Week 2 – Labyrinthitus Take 2

For the next few days I carried on laying horizontal . I slept a lot, researched a lot and found innovative ways of functioning without moving my head from the pillow. Those days that I had to make a bathroom visit, were traumatic because I’d get myself there with my boyfriends help, but then get so disgustingly dizzy that I’d fall to the floor and not be able to move again for hours. I remember him wrapping me up in blankets and sliding me into the kitchen so I could catch some of the sun rays coming in through the window. I must have looked pretty scary laying there half dead and I know it really shook him up to see me like that. But we both had faith in my healing and knew it was a blip that would pass soon.

Very gradually there were small improvements. Around a week after it began I was able to sit upright in bed and then a few days more I was able to very slowly and carefully stand up and walk. It was such a delight to be able to move again and have my independence back I can’t tell you. We just don’t appreciate these things until they’ve been taken away from us!

My hearing had been muffled and low in my left ear since the Labyrinthitus came on and I’d been listening to movies and audio at louder than normal volumes. I knew this was part of Labyrinthitus and thought it would pass as I recover. But on the morning of 24th Feb,  10 days after I got ill, I noticed it was bad in the other ear. I was concerned about this and called my GP to arrange a telephone appointment which was scheduled for the next day.

But that afternoon my worse nightmare happened. The Labyrinthitus came again in my other ear.

The GP had said when he visited that once you’ve had Labyrinthitus you’re predisposed to having it again in your life whether it be months of years in the future. His words terrified me. I just couldn’t bare the thought of going through this hell again. But it had come already. This time so badly that I couldn’t even lay still without wrenching my insides out. That night was hell. My hearing had deteriorated. My insides were empty from vomiting and there was no position that gave me relief from the violent spinning sensation that tormented me. All of the next morning I desperately called the GP and when he finally called me back, my hearing had got so bad I didn’t even hear the phone even though I was only meters away from it. When we finally got through to each other he said I was ‘unfortunate’ to have Labyrinthitus again, and that there was nothing anyone could do to help me. I should take the dizzy pills and rest.

I cried my most horrible cry. A dizzy super-spun exhausted wail, for the most tragic moment of my entire life. Because while most people lose hearing in one ear to Labyrinthitus, I lost mine in two. It seems so bloody unfair.