What spins round and round with nowhere to go? This columnist, suffering vertigo
Back in the hazy and mostly lazy days of high school, when it was time for science, I’d pull it together, focusing with the determination of a starving three-horned chameleon staring down a centipede.
The center of my focus was often my amazingly challenging and entertaining science teacher. He made biology and human anatomy class not only enjoyable, but he truly inspired me to work harder in his class than any of my college classes thereafter. For example, his anatomy students were required to memorize 500 Greek and Latin prefixes and suffixes right off the bat.
Do you know how many index cards I needed to make 500 flash cards? Right. About 500.
Don’t think I’m exaggerating on this number either. When a teenager is required to memorize an unheard of number of foreign “words” the first few weeks of the semester, the thing branded in her permanent memory is how many cards were required. Of course, an enormous part of the memorization came by hand-making the flash cards. What 17-year-old knows could predict how much this assignment would help her in the future? Surprise life lesson received.
I don’t like to brag, but it’s amazing to me after several decades, I still remember a huge portion of them. I even saved the study sheets from 198 (cough)...5. When I saved a handful of educational materials I thought might come in handy, I couldn’t have imagined this.
When I read an unfamiliar word, I dissect it into parts. For example, the prefix “a-” means without, the prefix “cereb” means brain, and the suffix “cyte” represents a cell – so if I were to create a word describing many politicians, I think acerebecytes would be fitting. And yes, I just made up that word.
So, a few weekends ago, I found myself in a bit of a pickle. I was driving back home from an errand, and on the highway, I started to get lightheaded.
Like extreme lightheaded, and vision impaired. Of course, I pulled over immediately until the feeling passed. Luckily, it didn’t take but a minute. I took a drink of my water, turned around to check for any vehicles in my blind spot, and carefully merged back onto the highway. Bam. It happened again.
I returned back to the side of the road. I waited on the side of the road and it went away. I sat there for 5 minutes just to be sure it was gone, and then decided I needed to get home and out of my car. This time, I used my mirrors to watch traffic and I was able to cruise safely down the road.
After a while of being cautious on the interstate, my water bottle spilled over to the passenger seat and I was afraid of getting my papers wet, so I leaned over a bit to the right and snagged the bottle. But guess what happened? Yep, dizzy again.
I needed to park it now before anyone got hurt. I pulled off the highway and spotted an urgent care. I decided I needed to have my head examined. I wasn’t losing it, but I did need to make myself laugh to calm down and not think about the impending stroke or brain tumor diagnosis I was imagining while sitting in my car in the parking lot.
The doctor checked me out and informed me that while I wasn’t in no medical danger, he used a familiar word: vertigo. The last time I’d experienced the room spinning was a few years before, but it was mild and disappeared after doing the recommended Eply maneuver, so I’d forgotten my symptoms were spot on for vertigo.
When the doctor left the room to write up a prescription for motion sickness, I began dissecting the word like a nerd. “Vert,” translated from the Latin prefix means going up to sky. Like vertebrae… which are the bones of the spine, and they go up and down vert-ically, and not horizontally.
Then I pulled out my phone to look up my condition and noticed a second Latin prefix was listed as “to spin.” I was suffering from Verti-go-Boom. An inconvenient condition where you’re standing upright and then spin and crash to the ground, go “boom.” My definition, not Webster’s.
Later, my sweet husband picked me up from urgent care and drove me home. I searched for that worksheet of Latin prefixes and suffixes, just to prove to myself I was right. Turning to the fourth robin-eggshell blue page, I scanned the v’s. What? It wasn’t there. There was “venter” meaning to convey, then “vermis” the worm, but no “vert.” I guess my science teacher was being nice to us, by only giving 500 words to memorize. Thanks, Mr. Highfill.
Stacey Hatton can be found grounded (drivers’ quarantine) until the spinning stops. It is annoying. She can be reached at laughingwithkids@yahoo.com.
