Posts by Jonah

I woke up the morning of Wednesday, April 2nd, grabbed my phone, and futzed around on it for a few minutes. It’s only when I sat up out of bed that the world started spinning crazily. I immediately lay back down again and felt better. I tried sitting up again and the same thing happened. I had no idea what was happening, but I really had to pee, so I crawled to the toilet.

I eventually realized that the vertigo was caused by changing the orientation of my head. Sitting upright and still was fine. Lying still in bed was also fine. It was the changing from sitting up or lying down that sent my head spinning. 

Then I remembered a video I had seen online about the half somersault Epley maneuver. What was causing the problem was a crystal stuck in the tubes of my ear screwing up my internal gyro. I did a search for vertigo maneuver somersault, and then tried it. As I moved my head from an upright position to in-between my knees, I thought I was going to vomit. The world was spinning so fast, faster than any tightly wound tire swing I’d ever had a ride on. 

Over the next few days I tried the same maneuver on both sides, as well as the traditional Epley maneuver on both sides. I couldn’t figure out which ear was the problem ear and was worried I was backtracking any progress I was making with one side when I tried it on the other.

Then on Monday I took a little nap in the afternoon. When I woke up, I sat up bracing myself for the inevitable spinning. But this time it didn’t stop after a minute or so.

Let me tell you that trying to search your personal computer, and your work computer, for who your new health insurance is with, and trying to register for teledoc, while the world is spinning crazily is super difficult. I finally managed to have a video call with a doctor, who prescribed a motion sickness drug kinda like Dramamine. Berck drove to Walgreens to pick up the prescription, because I certainly didn’t feel like I could safely drive. 

That next day Tuesday was awful. I spent the whole day in bed and took most of the day off from work. I could do phone calls but I just couldn’t see my computer screen. I made an appointment to see my primary care provider the next day. 

Wednesday, Berck drove me to my medical appointment, where my nurse practitioner wrote me a script for Flonase, just in case that helped take pressure off the tubes in my ears. She also made a referral for me for physical therapy. 

Thursday I called the physical therapy clinic in woodland Park. The soonest they had available wasn’t until the end of April.

My mom encouraged me to find someone who could possibly help me sooner than that. She texted me a photo of her computer screen showing a review of a chiropractor in Woodland Park, saying he had helped the reviewer with vertigo. It sounded like it was worth a shot. 

Friday morning, 9:00 a.m. I called the chiropractor’s office as soon as it opened, and he answered the phone himself, saying he could see me at 3:00.  I got driven to the clinic that afternoon, telling the chiropractor that I had been trying the maneuvers myself but without any success. He said we would try something much more fun. Then he took a massage gun and pummeled my skull around my ears for a few minutes. (He also gave me a spinal adjustment because he couldn’t help himself). 

I found instant relief. I stood up and swung my head down between my knees. Nothing. Pummeling had apparently broken up the crystal stuck inside my ear tubes. 

The chiropractor showed me the kind of massage gun to get off Amazon (warning me not to get ripped off at Wal-mart or Costco), telling me I could treat myself if it ever happens again.

I’m so happy to have my life back.

We were supposed to be flying into Nashville for the last weekend of October for the annual Rally for the Lane, where we get to drive museum cars. This year was particularly exciting because the destination was an airplane museum! But the weather forecast didn’t look good. Seems there was a hurricane heading straight for Tennessee.

Then we each woke up on the morning of Monday, September 23 with a sore throat. Monday night was pretty terrible. Berck took a test Tuesday morning, while I took out the garbage to the street. Wednesday is our trash day, but apparently, my brain fog was hitting pretty hard. Berck didn’t even have to wait 15 minutes; the line popped up immediately. Then he tried to go to his 10 a.m. Zoom meeting, lasted about five minutes, and then crawled back into bed, where he stayed for four days.

Tuesday night was really bad. Symptoms were congestion and body aches, hips for Berck and low back for me. Berck had a cough, but I didn’t.

We slept in separate bedrooms, so we wouldn’t wake the other up coughing or tossing and turning. Normally, one of us would have moved into the downstairs bedroom, but a mouse died down there, and we haven’t been able to find it, and it smelled bad.

Wednesday night was better. I propped myself up on a pile of pillows so the phlegm in my lungs would have a harder time making it to my head.

I kept working (I did lie down for a couple of hours on Tuesday). Sitting in a reclining chair with my laptop doing tasks was a good way to distract myself from not being able to breath through my nose.

The morning of Thursday, September 26, I offered to make Berck some decaf PG Tips tea. When I brought him his cuppa, he asked, “Why does it taste better when I make it than when you do?” He’s not wrong.

“It doesn’t taste like much of anything to me either,” I replied.

“Oh,” he said, “Is that what’s going on?”

So one of us could move to the downstairs bedroom, if we wanted to.

At least we were surrounded by some beautiful aspens we wouldn’t get to enjoy otherwise that weekend.

Both of us are feeling better Friday, September 27. Berck actually got out of bed and dressed and sat outside in the sun for a while. I actually walked to the mailbox (0.2 of a mile one way) and back, so I got to see more beautiful aspens.

As I was getting close to the mailbox, a pick-up pulled up to it and someone climbed out to get their mail. That’s OK, I thought, I’ll just walk a little slower. Then an SUV pulled up behind the pick-up truck and waited for their turn! Fortunately, both of them finished before I got to the mailbox, though I did slow my pace quite a bit. We all did the obligatory wave neighbors must do to each other when we pass by.

I lost 4 lbs in a week. Our appetite came back, though our sense of smell was gone. I took advantage of this by making popcorn and tuna fish salad, two things Berck hates when I make because he doesn’t like the smell, but he didn’t notice.

Berck’s mom had some Grandma’s Soup ™ and challah bread delivered by UPS, which came just in time, because we’d nearly finished my stock of Progresso in the cupboard (Berck declared one can was dated 12/18/16).

I did do a grocery pick up Sunday, and then made some chicken broth to make chicken noodle soup. The roads, even the road to our place, were clogged with leaf peepers. The leaves were looking good. My sense of smell was kinda glitchy but seemed to be returning. When I released the steam of the pressure cooker, I was overwhelmed with the smell of the aromatics. I asked Berck if he could smell it too, and he said, “Maybe?”

The spot on my thigh that I got in Arkansas in April, that looked like a bug bite and got infected and I had to take oral antibiotics, got red and swollen and itchy again. My hypothesis is that a tick left its head in there (apparently, they actually leave mouth parts, not the whole head) and it can take months before the body gets rid of it. I’m guessing the state of my immune system has something to do with that. Fortunately, it has since stopped itching and gone back to its normal appearance as a round scar.

Sunday Berck had enough energy to work on the rally car so that I could race it at Pueblo. He returned to work Monday. We spent most of that week after work working on the rally car so I could fit in it and reach the pedals and see over the steering wheel. I took a test Tuesday, October 1 and tested negative, so we drove into town to go to the hardware store to get some hardware to adjust the steering wheel.

I always try to have a cooler full of cold beer at the track. After a hot day of driving and wearing a ridiculously insulating fireproof suit, you can’ t wait until the last car comes off the track at the end of the day and someone says, “Track’s cold!” But when we each cracked open a can of our favorite Mexican lager, Victoria, we had the same reaction. Tasted worse than Rolling Rock. The ciders tasted better, maybe because the tongue can still taste sweet. I don’t know how long it will be before a beer tastes as good as it usually does.

It’s now been more than a week since my negative test. I still have some congestion and thick yellow phlegm. I got an e-mail AND a phone call from HR saying I can’t return to the office until I’ve been symptom free for at least 24 hours, so who knows when I’ll be able to go to the office again. Berck has been feeling fatigued and has to cough occasionally.

The rabbis say the sense of smell is the most spiritual of the senses. I keep having episodes where I think the house smells like soup. Apparently, anosmia can cause one’s sense of smell can get stuck on one scent. I have to say the smell of soup is way better than burning or dirty diapers.

I have played every Connections game since it started, until I got Covid. I tried staring at the words, but I just couldn’t figure it out. I’m back to being able to solve them, so I can set my phone calendar back to play the last couple weeks of the ones I’ve skipped.

Last night, or rather early this morning, I woke up around 3 a.m. The cat was curled up next to me, rhythmically breathing, sound asleep. Berck was in the downstairs bedroom because it’s cooler down there, and he makes me leave if I wake him up snoring. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I scrolled through Facebook, Google News, and Reddit. The cat woke up with my fidgeting, finally leaving the bed around 4, which is around the time he gets up anyway. He yowled at the kitchen window, probably to the neighbor’s visiting black cat, but only for a while. I finally drifted back to sleep around 5.

What seemed like only a few minutes later, I was awoken by a commotion in the kitchen. At first I thought it was the cat clumsily knocking things over, but then I realized it was too loud and kept going on for too long. I saw a light from the direction of the kitchen and figured Berck had gotten up, turned on the light above the stove, and was rummaging around in the cupboard for the Tang. It sounded like he was having trouble finding it, even though I was sure I had left it right in front on the shelf. Then it sounded exactly like he dropped two ice cubes into a glass, which I thought was strange because he doesn’t usually drink Tang with ice. The rummaging eventually stopped, the light went out, and I never heard his footfalls heading back downstairs.

I was pretty annoyed that I had been woken up right when I managed to fall back asleep. I tossed and turned until 7:30, when I decided to just give up and get up. I was even more annoyed when I came into the kitchen and found the cupboard doors still open and some of the contents strewn on the floor. Berck must have had a rough night trying to find the Tang, which, just as I remembered, was right in front on the shelf.

That wasn’t the only thing on the floor. The plunger for the coffee maker and a coffee filter had also fallen down, and the pepper grinder, a bottle of vinegar, and a bottle of olive oil were on their sides on the kitchen counter.

Berck had made me some coffee the day before, which was still sitting on the counter. I poured it into a mug, even though it wasn’t remotely hot, and got a milk carton out of the fridge with just enough milk in it to add to my coffee. I then sipped my drink and stared past the cat, who was sitting in the kitchen windowsill, staring back at me. I thought about how clearly I could see the tree leaves in the front yard and up to the road. It must be my new glasses prescription, I mused. The cat blinked at me from his perch in the open window.

The open window.

My sleep-deprived morning brain finally registered that the reason why I could see so clearly out the window was because the screen was missing. The cat, who is a strictly indoors cat, had not tried to escape through the completely open window, or if he had, had then returned. I went outside to find the screen lying on the ground next to my other hummingbird feeder along with the snapped piece of string that had formerly suspended it from the eaves. The cat swiveled his head around to stare at me through the open window, with me now standing outside the house.

I put the screen back in place. The screen is made of Kevlar to keep the cat from tearing it up. The cat, in fact, can hang his entire body weight from the screen with his claws without damaging the screen. But now there were five indentations in the screen. That would have taken quite a bit of force.

After moving my cat’s paws out of the way and replacing the screen, I came back inside and stared at the open cupboard. There was something missing. I looked back outside.

Yes, that is a completely empty 4.5 lb bag of Nestle chocolate chips from Costco in the front yard. No, there are no chocolate chips left on the ground.

I started chuckling. Berck came upstairs, complaining about the cat making a giant racket in the kitchen that morning, which confirmed what I already knew. It wasn’t Berck rummaging around the kitchen in the middle of the night. A closer inspection of the cupboard doors revealed some new scratches.

Berck checked the cameras.

This is obviously a big problem, however, it’s sadly possibly a self-solving one. Just like for dogs, chocolate is toxic for bears, though it’s unclear how much will kill a bear (though the Internet suggests around 10 lbs will).

We agreed that it was a dang good thing neither of us thought it was actually a home invader in the kitchen, since any confrontation in that confined a space can’t have ended well.

I had a colonoscopy scheduled for today (everyone at the clinic asked me why I was getting one, and I’d answer, “I’m 50”).  My mom had suggested getting some lemon drops as chasers to the 4 liters of colonoscopy juice I had to drink last night and this morning, but I was having a dickens of a time finding any.  Venture Foods in Divide carries some, but they taste like chalk. All City Market had was some Lifesavers, so I got some of those.  7 Eleven didn’t have any.  Then I tried the Farm Crest store in Old Colorado City.

I usually only go to the Farm Crest store once a year to get eggnog.  I really like their eggnog, and they have other things in their convenience store that other stores might not have.  (There is usually some homeless person counting out change on the counter to buy cigarettes too). But no dice.  Nothing but sour gummies, and I’m not a fan of gummies. 

I was about to exit the store suspiciously empty-handed and was thinking of what I’d remark to the cashier, but she was walking out the open front doors (Tuesday was a lovely day).  She was tall and thin, traits her high pumps and tight jeans accentuated. Suddenly, she stopped and lifted her left hand up into the air and stood as still as the Statue of Liberty.  She was staring at her hand, held perpendicular to the ground, and I followed her gaze to the tip of her index finger.

Just then a dirt-brown moth stretched out its wings and took off from her outstretched hand, which she held completely still until it was clear of her fingers.  A plague of miller moths are the bane of Colorado Springs every spring, but this clerk had taken the time to capture the lost creature and returned it to the outdoors so it could continue its journey up into the mountains to mate. 

(Today’s colonoscopy went well, and I shouldn’t be dying of colon cancer anytime soon.)