Now what can you do for my aura?

So, last Thursday night I stumbled out of bed in the middle of the night to service a biological imperative,* as is the habit of men my age. My next recollection is of struggling up from the bathroom floor, with Biscuit standing next to me asking what happened.

I had sipped one or three beers and mostly skipped dinner the previous evening, but I really didn't have that much, officer, I swear. With no other explanation forthcoming at 3:00 am, I put it down to low blood sugar and fading stamina, made sure there were no bones sticking out, and went back to bed.**

The next morning I sat up, put my feet on the floor, and immediately fell backwards across the bed. I have experienced bed spins before, but never when it was light outside. I took another run at it, albeit more carefully, and found that once I got upright, things were more or less normal after a minute or so. Any significant change in the orientation of my head, however, sent the room spinning and started the process over.

A quick consult with Google pointed to some combination of stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and possibly a brain tumor. Or inner ear problems, which (spoiler alert!) turn out to be much more common, but don't get as much internet traction. Of course I only ever take ill on Friday. I determined to wait out the weekend, assuming I would either be dead or getting better by Monday. It turns out there was a third option, and I spent the weekend like a drunken sailor in a hurricane, stumbling from one handhold to the next.

I don't have a regular cardiologist or neurologist, as they are expensive and frightening. I do have an ear, nose, and throat doctor, and she has never used the word "catheter" in my presence that I recall, so I went to see her. I think everyone in the office knew what was wrong about five seconds after I walked in, but they are nothing if not thorough, so I got a blood pressure check, another stroke test, a few hearing and ear tests, and a good listen through a stethoscope. Apparently they also have the Google. Right before leaving the room, the nurse said, "She will be in shortly. She's going to align your crystals!"

My view of the world for much of the last week.

After eliminating the scary possibilities, the doctor tested me for what she already knew was wrong with me, which is something called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, or BPPV. Unlike ED or RLS, positional vertigo is not something made up by drug companies, but a real thing that happens to a lot of people. Apparently, tiny rocks (the crystals) in the inner ear wander into a neighborhood where they are not welcome, and the social tension causes a miniature riot when you move your head.

She put me in Bugs Bunny's barber chair, raised me to a height guaranteed to break something if I fell off, and had me lie back and turn my head to the side. If she said "cough" I was out of there, dizzy or not. Instead, she held up a finger for me to stare at, and when I turned to the left and one finger suddenly became three, she said, "There it goes!" with a look like an arsonist at a bonfire.

The treatment turns out to be something called the Epley maneuver. While this sounds like a British military technique that probably involves a bayonet, it's just more lying down, turning the head, sitting up, and getting dizzy. It doesn't fix the problem exactly, but relocates the tiny crystals to somewhere less annoying in the ear until they resorb. Also, I learned a new word. Re-sorb.

I'm pretty much back to normal now, with occasional bouts of walking like a mildly drunken landlubber in normal circumstances when I forget and do something stupid like lie down and then stand up. I haven't tried driving yet. Maybe today. What could possibly go wrong?

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* I'm pretty sure this is why they are called the "wee hours."

** Biscuit made me smile and blink, and whatever else you are supposed to do to check for stroke before she would let me go back to sleep. Apparently I passed, or she just got tired.

Extra dark roast

Buckle up, this is going to get gross. Seriously, I had to wait a few weeks before I could even write about it, so if you're the least bit squeamish, I would suggest skipping this post and coming back for the next one. (I'm looking at you, Johnny Virgil.)

I have never been a morning person. I sleep deep and wake slowly, despite my tendency to rise earlier with each passing year. I am terribly unfocused and uncoordinated for at least an hour after getting out of bed. The invention of the drip coffeemaker with built-in timer was a godsend for me, and (mostly) ended years of pots with no coffee, no water, grounds spilled everywhere, or (my favorite) coffee all over the counter because I forgot to replace the carafe. Now I can stumble out of bed, pour a cup, and sit quietly until the world starts to make some sense.

The other morning at breakfast, Biscuit said something about the coffee smelling funny. She's a bit of a super-smeller, so this sort of thing happens often. Some days the coffee smells funny, some days it's the air conditioner, sometimes it's me. She especially dislikes the smell of vinegar, so we don't clean the coffeemaker's plumbing as often as we might. I normally wait until she is out of town, but she hasn't been traveling much lately, so it has been a while. I noticed a bit of an odd taste, but nothing remarkable.  We discussed possibilities for a while, and the conversation moved to other things.

Just before leaving the house, as my routine dictates, I began preparing a final serving of coffee in a stainless travel cup to sustain me through the remainder of the morning. As I tipped the carafe to pour, coffee began to splatter on the counter, as if the lid of the carafe were mis-installed. When I turned the carafe to diagnose the problem, I saw two antennae protruding about two inches from the spout, attached to a bullet-shaped head.

Those of you have spent more than fifteen minutes near the Gulf coast are likely familiar with the large cockroaches that are common here, often euphemistically called water bugs, or palmetto bugs.* It seems one of these critters had wandered into the carafe during the night and gotten a nasty surprise come wakeup time.

I reacted like any red-blooded American male in that circumstance. I whipped the KA-BAR knife from my boot, stuck the little guy on the end, crunched him between my teeth, and washed him down with the remaining coffee. Okay, what I really did was throw carafe and mug into the sink, dance in a circle like a four year old convinced by his older brother to drink Tabasco, and try not to throw up. The dance was very similar to the one I did when one of these same roaches ran up my leg and into my cargo shorts about a dozen years ago, except this time my hands were flailing around my head instead of slapping at my area.

It turns out that I didn't need another cup that morning. For a few hours I thought I might never need any more coffee ever again. I threw all the affected parts into the dishwasher and set it to Obliviate. I would have put my head in there had I been able to close the door.

I had decided to spare Biscuit the trauma and carry this secret to my grave, but the next day when she remarked that the coffee tasted better again, and began conjecturing on causes, I broke down and confessed. She did not thank me for my honesty, but handled it better than I probably would have done.

Artist reconstruction

We have discussed any number of ways to avoid repeating this particular recipe, but in the end we put it down as a freak occurrence and returned to our normal routine. I have never had a bug in my coffee before, so it stands to reason that I can expect forty more years to pass before the next one. By then I probably won't even notice. I can only hope this is not some new fad that the teenage roaches are all daring each other to try. If it happens again I am definitely switching to tea.

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* There are four or five types of large roaches that inhabit the American Gulf South. Palmetto bug and water bug were originally common names for particular species, but are now used regionally to describe any giant, disgusting, flying, disgusting, frightening, disgusting cockroach. At least three of these species are common where we live. Luckily, most live outdoors and only wander inside when it gets very hot or very wet. Did I mention it gets very hot and very wet here? We all like to pretend we never have them in our own house, but I've seen them in the Louisiana governor's mansion. We find cats to be the best defense.