Vertiginous: A Great Word, Not a Great Feeling

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A while back, a friend had some problems with vertigo and needed to reschedule plans we'd made.

"She's vertiginous," I told another friend.

"Nice word!" he replied.

And it is. I like the way it rolls off the tongue. I like that it means dizzy OR inclined to pointless change ("inconstant"), which I should clarify is not the definition that applies to my friend.

But while vertiginous is one of my favorite words, it's NOT one of my favorite feelings.

Last week I started having some weird dizziness issues that made me feel like I was lurching about. Kind of like I was drunk but still in total control of my brain. I had plans to meet someone on Saturday, a few days after my wooziness began, and in a perfect storm of badness, I almost passed out. The room went to grayscale and my vision narrowed, and everything turned sideways. Luckily my friend grabbed my hand and reminded me to breathe, gave me something to focus on, and the incident passed in what was probably just a few seconds (but felt like a lifetime).

Turns out, I'm probably NOT dying. Instead, this asshole bad tooth I've been watching carefully the past few months has decided that it's not going to settle down and will instead put pressure on my sinuses, which in turn will piss off my ears. That pressure + not enough lunch + a giant cup of strong coffee + taking a decongestant I thought would help alleviate the pain in my face = I almost bite it at Commonplace, one of my favorite Pittsburgh places. And I may be off coffee forever, which is a sad sad thing.

Now I have a root canal scheduled for next week to try to get myself straightened up.

Looking up fancy synonyms for "terrified."

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