Vertigo

This is not the Hitchcock movie. Last night I had an attack of vertigo. I know, I know, my life is so interesting. How many other people can say they went to Buenos Aires and had a vertigo attack?

Yesterday I met Mike, Larry and Anna at the Recoleta Cemetery (how odd to use a cemetery as a meeting point). Before we met, I went to the restaurant across from Larry's apartment because I wanted more lentils. Unfortunately, they were out of lentils, so I ate locro, which is made from hominy (corn that is used to make grits), and different kinds of meat and chorizo. It was very salty, but a lot of the food we've been eating has been salty.

My thumb swelled up in the morning when I went to change money, so I came back, soaked it, squeezed out some pus and then took a cab to the restaurant across from Larry's. Larry met me at the restaurant and had a salad with me.

After lunch, we walked to meet Anna and Mike at the cemetery, and by the time we got there, my thumb had started to swell again. We walked through the Plaza de las Artenesias because we had to show Mike and Anna the "gran concheta" we found last week. Yesterday, she was dressed a little more conservatively, rather than a full-on fur and matching hat, she had a coat with a fur collar and had her hair down. I don't think she really is a concheta, but I wonder why she has a picture of herself next to Karl Lagerfeld (who is looking pretty "cheto" himself waving a black oriental fan in front of his face). I noticed that this woman had very large and masculine hands, though there was nothing else about her that would suggest that she might have not been born female. I pointed it out to Larry and told him if she was Italian, it might not be unusual because Italian women have big hands for making pasta (he joked that it was from roadwork). So, now the question is whether or not our "concheta" may in fact be a "concheto".

After walking around a bit, we decided to get some coffee and I ordered a cup of hot water for my thumb (and ended up having to pay for a tea).

It didn't seem to help and I felt pretty miserable, so I came home, while the rest of the gang went on one of Larry's fabulous tours.

I ordered a pizza with Roquefort cheese and hearts of palm (the cheese was also salty) and watched some dumb movie and then a few episodes of American Inventor (pretty dumb show). I'm here to learn Spanish, but cable TV usually has so much TV that I don't get to see it's hard to resist. It is really difficult for me to get as hooked on Spanish TV as I can be by some stupid marathon of American Inventor or America's Next Top Model, or something like that.

I soaked my thumb periodically and eventually went to bed.

In the wee hours of the morning, I woke up, turned over and felt something shift in my head which made me think I was going to have a meniere's attack. I suffer from constant tinnitus and my hearing in my left ear is about 50% of that in my right. But occasionally, I also get sudden attacks of vertigo.

Those who know me, know I get these from time to time. If you're interested in knowing more about meniere's, you can learn more on Web MD.

I got up and took a pill that I always have on hand just in case, and tried to sit up without moving my head (movement at this point makes it worse), but I could feel the race between the effects of the pill and the oncoming attack.

As I sat on the sofa watching the pattern of the wood on the floor begin to move, I realized it was going to be a close call. My body suddenly became very hot, my mouth started watering and soon I was up and in the bathroom retching. Fortunately, I didn't have anything in my stomach, and I think just the small amount of water I drank to take the pill came up. The effects of the anti-vertigo medicine started to take effect and the spinning slowed down enough for me to be able to go to bed and go back to sleep. It was a very close call (the medicine took effect before the vertigo got so severe that I was immobile) and fortunately it didn't happen to me when I was out walking (which I've been doing without taking my medicine with me since it's been since last October that I had an attack).

Now I know that I need to watch my salt intake here. No more locro for me, and I need to start doing things that will help me stay relaxed - massages, meditation and maybe some tai chi. I have so many stories to tell and it's only been a week that I've been here. What's in store for me next?