I was finishing up my graduate studies. My dissertation was 98% typed up; I had returned the rented electronic typewriter. (Yes, this was in the days before electronic word processing.)
The department’s secretary kindly allowed me to use a typewriter in her office to finish the typing. As I was typing the last pages, I suddenly felt flushed and increasingly subject to vertigo.
Except for one particularly drunken evening at college, I had never felt my head turn such as it was spinning around. I somehow managed to collect my manuscript and walk home.
The 18 block walk was hellish. I could barely walk straight. How I must have appeared to anyone I passed on the street! I think I vomited twice. I finally arrived home and collapsed on my bed.
The next day I felt completely restored, excepting the disquiet associated with this mysterious attack. Was it food poisoning? Had I contracted some bug? Remember, at this time the Internet was in its infancy and there was no World Wide Web. The plethora of websites advising you on health issues simply did not exist.
As the Germans say, einmal ist keinmal. But this was not to be. Over the next few weeks, I had repeat episodes of that intense vertigo that kept me pinned to my bed. Happily, as I learned in retrospect, these episodes never lasted more than a few hours. But those hours were scary enough. I had no idea what was happening to me. I had no similar experience in my life. I know no one with the same symptoms.
My appointment with the otorhinolaryngologist was fixed.