When I was little, spending a day at a carnival tons of rides on the Tilt-a-Whirl. I loved that swirling in my eyes that continued for a while after I got off the ride, and then I\u2019d do it all over again.<\/p>\n
I hate that ride now.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m on that ride constantly.<\/p>\n
![\"Contributor](\"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/sarah-bromley-362x500.jpg\")
Over several years, chronic vertigo has taken over my life. Vertigo is the illusion of motion when you\u2019re at rest. It\u2019s a dysfunction of your vestibular system, comprised of your inner ear, ocular, and proprioception (balance) systems. What you hear, see, and feel. Any of those get messed up, so do you. Vertigo makes you dizzy, and sometimes you want to puke. Sometimes you do.<\/p>\n
My first migraine hit as a senior in high school and left me dizzy and wasted, but this vertigo was an insidious fog that crept in slowly over six years. It\u2019d come and retreat. The next time it crept in further before crawling back. I didn\u2019t know how bad it\u2019d become until two years ago when I got out of bed one morning and watched my room spin upside-down before my eyes. My brain couldn\u2019t process what I saw, and I face-planted and couldn\u2019t get up. That\u2019s called a \u201cdrop attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vertigo doesn\u2019t only make everything spin. You become disoriented, even in your house. For me in happens while cooking because it\u2019s too much to keep track of. It blurs, and I wind up lying on the floor and pray my kids don\u2019t see my like that. I get tired. My words slur. I stumble, and my speech gets halted. I sound like I\u2019m drunk. In the middle of the day. When I\u2019m talking to my agent. Or my son\u2019s preschool teacher. People talk, you know. And it\u2019s all because my brain is so focused on trying to stay up right that it lets go of other functions.<\/p>\n
Last September, I went through a battery of tests. Multiple sclerosis. Brain tumors. Lesions. Aneurysms. Meniere\u2019s Disease. Lots of tests few answers.<\/p>\n
I had pain, too. My brain didn\u2019t seem to fit in my skull. My writing crawled to a halt. I couldn\u2019t read because scrolling with my eyes brought on vertigo and violent nausea even with medication. Watching the letters pop up as I typed was worse. It got to the point where I was swallowing numerous pills for relief that wouldn\u2019t come. I sought out alternative treatments, which were only Band-Aids.<\/p>\n
Severe, chronic vertigo associated with migraines like mine is a \u201csilent\u201d disability, one people can\u2019t see. Many people are compassionate. But others lack sensitivity, assume you\u2019re faking it or just have a headache and will get over it. The worst is the assumption you\u2019re a pillhead looking for a high. \u201cMom\u2019s got a migraine and is popping pills again.\u201d (Often said with an annoyed eye-roll.) We\u2019ve all heard that on TV or read that in YA novels.<\/p>\n
It\u2019d be so much simpler if it was like that. God, would it.<\/p>\n
This past Memorial Day weekend marked the first time in sixteen years, since I was a teenager, that my husband Tim said, \u201cHoney, I\u2019m scared.\u201d He didn\u2019t say those words when my parents were dying. He said them now though, and he said them about me<\/em>. For five days in a row, I\u2019d been sick, curled in a ball, too disoriented to move and maybe perked up enough to update Twitter or Facebook but not much else. I realized that, if I had a regular job and wasn\u2019t a stay-at-home-mom\/novelist, I\u2019d be on disability. I\u2019d stopped functioning.<\/p>\n Depression and I are already intimate. Both my parents died when I was younger. They were both physically disabled, and I began to see shadows of their limitations in what I now live with. And it terrified me. I have three young kids who need me, and I could hardly function for them. This disability had made me angry and bitter and sad, and I have always tried to be warm and compassionate \u2014 for Christ\u2019s sake, I entertained becoming a palliative care nurse at one point. I regularly volunteer at stable for disabled riders because I love it, but I have far more in common with my riders than I realized. Yet every day had become such a struggle that I couldn\u2019t wait to sleep again. It took years to realize I even had a disability, and it took mere months for it overtake all aspects of my life.<\/p>\n Recently, I began vestibular rehabilitation with an amazing physical therapist. After five weeks of backsliding, she said I had to get my tail in to my doctor, and he got me in for an emergency appointment with a neurologist. I now have an actual name for what\u2019s going on with me.<\/p>\n Vestibular migraines.<\/p>\n Even though vestibular migraines are rare, I\u2019d been misdiagnosed because I don\u2019t have a typical case. But it means more medications with side effects like my lower lip going numb or that I have zero appetite. I can live with those things because I\u2019ve been given back some semblance of my life. Pain level is much lower. Still dizzy as hell, but I can cope better. It\u2019s so easy to judge people who have a silent disability because those disabilities aren\u2019t tangible and therefore aren\u2019t \u201creal.\u201d People like me who rely on pain medications and other heavy duty drugs scroll through our Facebook pages and have friends posting about how medications are bad and if people just had the willpower to give up their medicines \u2026 and society think you\u2019re just looking to get stoned \u2026 It makes your head spin. They don\u2019t know what it\u2019s really like to be in our shoes.<\/p>\n With the pain diminished, I\u2019ve come to terms with my vertigo and limitations. The vertigo is still constant, but it\u2019s not as severe. This won\u2019t last. I\u2019ll acclimate to the medications, and I\u2019ll have to change doses or try something new therapy. I\u2019m still figuring out where my boundaries are before I have an attack \u2014 and I\u2019m figuring out how to push those boundaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Severe, chronic vertigo associated with migraines like mine is a \u201csilent\u201d disability, one people can\u2019t see. Many people are compassionate. 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