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| Bottoming involves thorough cleaning of everything! |
I don't exacly like doing housework. I don't mind doing the laundry and, sometimes, when there's something good on TV, ironing. But housework seems such a waste of effort - all that cleaning and scrubbing, vacuuming and dusting, sorting and tidying - and then it all needs doing again in a few days time.
The only time I feel like giving the house a good bottoming' is when MWNN is away and there's nothing else to do to stop me dying of boredom.
Recent housework plans were scuppered by a sudden attack of what I later discovered was Vertigo, on Sunday night. The event was similar to the time MWNN and I crossed the Irish Sea by ferry in a force nine. I knew I suffered from seasickness, MWNN denied he did. We both woke up in the middle of the night and immediately started throwing up - The Daughter (about two at the time, was immune and thought it was great fun to be on a ship pitching and rolling at anchor outside Dublin harbour.) Sunday night was like that - waking up in the middle of the night and immediately throwing up - regularly - for almost three hours. The nausea was accompanied by a room which refused to stay still. It whirled around at fantastic speed whenever I opened my eyes. My eyes joined in the whirling.
When the shivering and sweating began, I decided to call the emergency NHS service. I reasoned I might be having a stroke or something that would cause me to faint. As I was alone in the house, no one would know. The triage nurse sent my details to the on-call duty doctor and told me to sit up and wait for the call. I must have dozed off because the duty doctor's call woke me. After several questions and medical history details, she decided it was probably vertigo - caused by an inbalance in the ears.
By then, the vertigo had stopped (so had the vomittting) but I was still feeling nauseous and very shook. The ducty doctor gave me the number for direct contact with my GP's out-of-hours service and told me to ring if things worsened. If there was pain, I was to dial 999.
I'm really glad I contacted NHS Direct. I was reassured by both the nurse and duty doctor and dozed for the remainder of the night. It could have been a stroke. Indeed, I learned later the following week that my neighbour's father had a similar experience (but with paralysis of face and hand) and didn't contact a doctor for 24 hours. He's in hospital - he did have a stroke and it wasn't attended to fast enough.
