Thankful for Friends and Family

Today began oddly for me. I woke up, got up, walked around doing various things, and realized within minutes that something was wrong. My head felt woozy, as if it were on some kind of time-delay. Any time I moved my head, I felt dizzy, and as I experimented with this, I also started to feel really nauseous. After I lay on the carpet for a while, the nausea started to go away. So I got up again to get my cell phone, getting really nauseous again in the process, then installing myself in that age old "just in case" position right by the toilet.
When my head stopped spinning, which it did when I held it still for several minutes together, I called my cousin Susan and my friend Stacey to let them know I was unlikely to get out of the house today. I called my mum. What I am going to do when she's not around to give medical advice, I gave serious thought and decided it would be Brian, my BIL. Anyway, mum had similar (though lesser) symptoms a month or so ago and had come to the conclusion that it was an inner ear infection. As I had come to a similar conclusion (at least the inner ear part of it), I investigated online to find out what the typical treatment is and how critical timing is in the scenario. WebMD gave good, if slightly vague advice. The crux of it is that the condition is generally self-correcting (which is what my mum found) and is generally viral, not bacterial, so anti-biotics don't help. Further, WebMD recommended that you simply get bedrest for a few days, then try to resume normal activities after that in order to let your brain get used to the imbalance.

So, here I am, lying in bed, surfing the 'net and writing my NaNovel with my little Dell Mini. The writing is going OK, but slowly, as my brain does not seem to be running on all cylinders. No matter, it appears I have lots of idle time in front of me to work at excruciating slowness. When I get up to get something to eat, I actually do OK for several minutes at a time and usually return to bed because I am really really tired.

So, if this ever happens to you, you can recognize it!

In other news, I am really irritated to be missing Thanksgiving dinner - which, I love. My cousin Mike (Susan's awesome dad) is making pheasant. I called Susan to ask her to put some in the freezer for me so I don't miss it entirely. I'm missing turkey and cranberry relish (my favorite!) and mashed potatoes. I will not, however, be missing pie. Janiece has promised to save me a piece and bring it to me on their way home. Yay Janiece!
I'm also missing my friend Stacey's party with our mutual friend Susan (a different Susan). She's visiting from Huston, TX, and has managed to pay off her house, so she's having a little celebration, with champagne and everything.

It sucks to be missing out on these things, but as I am dead tired and my head still feels oddly wobbly, I doubt I would be very good company. I have no doubt that I should not be operating a vehicle.

However, I feel VERY lucky that I have such caring friends and family wishing me well. AND I am thankful that this is probably only a minor inner ear infection (which I really hope does not damage my inner ear for SCUBA diving) and should be mostly resolved by the end of the long weekend.

So, in the words of a very provoking character: "I forbid you to feel sorry for me."

Hope you are all having a better Thanksgiving than I am!

ETA: I am feeling much better. The vertigo has subsided to almost nothing, and with it, the nausea, but I find myself getting tired out quickly. My two groups of gift-bearing angels came one after the other and probably constituted 20 minutes of conversation in total, but I was pooped afterward. And now it's 8:30, I have reached 44K words, so will go to bed now. Good night all!