Browsing Tag: health

    Music

    The World I Know

    June 19, 2009

    Collective SoulI tested myself last night (Thursday). I hopped in the car and drove three hours to a remote part of Idaho to see Collective Soul do a tiny, little warm-up gig before their main tour starts next week. They advertised the show as being in Coeur d’Alene, but it was actually closer to Worley, Idaho, about a half-hour south of CDA.

    I’m still fighting the spinning head thing, but mostly in the mornings. (I see an ENT specialist next week.) Usually I’m doing pretty good by about 11 a.m. each day. At the show, I didn’t have any dizziness issues … but my McDonald’s dinner wasn’t agreeing with me, and since I decided to join the crowd and rush the stage during the third song, I was surrounded by people, getting very hot and sweaty, and extremely thirsty. I left the mob at the front after the band’s main set and found some ice water. Then went back and watched a bit of the encore before calling it a night and leaving early. (No, I’d never leave a U2 concert early.)

    That’s a six-hour roundtrip drive to watch about 80 minutes of live music. And it was all worth it because I got to hear “The World I Know” live — surely one of the best 4-5 songs ever written. I could listen to that 20 times in a row and not get tired of it. In fact, if you check my Last.fm profile, I probably have listened to it 20 times in a row!

    Other than being a little tired from the long drive, and having a small headache, the test went well. But hopefully they’ll play somewhere a little closer next time.

    Here’s my full set of Collective Soul photos on Flickr from last night.

    Miscellany

    Guy with the Spinning Head

    June 6, 2009

    “Vertigo” was too easy to use as a title, so I chose a relatively obscure U2 b-side from almost 20 years ago as the headline on this post, and then edited it since I’m a guy.

    This has been one of the strangest 10 days I’ve ever had. There’s something wrong with me, and I have no clue what it is. It’s very possibly nothing more than a virus, and deep down I think that’s the case. But it could be something entirely different and more serious, too. Hope not.

    A couple Wednesdays ago, while I was reading with T before she went to bed, I suddenly got dizzy, felt faint, and my head banged against the wall in her room. It settled down after about 10 seconds and I just chalked it up to being tired and the hot weather we were having. Then it continued the next day, and the day after that — dizziness, lightheadedness, headaches, etc. Then it got better for a couple days, then it came back again, and that’s when I finally went to urgent care.

    The doc there didn’t seem too confident, but he thinks it’s some kind of inner ear imbalance/infection, combined with allergies (even though I haven’t had allergies since I was a kid). So I got a couple prescriptions from him and have been taking them for three days now. I’m still waking up dizzy and groggy in the mornings, but the past two days I’ve felt pretty good in the afternoons and evenings. And here I am writing a blog post after midnight, so that’s a sign that maybe things are returning to normal.

    I had to cancel plans last week for a quick trip to Seattle with the family (although this dizzy stuff wasn’t the only reason), and canceled plans again this week for a conference in Seattle I was supposed to attend. I’ve already canceled a webinar I was supposed to give in a week or so, and I’m wondering if I’ll feel up to driving to Coeur d’Alene on the 18th to see Collective Soul.

    I’m not even sure why I’m posting about all this. There are several people I know, some very close to us, who are dealing with much more serious health problems (think cancer) and I’m not looking for sympathy. I think there’s a two-fold purpose to this post:

    1. To ask for patience from friends. If you’ve been waiting on an email from me over the past 10 days, or expecting me to finish/continue some project we were talking about or working, I’m now way behind on everything. Up until the last couple days, I’ve only been able to get in front of the computer for a couple hours at a time before things would start to spin.
    2. To publicly flog myself for not having a personal doctor. Yep. That’s why I had to go to urgent care. It was either that or the emergency room. Either way, I’d be seeing a doctor who’s never met me before. That’s not exactly helpful when it comes to diagnosing things. I’m 40 now. I should’ve found a personal doctor years ago. Maybe this post reminds me to go out and do it. Stupid, stupid, stupid….

    Anyway, not trying to make a big deal out of anything or look for sympathy. Just felt like talking about this craziness that’s been going on. And felt guilty about not writing a blog post here in more than two weeks, too.

    Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.