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March 13, 2010

Life can be quite interesting when your gyroscope is broken

Somewhere in your inner ear, there are some tubes that work like a gyroscope. These tubes help you know whether you are standing upright, lying down or standing on your head. (I wonder how they work down in Australia?) While standing on your head, you will notice that it is very difficult to walk unless you have very large, strong, well coordinated ears. Most people have difficulty wriggling their ears let alone teaching them to walk on them.

Imagine your mother’s surprise when you ear-stroll into the kitchen and say “Hey, mom, look at what I can do.”

Somehow my inner-ear gyroscope has been broken. Normally this will cause me to wobble from side-to-side as I walk, bouncing off of hallway walls or, under extreme conditions, falling over or leaning like the Tower of Pisa.

Most people compensate when holding conversations with me by tilting their heads to one side or lying prone on the floor with me depending on where my broken gyroscope leads me.

Can you just picture me trying to walk a straight line? “Honest ossifer I’m as slober as a judge. My ears are making me do this.” County jail, here I come! I’ve been told that there are granules running around in those tubes in our inner ear that are instrumental in maintaining our balance.

In my case they can be severely influenced by high and low pressure fronts. There is medicine that you can take for this, but it has a tendency to make you sleepy. This is fine if you fall and are lying on the floor _ you can take a nap while you’re down there. I found the answer to my dilemma by using a “walker.” My “walker” has a built-in seat so I can rest if I get weary. With four wheels, it moves along quite nicely and doesn’t make any scraping noises like the wheel-less walkers that have sliced tennis balls to protect the supports from wearing down. I’m so quiet with my walker that I could be a spy. My only tell-tale giveaway is the grinding all my joints make when I move.

“OK, everybody be quiet, here comes Geerken the spy.”

On my walker, the seat is high enough where I have no difficulty trying to stand up. When I used regular restaurant seating I had to have Diane help me up out of a seated position by holding onto my lapels and yanking me to my feet. It provided entertainment for other dinners.

The reason why I need to do this is that I need knee replacement but am too “chicken” to get the job done. Like Toyota, I expect a recall to my creator any day now.

My walker has two hand brakes, so I can hold myself from picking up speed if I am going down hill.

The brakes are very essential if you get to the crest of a hill and want to hold your position for a moment. Without them you could stagger backwards and end up at the bottom where you started, and all your work would be for naught.

You could ruin a whole day and never get anywhere.

Without the walker I have a good chance of losing my balance and falling down. With my luck, I would probably break a hip, and we all know what happens to the elderly when they break a hip. Yes, they pack you off to “the home.”

One winter, when we were in Myrtle Beach, Diane noticed BB’s on the floor. When she showed them to me I knew that they were the bearings from my walker wheels. The very fine, dust-like sand from walking on the beach and surf had gotten in the bearings and had worn them out by consistent abrasion. My walker was useless, and so was I. Diane, blessing that she is, got on the Internet and found replacement parts. Within a week my walker was up and running, and so was I.

Having a broken gyroscope is not any fun. This is especially true at night. Without a reference point being in the dark can be very scary. I was fortunate in this regard because I have been “in the dark” (and clueless) for most of my life, but a newcomer to this malady can find it an experience not easy to forget. There is another aspect to the “broken gyroscope syndrome” that can be very disconcerting. You will find that you can sleep on one side with your head on a pillow but not the other.

If I sleep on my right side I’m fine and dandy but if I roll over, I will get a spinning sensation that will make me completely disorientated and sometimes even nauseous. My sister Lucia (nee Lucy) also had this problem but found relief by going to a doctor who got her on a couch that was able to swivel and turn in a number of directions. (Every time I read this it reminds me of a joke, but I can’t recall what it is.) The purpose was to allow the granules in the inner ear to reorient and reposition themselves with the help of gravity so she would, in effect fix her gyroscope.

I tried this on my own but found no relief.

Like all things on my body, the granules in my inner ear were either on strike or had left for warmer parts.

As time goes by, I realize that getting old can be hell. I looked for “my golden days,” but found that they were all bronze.

Be good until we all meet again, but if you get into trouble, give me a call. Trouble is my middle name.

HENRY GEERKEN is a three-time NYSUT award-winner writing humorous articles addressing retiree and senior citizen concerns. Geerken also writes for Sail-World, World Cruising Newsletter, regarding his many humorous sailing episodes through the years. He can be reached by email at hgeerken@stny.rr.com. “Senior Scene” columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/seniorscene.

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