Things that make me happy

While I'm focusing on getting better, so much of this, I'm realizing, is such a mental game.  I am truly one of the most optimistic and positive people I know and this has been such a tremendous challenge to try to stay upbeat and hopeful.  It's hard, particularly on the bad dizzy days, to not getting into pity party mode and to feel let down by my body.  Isn't it amazing how we often taken our bodies and health for granted, and how scary it can be when our bodies let us down?  This absolutely pales in comparison to what others go through, in particular my precious Dad and Brother, and I am mindful of their struggles when I find myself slipping into that bad space.  Here's my mantra "this is temporary, it will pass, you cannot control this, all you can control is your ability to rest and take care of your health".  I know it's no "ommmm" but it'll do.

In trying to stay focused on the mental aspect of this, I keep trying to remain grateful for what I do have.  And holy cow do I have a lot!!!  And here's just a short list of the things that are presently making me happy.

1. My adoring and supportive hubbs who has been such a trooper dealing with a wife who has not been herself and who, needless to say, has been less than sparkly. 
2. Mr White Snuggly Wonder - who must think he cashed in on the doggy lottery to have scored a Mama who is continually fused to the couch right now.

 3. My amazing and never-ending support from all the friends, family and coworkers (even my bosses have been amazingly supportive and sweet!) who have been so lovely, checking in on my by email, text, phone, and in person - I love you guys!!!  It means so much to have all the words of encouragement, those has gotten me through those low moments.  Trust me, I didn't need this experience to remind me how lucky I am to have such a full and rich "support crew" but it is a tremendously profound and humbling experience to have such love and to know I'm not alone.  THANK YOU.



3.5 On  that note - Skyping with my beloved Prings and my adorable godsons a few days ago - that was truly the highlight of my week, watching those monkeys bop around that screen showing me things that were pulled from their bellies, those kids make me laugh and bring me such joy.





4.   Our backyard - I absolutely love it out there and it does my heart tremendous good to lay out on the chaise lounger and watch the hummingbirds buzz and dive-bomb each other while listening to some good tunes.  Our Jacaranda tree, incidentally, has finally started blossoming those glorious purple flowers and I caught a cool shot on my iPhone of a little hummingbird just to the top right of the little purple plume..look at that little dude!!!
 
5.   Ellen.  I love to laugh just anyway but especially now and I chanced upon Ellen's "Dance Dares" on YouTube last week and I watched them all on TV...and they made me so happy!  Here's a tease and then you can Google more if you want...they slay me!!

Lol!!!  See, laughter is good medicine.

Waterboarding

So, here's the thing.  I had a crap day yesterday.  I'm hesitant to even talk about it too much because I don't want to fixate too much on the negative but I do want to keep you all informed of how the water test went. 

I had a better week last week and was just focused on physical therapy and sleeping/resting and I noticed improvement when I just laid down and didn't do much.  I had a big setback Sunday night, though, and I was so bummed to wake up around 2AM to bad vertigo that lasted throughout the morning - I hadn't had it in several weeks so I was so disappointed to take a step backwards.  I still went into see my Neurologist as scheduled Monday and before doing the water test, they put me back on that horrid spinny chair for 1.5 hours to try to find the source of the inner ear crystals.  Unfortunately, my results STILL showed the downbeat eyes so they were unable to "catch" any crystals, they even tried spinning me through several 360 degrees to no avail.  After that, it was time for some eye tests where I kept the goggles on and tracked a LED light around a dark room.  Luckily, my results were all normal with that.

Finally, they did that god awful water test.  I've been joking about it being water torture not realizing how awful it would be - I guess that was my way of coping with nerves and minimizing the possibility, but wow.  I knew it could cause nausea but I guess I wasn't aware that the test in and of itself causes episodes of vertigo and dizziness.  They push cold water into each ear, alternating for 1.5 minutes each which wasn't so bad, just like it sounds - cold water flooding into your ear, and felt like I was just going deep under water.  What surprised me was it sent me into a horrible vertigo episode about 15 seconds into it, it was so awful and I had to stay with it in order to track my eye movements.  Maybe because I'd already had vertigo that morning, or maybe because I'm already so sensitive to it, who knows, but it was miserable and I was so embarrassed to cry.  They did cold water in both sides, then gave me a 5 minute break to boo-hoo and collect myself (the guy was actually so sweet and you could tell he felt so bad) and then did hot water on both sides which had the same effect.  While the water stayed in my ear and they monitored my eye movements, he asked me to name various things which I'm sure if you were a fly on the wall would be funny to hear a bawling girl trying to name types of flowers in between the sniffles "um, roses? lilles?  daylilles?  calla lillies?  roses? "  The kicker?  A couple people had to come in at the end to sheepishly report to me "Um, Ms. Warren?  I am so incredibly sorry but the left ear showed abnormal results so we're going to have to do it again".  Seriously?  What the????  I tried so hard to be brave and I went through it again once they explained it was better to know for sure whether it was abnormal test results or truly that my left ear showed several nerve damage.  I'm glad we retested because the bottom line is good news, my eyes responded as they "should" to the water test!  Thank goodness, this means no permanent damage in 2 of the 6 parts of the inner ear that are able to be tested.

Unfortunately still no clue why this is happening and they're still thinking it's just the crystals but meanwhile since I've had a setback and am still symptomatic the doctor took me off for the rest of July!  I felt really low when she recommended that and I was so disappointed, I was worried she was predicting it would take that much time.  But, I've been working on that mental aspect trying to remind myself I could get better faster than that and always go back sooner, I'm not doomed into that return date. I'm in better spirits today though am feeling pretty sick still, it always takes a while to bounce back after a vertigo episode.  Sigh.  I got up and did my thing at the gym again, I'm trying to get back on that horse.

Nothing else planned this week other than physical therapy daily - next week is more acupuncture. Thanks to everybody for all the support - I'll keep you updated. 

Wow - there's something under the hood!

I just got my MRI CD in the mail and it is fascinating!  First of all, again, everything was normal, so thank GOD for that!  And second, when does one get a chance to look at one's brain?  It was so cool to scroll through the images and see for myself - certainly reminds me how long it's been since I've taken Neurology classes; half the time I had no idea what I was looking at, though the images were certainly cool.

Like this one for example, doesn't it look like my brain is laughing?

 I thought this one from the back of my head was so cool showing my ears on either side. 

 Check out those chompers!

 When my Neurologist was showing me the results, he pointed out this one in particular and said "you have such a healthy brain, it's the brain of a 20 year old" which I found hysterically ironic seeing as though I'm currently being treated for vertigo and confusion...and all my peeps in the waiting room of the doctor's office are at least 40-50 years my senior.  Seriously, I go in there, look around, and usually take a seat next to a sweet Pops with a cane, or a lovely Nana with her hearing aids cranked up high.  These are my people now.

 But, it was nice to hear, anyway.  He showed, as a comparison, this image from Google of a 54 year old woman's brain and apparently the white spots are what happen as we age and I don't have any of that plaque around my ventricles yet.  Truly that's amazing because even before all this happened, I have to be honest, I don't feel like I'm firing on all 4 cylinders on all days...but hey, at least I'm plaque free! 

 Check out that BHD (that's a Big Dotur Head to you and me)...not to mention that big Croatian nose was so huge it wouldn't fit on the screen, haha!

 Skeletor!

 And just threw this one in for laughs...love the googly eyes.

Well, that's it for now.  No new updates other than Rob is home!!!  Woohoo!  Poor guy was so jet-lagged, he joined me for DAY ON THE COUCH - I think I've become permanently fused to that thing and now I've sucked Rob into the lifestyle.  It's good times.

Tomorrow is water boarding...I mean, the water test.  Will keep you posted on that.  xo

So, here's the scoop on me....

I never really thought of using my blog for anything other than to document the fun times of Beth and Rob, but for the past 5 weeks, unfortunately, there's been less and less of that for me.  I figured this would be a good place to get it all down in black and white (for my loyal 5 viewers, ha!) to collect my thoughts and focus on some healing and future progress....and hopefully soon I'll look back on this blog post as ancient history and can be so grateful for how far I've come.

5 weeks ago on 5/10, I woke up with horrible vertigo.  BAM out of the blue.  I was feeling fine the day/night before, I slept great, no problems and then woke up with my world spinning.  I tried showering (like a drunken sailor) and drinking coffee hoping that would help and it didn't go away so eventually Rob drove me to my doctor - she gave me some Meclizine and referred me to a Neurologist that specializes in vertigo.  Except I didn't go at first because after a day of sleeping and taking it easy (mind you while my cleaning lady vacuumed around me - how awkward is that to have the cleaning lady over while you're home sick!  That's the worst!) the next day the vertigo was gone!  What lingered was an absolute and total brain fog but I figured that was normal given how horrible I felt the day before.

Only the brain fog never dissipated.  NEVER.  Certainly I've had bad days and good, but the brain fog has never left, not once, since 5/11.  I can only describe it like when you've taken a ton of Benadryl and you feel super altered, like you're in a dream state - I feel really confused, out of it and so mentally TIRED.  And, when I kept thinking it would go away any day, it was fine and I just pushed through it.  I went to Palm Springs with my friends.  I went to work.  I pushed myself to be my normal Bethiest Beth.  But yet instead, I just wasn't - there were these cobwebs all over my brain and it made it so damn hard to focus.  In fact, I look back at all those pics I blogged about and I'm amazed how I look so much like my normal self when inside I felt like such a foggy mess.  I realize I've been spending so much mental effort and energy just trying to dig through the fog and "fake it", I'm exhausted.

Over Memorial Day, my vertigo came back, bad.  So, the Tuesday after the long weekend, I got into see the Neurologist P.A. and she's great.  She moved my head all over the place while I was wearing these fancy goggles that monitor eye movements and she diagnosed me with Benign Positional Vertigo which apparently is all about your inner ear crystals getting dislodged.  Here's a video on the goggles, that's my doc on the left.

Very Clockwork Orangey with the huge eyeball, eh?  It's so weird when they show me my eyeball all huge on the computer screen jumping and rotating all over the place.  Apparently, though, my eye motions are "atypical",they jump downward, unfortunately, which shows more "brain stem or cerebellum damage" or VERY inner ear crystals which are apparently tough to get back into place.  So, no clue how the crystals got dislodged.  I'll fast-forward to the good news, my MRI was negative thank GOD.  So no tumors causing my vertigo.  So that leaves a virus as an option (which they've treated with antivirals and steroids just in case that was the case).  They also sent me for a hearing test - my first one showed some problems so they sent me for a more thorough one with an Audiologist MD and that was perfect, apparently the machine on the first one was just jacked up.  Um, great.

They've put me on their spinny chair several times, which honestly is an awful experience.  I'd say I'm a tough cookie but I'm not going to lie, I've cried each time I've gone on it.  The purpose is to track my eye motions and then dislodge and reattach the crystals but because my eye motions are so atypical, I end up in the chair for 1.5 hours at a time and am nauseated beyond belief, dizzy and headachy - plus the P.A. and chair spinny torturer dude are frustrated too.  I swear, that should be the new torture method, I'd tell that dude anything towards the end just to get out of that contraption.  They've hypothesized my crystals are "sticky and latent" which essentially means they're slow to move, which makes it really hard to get them to move while in the chair - thus the long and unproductive torture sessions.

So now at 5 weeks, my doctor suggested I take a medical leave because my symptoms have been impairing my ability to concentrate so much, it was becoming harder and harder to focus at work and I was just EXHAUSTED by the end of the day.  I would come straight home, plop on the couch and sleep upwards of 11-12 hours a night, then get up and do it all over again.  At first, I resisted the idea of taking time off - I was panicked thinking about time away from my clients and falling behind with my patient access, but eventually I grew so tired mentally, I welcomed a break.  Thankfully my bosses, coworkers, friends and sweet Robbio have all been so lovely supporting me, it's been nice knowing my entire job right now is just to focus on getting better.

Unfortunately Rob had to go on a last minute trip to Japan, which at first was really hard to adjust to with all of this physical crap, but now I'm reframing it that I am just focusing on quiet and peace and snuggling with the White Fluffy Wonder.So now, every day, I get up and go to the gym for my vestibular rehabilitation exercises for 30-40 minutes, come home, and zen for the rest of the day.  Seriously, that's it and I'm still exhausted.
This gives you an idea of what I'm doing - this is the rowing version, and the treadmill version looks similar.  Not really sure why he needed the background music to dramatize it up like a rockstar but you get the drift.

At first it was really hard to do so I had to work up to it, but now I'm up to 35 minutes on each machine.  It doesn't feel bad while I'm doing it, just once I stop is when the nausea and dizziness kicks in.  In fact, while I'm staring at my buddy the little dot, I kinda zone out and go to a zen place - it's all I can do, really.  My brain starts going to places like "I wonder if that guy pounding out sprints on the treadmill next to me is going to make us crash through the floor" and "I wonder what Rob's doing right now - oh yah, it's the middle of the night in Japan, he's sleeping" and "I wonder who's going to be on Ellen today".  You know, deep thoughts.

So, that's it!  I've been going to my accupuncturist once a week and she started me on herbs a few days back for mental clarity (um, yes please!) and nausea relief (bring it on!) so hopefully that'll help.  I go back to the Neurologist on Monday for more testing/diagnostic/treatment/torture (did I say that?) to see if this could possibly be permanent damage.  Here's some more details:

water torture thingy

 I could really use your prayers that it's not more permanent - I can't even begin to think that way and just keep praying/hoping that this will go away soon because it's miserable.  The vertigo coming and going is honestly not all that horrible - I just reposition myself and it goes away.  It's the brain fog that's so awful because it's taking my Bethiness away and that scares me more than anything.  So that's my scoop and I'll keep you updated.  xoxo

Palm Springs with my Sister Wives

A few weekends ago (again, don't judge, I fell behind, let's move along) I went to Palm Springs with my sister wife girlfriends, though unfortunately Carol couldn't go so we were missing Sister Wife #2.  And that just sucked.  But otherwise we had such a great time, hanging at the fancy Riveria and enjoying the pool - it was in the 100's and really, you could only survive by living in the pool or under a mister.

Me and Holl showing how it's done....

 Love my girl Sarah!

 This seems like a Grover sketch: NEEEEEAAAARRRRR   FFFAAAAAARRRRRR

 My friend Holly, the mermaid.

 Jersey Shore wannabe's behind us.  There was a lot of fake boobs, fist bumps and LA's "finest" all around, quite the people-watching scene.

 This video is hysterical - I'm getting my boogie on in the pool like a special girl who forgot her helmet and I had no idea Holly was videotaping me, she grabbed my phone and...well,...the rest is history.

 Yup, that just happened.

For dinner one night, we headed out to this cool boutique hotel that had Spanish tapas....it was great, I don't think I'd ever really had authentic spanish food before and it was pretty good!  I love these pics in front of that yellow wall...

 mmmmm, check out that spread!

 Love you girls!!!!!

Spring!!

Spring has sprung at the Warrenski's!  Check out our bougainvillaea and roses - they're going nuts!

And yes, that's my blog entry for now.  I haven't posted in a month.  They're not all going to be winners. 
I don't even know who reads this sucker anyway, for all I know, I'm posting to myself.  So, self: check out my roses.  They're freakin' awesome, you should enter a rose contest.  Or a blog contest.  Or a blogging rose contest.

BBB Day of Fun! (ReDeux)

Ok, I promise all my blogs won't be about our buddy Bennett, but these two are, and he's one of our favorite people, so suck it.
For his birthday every year we like to take him for a BBB (Bennett Booter Beth) day of fun, and this was our second annual.  We started out with some nucks, then hit McDonalds up.

 Nom nom nom

 And then to the playground!

Why yes, that's me on the tractor behind Bennett.  Don't judge.  Don't you wish you had such a cool auntie?

 And then we were off to Lappert's for ice cream, the perfect way to end a lovely day together!!

Love that Chocolate MUG!

Yah, well, let's just forget the fact I skipped a month

So, it's June.  And I last blogged in April.  Moving on.
In May it was our buddy Bennett's 4th birthday and we got to join him on his birthday party to a fire station, it was so cute watching him and his little buddies enjoy themselves!  Not going to lie, we adult women might have enjoyed ourselves as well.

Here Uncle Rob and Bennett pose in what was probably the last time Bennett was still for the rest of the day - that dude was so excited, he was like a little hummingbird buzzing around!

 Here Karen shows off her shake-weight skills in the fire station.  Well done, my friend.

 Bennett at the hose!

 Notice how blurry B is, I'm trying to wrangle him into a pic but he was having NONE of it, ha!  "I'm 4, I'm busy and have places to be, yo!"

 This video slays me - ignore the fact that I'm such a jackass making smart-alec comments about Jess' uniform, and please pay more attention to the fact around 50 second in when Karen clearly says "I'm so hot for you right now, Jess" - bwahahahaha!  Clearly taken out of context but still freakin' hysterical.  You can't write that stuff. 

 Me and my little buddy Ruby!

 Studly firemen!

 Clearly our beauty broke the camera at this moment.

Happy birthday, my little buddy!!!