dizzy

1/10/24

last night, went to bed around usual time,
midnight, and was feeling fine, even good, because we had just had sex and then went to sleep right after. But this morning, very early around five when R’s alarm went off, when I lifted my head in the dark, it felt like the room was spinning a little. it wasn’t painful, and I thought nothing of it and put my head back down and went back to sleep. when I woke up for work later around 730, I actually felt less awake then than I did at 5 AM. And i felt the dizziness again, and when I tried to get out of bed, it got worse. I started feeling so bad: cold and clammy, almost sweating, shaky, like I was about to throw up. I wanted to go back to sleep, but I had to clock in, so I kept forcing myself to do everything and keep going. I sat at my desk where my laptop was and pulled the little trashcan next to me with my elbows on my knees and hovered my head over it. I didn’t barf, but still felt really bad, and after a while made myself get up and go to the bathroom, thinking that might help.  In the bathroom, I had to lean with my arm on the wall while on the toilet to steady myself, and did poo a little bit more than usual, but that was it. For the level of sickness I was feeling, I was expecting diarrhea or something, but none of that. I did feel a little better after the bathroom though. i’ve been taking it slow all day, and have not had any appetite. It is now almost 4 PM and I haven’t eaten anything at all (just had some sips of tea), and I don’t have any desire to, which is abnormal for me. I lined up a few things on the counter that I thought could be the culprit that I ingested last night – some lozenges, my latest batch of water kefir (just tasted a drop of it last night), and the celery juice I had been sipping on (I threw it out). I don’t know if it’s any of these though -I’ve had those lozenges and the kefir before without any adverse reaction. after going to bathroom in the morning, I thought I was in the clear, and got some work done. but then around noon, it happened again, while I was turning my head at a funny angle to hang up a wind chime in the kitchen, so that I had to lay down for a few hours, and when I turned my head in bed these past few hours laying down, I could still feel the dizziness come on. a little scared to get up. this morning when it first hit me, it felt so bad that the thought crossed my mind that I might die all alone in the house and no one would know until much later, because R had already left for work. I tried to keep my phone nearby whenever I moved so that I could possibly dial 911 if I collapsed, which felt like a super possibility.
I did feel a tiny sharp pain once today, around mid morning, in my stomach. it didn’t hurt that much but I think was out of the ordinary. 
no headache though or pain anywhere else besides the extreme dizziness/vertigo and nausea. 

1/11/24

when I asked what is up with this dizzy sickness:

took covid test, was negative.

1/12/24

The skin everywhere on my body still doing well, with nothing getting worse and no flareups, and I would say very incrementally getting better. I just have some dry heels on my feet from the winter weather, which are unsightly, but not painful. Nowhere near the pain I was in a few months ago, which every day kind of amazes me because I guess it was so ingrained and “remembered” in my body – the trauma of how I needed to move when I was in pain, the memories of waking and going to sleep in pain and just walking around doing chores and feeling socks sticking to feet plus the mental discomfort and all that- now that all that’s gone and I can move freely, it’s as if literal weights have been lifted off my body, which feels good, but also shocking. As if I had been living in a dark jail for so long, and now that I’m free, the daylight is blinding my eyes a bit. i’m not complaining at all (please never let me go back), just describing how it is. The other day, Hunter stomped down on the top of my foot while we were playing, and it didn’t faze me at all. As soon as he did that, and it didn’t hurt, I realized that a few months ago, the same move would’ve kind of ruined my day. I’m physically in a really different place now. It seemed so inescapable when I was in the thick of it.

card of the day:

1/13/24

am feeling lately like i’m finally starting to emerge from this long battle with physical exhaustion since baby’s birth two years ago. i was wondering why it seems like it lasted so much longer than two years, then i realized that not sleeping for two years = 4 years awake.

1/14/24

these past few days, the dizziness has not gone away, but seems to be gradually lessening in severity. Like the first day I was afraid I would lose consciousness and it was the worst, whereas today I can kind of “control” the nausea if I just change my head angle or body position – I kind of figured out what triggers it now (basically laying down and sitting up suddenly). appetite also very gradually started to return – today i ate pretty normally, though still feel a little stomach weirdness/urge to fast lurking.