What I Did With my Thanksgiving (2010) Vacation

Technically, I didn't take any extra vacation time this year at Thanksgiving. But I ended up taking the Monday before Thanksgiving (and part of Tuesday) as sick time.

When I woke up Monday morning I sat up, felt like I had rocketed up, and almost fell over. I felt very dizzy. OK, sometimes we sit up too fast; it goes away in a few seconds.

Nope. Not even in a few minutes.

I took stock-- no pain, mobility issues, chest aberrations, shortness of breath-- nothing. Just very dizzy. I didn't *quite* stagger into my office, where I researched dizziness on-line. With no other symptoms, it was wide open. The one thing I could do was check for low blood pressure. Nope. Normal.

Called the doctor, made an appointment. When I went to bathe, the hot water in the tub wouldn't shut off completely. When I turned harder (but not very hard) something in the valve (probably close to 30 years old) snapped, and now the handle would spin completely around through Off and On.

Call the plumber. No answer. Call another plumber. Yes, it's kind of an emergency. Thanks.

Sharon thought to turn off the water to the water heater. That was good enough for us but not for the plumber, as a little water was still leaking. He had to shut off water to the house. Probably $200 to fix this. We left Josiah in charge and Sharon drove me to the doctor.

We crested a hill on the toll road off ramp to see a car pulled over to the side. As we pulled closer I realized the young woman hanging out of it was waving both middle fingers at passing vehicles and screaming obscenities with, shall we say, a great deal of feeling. A pickup truck was pulling over to help, but apparently the driver changed his mind when he realized what the woman was doing. We called 911 and proceeded to the doctor's office...

Where she found nothing obvious except excessive ear wax. They flushed my ear with warm-ish H2O2 and H2O. After that, things improved. The dizziness was mostly gone, but I still felt unbalanced (yeah, I know, what else is new?) She told me to use an anti-dizziness medicine and it would probably clear up. (If not, it's off to an ENT. Perhaps Treebeard.) Oh, and get some rest.

So I spent most of my day resting. Reading, napping, talking with my son, watching my grandson play. Not the day I'd planned, but I've had far, far worse.

The bird woman, BTW, was gone when we returned. And no signs of wreckage or blood. Huzzah!

The next day was better, but not 100% better. My ear, that is. The faucet, too, come to think of it. The water shut off, but the hot water valve still spins. But the cost was only $100, and the plumber fixed a minor leak on the cold water valve as well. And it seems that spinnable valves are the Hot Thing in plumbing, so maybe I'll just break the cold valve as well.

By the end of the week, everything was back to normal. If anyone wants to buy futures in ear wax, let me know.