Wanna know how our day went?
I don't care. I'm going to tell you anyway! So deal with it.
The plan was that I leave on a bike ride by 6:30. About the time I'd get back Pam would go into town to pick up Megan and Caedon, who would stay with us until Monday morning (I think) while Josh and Aubri are in CA for a conference.
OK, that didn't happen.
It's been two years since the last time, but Pam occasionally gets "benign positional vertigo." We have tiny, tiny crystals in the fluid in our inner ears that is normally distributed evenly in suspension. If I remember my anatomy correctly, when we move our head they roll across the tiny hairs in our inner ears and tell us we're moving. Some people - like Pam - have something go wrong and those crystals clump together into one mass. This creates some really wicked vertigo, so bad that she walks like a drunk.
Last time it happened Josh taught me something called The Epley Maneuver, a series of positions that, done in a precise sequence, cause that rock to fall out the bottom of the canal.
Here's a web site that shows the routine, although text doesn't do it justice. When I tilt her back with her head hanging off the foot of the bed her eyes shake rapidly from side to side and she does NOT like the sensation of extreme imbalance.
At the end of the steps the relief is immediate, but that's not the end of it. She has to keep her head absolutely upright for 24 hours or it starts all over. She may not look at the floor and she has to sleep in a chair. There's some residual light-headed feeling but that goes away gradually throughout the day.
She knew what it was as soon as she got up this morning. So after a quick call to Josh for a refresher course we went through the Epley Maneuver and got Pam settled in her chair. Aubri's mom graciously took the kids until 5:00 when I met her at a Chick-fil-A (where else?) for the hand-off. The three of us had dinner, came back to the house and dealt with more energy than I've seen in over a decade, and then - mercifully - it was bedtime.
By 7:00 tomorrow morning Pam will be back to her normal Grammy self, I'll be out the door for church set-up, and after our worship hour we'll work on getting through the afternoon. Josh and Aubri will get back sometime Monday.
If you don't see a post tomorrow night it might be a good idea to contact the mental health department.
If there isn't a post by Monday night send condolences to Pam and contributions in memorium to Pathway.
If Chrysler/Jeep made vehicles as good as their commercials they never would have gone bankrupt.
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