like I was facing a 150mph serve from Andy Roddick, some were more subtle like a sliced Nadal backhand; I feel I have something to say on the matter. I am coming from an entirely different angle, I won't use another tennis reference, I promise. Wimbledon has finished now and I must let it go.
I work in a business school where branding is obviously very important and not only for our students, we even have a department trying to maintain a consistent image. This has its own problems. How can you have one brand for everyone, for an entire organisation with all its departments? So my trick is don't try and just be yourself. Here's Will Young, unashamedly being just that:
It has nothing to do with branding, it's just called Who Am I, is one of my favourite songs and a fantastic video. It's a song about being honest, unashamedly, unequivocally and uncompromisingly yourself. As I was a late developer in this sense, not developing my own identity until I was sixteen; before that I was just a sheep, a clueless sheep; I am now adamant that I won't be anything less than myself. Plus I am very impressionable and my sense of self is very shaky. For example, my boss was trying to convince me last week that my second favourite film of all time, The Princess Bride, doesn't even exist and I almost started to doubt my own mind!
A lot of people have been concentrating on themselves rather than their job or their organisation's brand and this is where it gets tricky. I find it very confusing if I think of myself in terms of my job when putting things out there in the public sphere; the lines can be so easily blurred. I have my own Twitter @judgesarah account and maintain our @JudgeInfo account too, we have our own site and I have a blog and I email as myself and as part of my job, that last one from the same address. The way I see it, as long as you aren't representing your organisation, you can be yourself. Whether it means I have different names for my Twitter, my blog, my facebook, is all for the better as you are catering your "brand" to the specific audiences. If you haven't seen it yet, here is a video of Phil Bradley's brilliant CILIP Wales speech comparing web 2.0 applications to the various incarnations of Doctor Who.
Twitter for me is predominantly my work image, though I can't help a few more personal things coming through, my blog is simply for anyone who cares to happen upon my random musings and facebook is now unfortunately all old school and uni friends. So it makes sense that they will all be different. You can't admit that your favourite TV series is Alias in a place where your colleagues or students will see it, actually... I would, but most wouldn't. That's why having students friend you on facebook, like one did to me very recently, is a contentious issue. Even I, who claims to be open and honest in all things, in writing this post, have realised that I unconsciously "brand" myself.
So I guess, you need to tread carefully when it comes to branding, consider your audience and the people that will see what you're writing or creating. The idea for this post came to me when I thought of Merlin; like the eponymous wizard, you need to think about what you reveal to whom. And yes, as all the people who've read my blog posts before will know, I did mean the title to rhyme so much. That's just me. I reference popular culture as much as I can, namedrop my favourite actors, films and music, litter posts about LibraryThing with Shakespeare quotes, use Travis songs for the titles of my posts and I rhyme whenever I can. And I have no plans to change, if only on here...
No, not librarianship, though I do find books beautiful, especially after looking at bookporn’s Flickr photo gallery. And yes I do know the Travis song I’ve used to title this blog is about the Iraq war, but it works and is surprisingly apt (all you can do is “stand there watching it happening”, there should’ve been an intervention, especially to save Isner who looked like he was about to drop, and someone should’ve called the United Nations about cruelty to tennis players). I’m now going to use and abuse this blog to talk about one of the great loves of my life, tennis. I have never been prouder to be a tennis fan after watching last night’s match between the Frenchman Nicolas Mahut and the American John Isner. Unluckily I had to come to it late, but I watched it until the end, which was about 21:30, when Mahut unwisely but understandably brought it to a halt due to poor light and Isner against all comprehension wanted to carry on. By the end he couldn’t even hold his towel and was carrying it in his mouth, he picked up a banana and then though it’d be too much effort to eat it and he looked delirious with exhaustion standing statuesque yet still serving impeccably and somehow returning the ball as well. It is certain that the winner will go no further in the competition as they will have been playing for 3 days, over 10 hours and run the equivalent of a marathon which takes months to recover from. I’m rooting for Mahut by the way as, and I’m going to come across as smug by saying this, I pointed him out as one to watch in 2007 when he got beaten in the final at Queen’s by Andy Roddick; he’s been injured since then so he couldn’t capitalise on that promise. As for John Isner, he won the warm-up event to this and did well at Queen’s. By the way, Mahut had to qualify for Wimbledon and has had to play two marathon five-setters before this and it is still only a first round match.
H. Blair
If you ever talk to anyone who truly follows tennis, you’ll find that they can be just as passionate about the beautiful game as football fans, and what’s more, they’re great advocates for the sport. As a comment from my previous blog post said, thank you LucyLike23, “Now, after reading your post, I want to watch tennis - though it is not usually my cup of tea.” So I’m now going to try and convert everyone.
I can’t remember when I fell in love with tennis, but it was doubtless due to Tim Henman and definitely Wimbledon. It was probably that year he almost got to the final, but because of that damn rain delay... least Goran Ivanisevic won that year. I love tennis because the match and the winner’s lead can hang by a thread; one net cord, one wrong line judgement, the weather, one literal slip, one mental slip... anything can affect the match. A match can turn as quick as you can click your fingers, that’s why you never want to leave it. Whereas with, football say, you can go and get a drink and not miss anything; the roar of the crowd or the commentators will alert you if anything’s happening.
I’ve been writing this blog post in my head ever since I woke up before 6am this morning; unfortunately I haven’t had time to write anything down so I’ve forgotten most of the assuredly great stuff I came up with. For once, hyperbole, superlatives and clichés can’t sum up that record-breaking historic match last night. It’s like watching Usain Bolt or Michael Johnson or Torvill and Dean (and John Inverdale was right; Mahut and Isner will be forever linked), you can’t believe what you’re seeing but it is really happening. It’s unprecedented, unbelievable and entirely unexpected (the first time, and this is the first time and the only time; we’ll never see the likes of this again). You just can’t believe your eyes or ears and to paraphrase Johnny Depp Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, “Not impossible, but improbable.” Everyone I talk to about it just shakes their head in disbelief. I’m not going to even try and describe the indescribable. In what other sport can you see players carrying on into practically total darkness (like the 2008 final), matches spanning three days (without rain delays) and a match go on for 10 hours? And it’s still going on! It could only be tennis and only at Wimbledon. Wimbledon has treated us to some awe-inspiring events over the last few years, and I truly mean awe-inspiring as it has left me in admiration of the players. First there was the Nadal and Federer final in 2008. I was on holiday at the time and I started watching it from the beginning in the afternoon and it was still going, obviously, late into the evening. Me and my entire family were having a meal out in a restaurant and I kept racing over to look at the TV screen in the bar. After a while, the staff just let me take my food and eat it there and after my family had finished, they came and joined me. Then there was last year’s final, which I mentioned in my previous post, I can’t think about it without tears coming to my eyes. Roddick was two sets and a break up, usually an unassailable lead, and he still lost.
Getty
If you’re in any doubt how historic, important and significant the Mahut and Isner match is, it will almost definitely change the rules of tennis, at least at Wimbledon if not the entire sport. For me, I don’t think they should change it, just as you shouldn’t change the rules due to one singular event; this will never happen again, it’s an anomaly and a beautiful one at that. McEnroe is wrong, they should finish the match where they started it, on one of the most outside of outside courts, court 18, and not Centre Court in front of the Queen. I've invented a new term; there's break point, game point, set point, match point and championship point, now there's save point (for when you hold serve). In this match, every time Isner or Mahut held serve, it felt like they'd won. Every time they took a few points off the other's serve it was momentous. Every time they got a break point it felt like a championship point; Mahut saved three match points as throughout the last set he was serving to stay in the match. The statistics are incredible as they have literally broken all the records in tennis, not just Wimbledon, apart from the ones for the quickest, obviously. The one that gets me is the last set, already, is longer than the longest match ever and it is 3 normal matches in one. Even the scoreboard couldn't keep up and gave up the ghost at 47 all; humanity beats technology yet again. As Federer said, perfectly as he seems to do in everything, it was all "too much."
Oh and we won some football match too, which was also amazing, but for entirely different reasons. Why, with all our world-class players who are some of the most famous in the world, do we still scrape through by the skin of our teeth, runners up to a country who calls it soccer? The USA deserved to come top by the way; they should’ve won the match they played against us. Least the cheating French are out of the World Cup. I loved it when James Corden replaced France with Ireland in his TV show line-up. Mahut could teach his countrymen a thing or two about national pride, sportsmanship and determination. Both Isner and Mahut could teach football players a thing or two actually, about stamina, teamwork and being a sportsman. That's why I love tennis for the drama, the game and most of all for the characters.
AELTC
The war of attrition starts again at 15:30, will you be watching?
Thank you Icky Pic for the above photo, long may the sun continue (at least for Wimbledon). At last something really easy. I haven't had any reason to use Flickr before, except for the pictures that are integrated into Google Earth which is an awesome feature of an awesome application; it enabled me to follow where my brother had been on one of his holidays, so I knew what and where he was talking about. However I will certainly be using Flickr more in future because there is a veritable goldmine of wonderful photos on there. I immediately added RSS feeds of Sir Cam's and bookporn's photo galleries onto my iGoogle page (no screen capture as I'm on the wrong computer). I've also added Google Analytics to my blog, not much yet but it's only been one day. I particularly love bookporn's latest absolutely beautiful photo of a dilapidated building with decaying books, which I can't add to this blog either due to copyright issues. Check it out for yourself, it's titled "Last Folio." I'm always frustrated looking for photos via Google Images and with the tag option on Flickr, searches should be much more interesting and hopefully relevant, should being the operative word whenever tagging is involved... I've no need to create my own account though as I already have a shared gallery my brother set up. Me and my family use it to show each other what we have been up to, for holiday picture slideshows (often over Skype) and just to show off our prowess with a camera. Here's one of the gems:
That was taken at the Barcelona Open this year. It was the only opportunity I had of a photo with Rafael Nadal as he did vamos; he never even turned up to the tournament, but I've forgiven him. The gallery's particularly useful as my eldest brother lives in Barcelona and he's always off somewhere, so we can keep track as to what he's been up to. However as an image bank, there is nothing quite like Flickr. Here is an awesome photo I found, which is very apt at the moment:
Thank you Kol Tregaske who caught Andy Roddick out practising on one of the Wimbledon courts the day before he won in such stunning, strong and supreme fashion last night. I want him to win this year as I can't think of last year's final without tears coming to my eyes. Come on Roddick!
"Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a, a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and, and, and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a... it, uh, it has no... no texture, no, no context. It's, it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then, then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible, it should be, um, smelly." Rupert Giles, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
