Vertigo - here we go

I begin with gratitude: It is wonderful to have friends who have friends in the right places. I'm grateful for such friends. Our neighbor (salt-of-the-earth type) is a nurse. She has a friend who works in the Emergency Ward of the local hospital. When we made the decision to take Michelle into the emergency room, our neighbor called her friend - who was asleep after working the night shift, to ask her if it made since to take someone who was dehydrated from constant vomiting to wait in the emergency room. Her friend called another friend at the hospital and found out that it was not a busy day and they would be able to take her right in. THANK YOU, Lisa!

Now back to the beginning. Michelle has had nausea since the week before Christmas. The source of the problem was a head cold - congestion that put pressure on the mechanisms that help you keep your balance. Michelle leans towards homeopathic solutions before taking drugs. So, she put up with it through the Christmas Holidays without taking any medicine. The first thing we did was to get a humidifier going in our room, and a pot of steaming water on the stove during the day. That was a minor help. Then, based on Kathy S.'s (yes I know how to spell it -but I'm respecting her privacy)... based on her recommendation and several collaberating testimonials from friends on Facebook, she tried the Netty Pot. She got over the psychological issue with running water up one nostril and down the other... but it didn't resolve the problem with nausea. Then she tried the steam tent (draping a towel over head, and leaning over a hot pot of water on the table. This helped her more than the Netty Pot... but still did not resolve the problem with the nausea. She broke down and went to a doctor who had cured a friend with similar symptoms. He prescribed a decongestant and a steroid. The side affects made her miserable, but to her credit, she stuck with it and endured through the whole treatment - but it did not resolve the problem. Finally, she found something that helped: She had a good long cry. After that she felt better for a time, but then the nausea came back.

During these weeks, the weather has gone from extreme cold (relative to Atlanta) of around 20 deg. F. to nice weather in the 60's, and then back into the 30's. That's one of the nice things about living in Atlanta. Winters are not freezing cold for weeks and weeks on end. The MLK holiday was sunny and not too cold. Michelle was able to get up and out of the house. We went shopping, she came to the parade and supported our Cub Scouts, she filled her assignment at the Family History Center; so things were looking up. Then last Thursday she came home from taking Matt to school and crashed in bed. She started throwing up, and even though there was nothing to throw, her stomach kept convulsing. It was not a pretty site. She had to lie perfectly still, propped up by pillows, with her eyes closed to keep from retching.

On Friday we went to another Doctor - this time with a firm resolution to ask lots of questions to find out what's going on instead of just taking drugs with no explanation. While this new Dr. was professional and kind, he was not the type to take the time and explain what Michelle needed to know. We had to pressure him for an explanation of what he planned to do. He took blood tests, prescribed a shot of Phenegran (sp?) and a regimen of Meclizine to fight the nausea. The shot was good for her. It stopped the violent retching long enough for her to swallow and keep down the first dose of Meclizine. When it came time for the second dose, the Phenegran had practically worn off - but she still kept from throwing up for about an hour. After that the retching resumed. It never got to be as violent as Friday morning, but she could not keep any thing down.

That brings us to Saturday around noon when I called our neighbor over to get her thoughts on dehydration. Since Thursday, she had thrown up more than she had taken in. (I kept a log of what she drank and how often she vomited). The Dr. who had prescribed the Meclizine had said to take her into the emergency room if she could not keep the medecine down and got dehydrated. But Michelle did not want to go sit in a wheelchair and throwup, waiting in the emergency room. Thats when our neighbor made her calls and found out we could walk right in. So... we did.