January 2, 2003

• Currently on heavy rotation in Homer’s head: ‘Growing Up’ by Peter Gabriel from his last album

  ‘Growing up (Growing up)
  Lookin’ for a place to live
  Growing up…’

  Last night was a doozie.

  I’ve been having strange hearing problems, and last night I discovered that it is, in fact, a viral infection. How did I find out, you ask. Let me tell you.

  I was watching a re-run of Star Trek: Voyager (the one where the doctor ends up in the alpha quandrant and saves an experimenetal Star Fleet ship with the aid of Andy Dick). I started getting dizzy. I figured it was the ham salad sandwich I had just eaten; that maybe the salad had sat out a while before ending up in the fridge.

  I felt myself getting dizzier and dizzier. I’d try to stand up to go to the bathroom and the room would move.

  I finally made it to the bathroom and reminded myself what the term ‘reverse peristalsis’ means. And a few more times. And a few more times.

  I got to the point where I couldn’t raise my head. My belly had nothing else to give up. I was just sitting there on my knees, doing zazen at the porcelain shrine, so to speak.

  I knocked on the wall to wake up my dad who was sleeping in the next room. Then I discovered something else: Vertigo is exacerbated by being around a worried person. Just listening to him talk put enough motion into my mind to give me the occasional dry heave.

  We tried to get me to the car to go to the emergency room, but it wouldn’t happen. I kept buckling and needing to, uh, relieve my belly of contents it didn’t have.

  I went into shock and had an anxiety attack. The watcher part of my mind kept noticing how this was happening. “Ah. This must be shock. Oh, and now, an anxiety attack…”

  Finally we got the ambulance. A huge level-headed EMS guy with the blue jumpsuit and rubber gloves hoisted me out to the yard, where I dry heaved a few more times and ended up in a stretcher, then an ambulance, then the hospital, then a room.

  Every time I moved my head, even a slight bit, I’d end up with the heaves.

  A doctor finally came and asked me to sit up straight. I could only get so far, which wasn’t far enough for him. He kept telling me to lean back more. I’d explain that if I did that, I’d have the heaves and he wouldn’t be able to examine me. We sat there and argued about it. Finally he said there were other patients, and he had to take a phone call, and left. I said a few choice words while he could still hear. I was frustrated, only at the trailing end of an anxiety attack, and about to go into dry heaves. Heaven forbid he miss his call.

  A long while later, a nurse came back and showed me some pills. ‘Do you think you could take these?’ Uh… Hello..? Vertigo? Vomiting? I could only laugh, as only someone who has recently puked can laugh. Instead, she gave me a shot. It was the most painful shot I’d ever gotten… It felt like acid burning through my skin. “FUCK that stings!” “Yes, it stings. I guess I should have mentioned that before…”

  The injection helped. I slept for about an hour, was wakened to take some pills. Mom and dad ushered me home about 20 minutes later. It was 5am by then. I slept until 6pm.

  25mg Meclizine every six hours. And here I sit in bed, trying to send Healing Energy(tm) to my ear.

  • 11:34 pm
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