Well, I have been meaning to share on the topic of vertigo and sickness for some time; I’ve certainly chosen a good day for it as I was sick a little in the street earlier and can feel the retched bile rising, my whole-body swaying and the uncomfortable, curdling, heat soaring.
It can be hard to explain my daily symptoms as the memories fade rapidly, but it is easy in the moment of experience but of course then I am so taken over by the symptoms that writing about them is difficult.
So today is a sick day, as most days are. I take medication daily to control the vertiginous nausea yet still it overwhelms me. It is much easier to think of the times when I don’t have these vicious putrid sensations. every now and again I raise my head and think, hang on, something is different, before realising I do not feel sick at all. These few occasions are most usually following a long period of inaction or full bed rest. generally speaking if I move I want to hurl, even though I am empty and dry.
I really would like people to understand this feeling, the best scenario I can come up with is it is like when you were made in school to run around in all weathers, through mud and slime around and around, in the name of ‘cross country’; healthy exercise deemed appropriate by sadist P.E teachers, they standing watching in their snow suits while we freeze in our shorts and gym skirts,(Skirts for gym, whose perverse idea was that?) near the end of the torture, most pupils would be bright red, doubled over and feeling sick.
I already had my illness back then and so would’ve been hobbling round the track feeling I had a broken ankle or dislocated knee or other such injury while being determined to finish, trying hard to out run as many as I could. Or maybe like finishing a 100 metre sprint or your first ever HIIT or spin class at the gym; that sudden, all absorbing physical reaction that burns hurts, takes your breath away, you want to hurl violently, the heat and the sweat and the swaying, the intense dizziness and urgent need to sit down, lie down, pass out.
Maybe that does it, maybe I am describing this clearly and everyone can associate, I hope so.
Just in case I include a poem I wrote some years ago.
Vomitous Mass Each day, Every step, Moon sponge walk, Rightside Lean, Ferry go round, Sea sick sway, Hurl, Gurgle, Whirl, Gag, Retch, heave, Swirl, rumble, tumble, Hot sweat flush, Cold shiver, Taste of tang, stomach acid pill Procholorperazine! Hunger forces food in, despite the distaste, instantly regrettable, Back to bed Keep going, breathe shallow, swallow down, gassy burps, Back to the bathroom Release, Cold porcelain pain.
When I read this poem to a group, the members made the assumption I was writing of a hangover, oh how I wish this was the case. A hangover has nothing on this; in truth I have in the past deliberately consumed alcohol to the point of drunkenness just to escape these wretched symptoms. A hangover is self inflicted and therefore controllable, waking feeling sick and linking it to a definitive cause can be easier than the constant confusion of this illness .It saddens me though to be misjudged as a drunk,.
‘Walk a mile in my shoes’ I ask in my head, knowing few would make it.
Stay strong, Chris.x
Living With ME 