Looks like I have a case of the dizzies

On New Year’s Day, I woke up in the bottom bunk of my son’s bed and the room was spinning.

That sentence sure does make it sound like I drank like an idiot on New Year’s Eve and passed out in my son’s room and was paying dearly for it with a case of the old-fashioned spins, something I hadn’t experienced since my rookie year of drinking back in ‘87.

Welp, part of it is true. I probably did drink too much on New Year’s Eve — I’m basing that on the sideways glances from my wife every time I’d pop open another beer (but what could I do? It was a small affair. Only two other guys there were drinking, and let me tell you — they were drinking. I had to step up. Guy code. Duh.)

As for waking up in the bottom bunk? Happens all the time, as one of my daughters almost always climbs into my bed and next thing I know my wife and her are hogging the covers and I’m tossing and turning and forget this, I harrumph up and take the empty bed.

But the spins? Nuhuh. This was something different, especially as I noticed they continued throughout the day. Every time I would sit down or stand up I felt like I was unmoored from gravity. Best way to describe it: The room was spinning end over end and I was spinning end over end as well, but on a different plane. It was like the classic “Twilight Zone”esqe visual of a guy falling through a black hole or something.

It was not, in any way, fun.

I did some IMG’ing — Internet Medical Googling — and immediately discovered I had six months to live. That’s the problem with IMG’ing — type in “headache” in Google and by the second result (I’m not kidding) you’re already in brain tumor land.

Next day, same symptoms, now with five months and 30 days left to live, so I made an appointment with my doctor for the next day. I then immediately cancelled it and made an appointment with an ENT. Why? Because I have this ridiculous high deductible plan and since I have 47 kids I end up hitting the deductible at some point anyway so why not just empty my wallet and go to the specialist? Trust me, it makes sense.

So. At the ENT, I describe my symptoms, they put me through a hearing test (perfect hearing, don’t tell my wife) and a balance test (I have vertigo).

Yep. That was the diagnosis. Vertigo. To be precise, “Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.” According to the literature, some 35 percent of adults aged 40 and over have experienced this at some point in their lives.

The only experience I have with vertigo is from watching Liza Minnelli suffer through it as “Lucille Two” on “Arrested Development.” She calls it the “dizzies.” It’s funny with her. Not as funny with me.

Good news: It’s almost certainly not something that’s going to stick with me forever. As it was explained to me, it usually subsides on its own. But there are exercises I was given to help speed the process along. The exercises are designed to trigger the symptoms. How does it work? No one knows. But apparently, something happens and then presto, no more vertigo.

So right now, that’s where I am. The symptoms are subsiding, I’m pretty much fine most of the time, except for sure twice a day, five times at a clip, 30 seconds a shot, I turn my head one way and lie down the other way and bammo! I’m on the cosmic Gravitron. Good times. Ain’t aging the bestest?! Jeff Edelstein is a columnist for Digital First Media. He can be reached at jedelstein@21stcenturymedia. com, facebook.com/ jeffreyedelstein and @ jeffedelstein on Twitter.