It's been a bad week...

I like to think of myself as a strong person.

Not just because I can toss my son around like he weighs nothing or because I can *almost* deadlift my body weight. Or because I can snatch with the best of them. (GET your minds out of the gutter - I'm still talking about weight lifting).

Not just because I can carry a team of 12 people while coordinating the prep for a 20 million dollar case, without any assistance from the partner who we were prepping for trial. Or that I learned an entirely new area of law in a week so that I could get a different partner ready for trial.

And not just because a guy who asked me to marry him turned into an abusive alcoholic prick, who started stalking me when I came to my senses and dumped him. Or that I somehow managed to break a guy's heart ending our engagement when I realized we were completely wrong for each other instead of taking the cowards way out and going forward with a wedding that certainly would have ended in a nasty divorce.

For over a year and a half, I have been suffering from inexplicable bouts of dizziness. I've been to FIFTEEN freaking doctors. I've been tested for everything from brain tumors and cardiac insufficiency to diabetes and lymes disease. I've had an amazing amount of blood drawn... and for someone who HATES needles, that's a big thing for me.

So two doctors have finally decided that at least part of what's wrong with me is that I have Meniere's Disease. If you Google it, this is what it will tell you: Ménière’s disease is a disorder of the inner ear that causes severe dizziness (vertigo), ringing in the ears (tinnitus), hearing loss, and a feeling of fullness or congestion in the ear.

No one knows why people end up with this, but it's basically caused by a fluid imbalance in the ear.

Let me tell you what it's really like...

I can be perfectly fine for days...weeks...months even, without a single symptom. Sometimes the disease manifests itself with an annoying ringing in my left ear. Of course, I've always said that I work better with background noise, so a lot of the time I can tune it out. I can't pick up the telephone and hold it against my left ear because most of the time, the ringing is so bad, that's all I'll hear.

Since I started doing Crossfit, I have been fortunate enough to have gone through four months of being virtually symptom free. Then one night I was sitting on the couch and, with absolutely no warning, I got so dizzy that I couldn't move. I sat on the couch staring at one spot on the wall willing myself not to toss my cookies, sweating like I was in a sauna with my hands shaking uncontrollably. (That was actually the highlight of the night, because I spent the next 3 hours with wild vertigo and praying to the porcelain gods).

I'd like to say that the next morning I was fine. But it actually took three weeks to fully recover from that attack. My doc put me on some meds that would supposedly help me. They made me break out in hives. This week, while I was waiting for the doc to call me back and tell me what else he'd like me to take, Wednesday afternoon while I was at work, I pushed back from my desk and the room started spinning. The room felt like it was 1000 degrees. I was shaking. I could barely reach for the phone to call hubby and tell him that he had to leave work right that second so he could pick up Andrew (and then me) because I was in no condition to drive.

I spent two hours sitting in my office (fortunately with the door closed) wishing for nothing more than to be home in my bed and having no way to get myself there. When I got home, hubby had to help me out of the car and practically carried me to the couch where I promptly passed out for hours.

I have been fortunate that I'm usually much better the day after an attack. And I had never had days with back to back attacks before. Until this week. Because late Thursday afternoon, I was making another call to hubby with tears running down my cheeks as I begged him to come down and pick Andrew (and me) up. It wasn't as bad as the day before. I guess I should be happy to have avoided the vertigo, but I was so dizzy that I couldn't even stand up and close my door. I had a brief to write that had to go out the door the next afternoon. I couldn't work on it. I couldn't even look at my computer. And I spent three hours this time staring at the wall praying for it to stop.

Two days of back to back attacks left me feeling like I had been hit by a fucking truck. My whole body ached. I was dead tired - and the worst thing in the world would have been for me to drink caffeine. (I've had to give up coffee and limit myself to 2 sodas a day because if I drink more than that, I'll get loopy). My head was foggy and unfocused.

But the worst part? There is NOTHING I can do to stop an attack. They come without warning and absolutely bring me to my knees. While the attack is happening, I can't do anything. I can't get up. I can't move. I can't drink or eat, even if I know it'll make me feel better if I do. I can barely talk.

I certainly can't drive. I can't take care of my son. Hell, I can't even take care of myself. And I feel like one hell of a burden on hubby.

I'm just useless. And I'm not a useless person. I hate feeling so weak and helpless. I despise the fact that people at work saw me mid-attack and saw just how sick I was. How weak I was. Just thinking about how bad this week was makes me cry.

I don't usually have such a public pity party, but this week has left me feeling pretty down. I've been two days now without another attack and I'm thankful for that. I really am. But periods of the disease being out of control freak me out.

And yet, no matter how bad this seems, I know it could be so much worse. I have a relatively "mild" case. There are people who have this disease who suffer from full blown vertigo every day. Others can't deal with the ringing in their ear and go fucking crazy. People get the drops and literally get so dizzy they fall to the ground. They lose their jobs because they can't force themselves to get out of bed and function. They get so desperate for relief that they have surgery - one which will stop the disease, but leave them completely deaf.

So, yeah, you could say this has been a bad week. I try to get through the bad weeks telling myself the bad times never really last that long and are always followed by periods of relief where everything is under control. I just never know how long the good periods are going to last...