After the continuous battle with vertigo attacks, nausea, diarrhea and the oh so maddening of the ringing ears. I would manage to have a few good days now and then.

January 2017, I started having more sickness but now I was having a hard time swallowing food. I would gag or even a small piece of bread would become lodged feeling in my throat.

At this point, I made a appointment with a gastroenterologist . The results would come back that I needed to have my esophagus stretched because tests would show my esophagus was closing up. Alrighty let’s schedule that right on.

I was struggling with so much that people really had no clue. My own health seemed to be deteriorating rapidly. How was I going to help anyone when I couldn’t even handle my self. The weight of the world was becoming what I thought then absolutely unbearable. I told myself many times that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. I was trying to convince myself that I could handle this. That I had this when really I didn’t. I had no clue what the coming months would bring at this point. I really am barely hanging on at this point. The prescription meds didn’t seem to be working. All they were doing was making me stay sick and the steroids was making me gain weight. I asked myself how am I gaining so much weight when I can barely keep a cracker down. The medications made me feel drained and irritable all the time. This doc was changing this med that doc was changing that med. i felt like a big fat angry lil Guinea pig.

By March of 2017, I was just fed up with everyone and everything thing. Everything I done or ate made me sick and I was angry. I was failing on a job that I knew like the back of my hand. After all I had been in banking for 28 years. Worked in most every single area in banking but old timey bookkeeping was forever my so called forte. I had signed a job as a drive thru teller from years in member services just trying to stay in my career. I stayed in the bathroom so much. I felt I was failing everyone.

April 2017, I had a precious friend suggest maybe just try a different career path all together. I do believe that we all need a “shake up” when things become unbearable. This path is working so let’s try another. I believe where there is a will there is a way! So I left the bank and would try a drastic change and take a 911 dispatcher job. I would be working 12 hour nightshifts with the very precious friend that suggested the job. I really believed I would enjoy working at 911 plus I had always been a night owl.

In May 2017, my life changed even more dramatic. I received a call while I was working at my shift at 911. The call was from my daddy’s high school best friend that lived in California. My daddy at 77 had got on a plane in Birmingham and flew to California without out me knowing and was non responsive and on life support there in California. My daddy and I had been arguing for months over things I won’t go into. This had been working on me as well. I absolutely loved both my parents we were so very close prior to this time. I was sick with my own sickness and my daddy was becoming a person I didn’t know with some of his decisions and battling his health while still grieving loss of his life partner. My daddy seriously worshipped my mother. They were absolutely the best parents.

After that call I received while at work, I left and was actually going to drive to Birmingham to get on a plane to California to be with my daddy. My dads best friend called me back and told me daddy was fading fast and that I would never make it to California in time even if I could even get a direct flight with that short of notice. I had never flown but I felt I need to be with my daddy when he passed as I was with my mother and my own grand parents when they took their last breath. I couldn’t and I was really devastated at this point.

I called my ex husband of 9 years, the father of my only child, high sweetheart at one point as I knew he was dealing with his parents health issues. I didn’t know where else to turn. My son was going thru so much too. I thought maybe the old us was still there somewhere so I went and sat on the pier at his house as I knew that the river was always my go to spot when life became unbearable. Nights on the river are so peaceful and calm. I needed the strength to get me thru one of the hardest decisions I ever made over a telephone.

I talked to several of my dads nurses and doctors asking many questions I had learned to ask from previous family sickness and even some in my training at 911.

I will never forget the moment May 13 2017 10:00 at night sitting on that pier alone when I told my dad’s doctor to take the vent off but make sure my daddy is in no pain. I stayed on the phone with the nurse as they turned the machine off and while they removed the vent. My daddy went fast as they didn’t even have the vent out before he flatlined. My world had really crashed at this point. I had lost both my parents within 2 years. I had my health problems that seemed to still just be deteriorating fast with very few good days.

At this point, I don’t know how I going to get thru this all myself better yet how am I going to be a rock for my only child as 13 days later from my dads death he would loose his other grandfather. This was absolutely a devastating time for us. How am I going to handle all this when I can’t even handle my own sickness?? I was really feeling the weight on my shoulders. Just seemed so unreal all of this was happening.

It took over a week dealing with medical examiner and trying to get my dads body flown back for his funeral service. He had to be embalmed in California to be able to fly. The funeral finally called and said my dads body had just arrived. I immediately went to the funeral home with my son and my dads only sister.

He had a beautiful military service with 21 gun solute and bag pipes as my dad’s family originally were from Scotland. The day was perfect Menieres was behaving to let me handle what I needed to handle to honor my father!!!

July 15 2017, I went in to work for my 12 hour shift at 911. That seemed to be the only solid thing in my life at the time battling Menieres and my parents death and trying to be there for my only child. The shift seemed to be going well until I had a funny feeling come across me nothing I had felt to this point. My friend/supervisor checked my blood pressure immediately and it was 117/111 she immediately dispatched a ambulance to our own building and gave me aspirin. When the ambulance arrived they loaded me up and gave me a nitro. They rushed me to hospital as my bottom was trying to catch top bp number. I would never work another shift at 911 or any other job at that point. I was scared I didn’t know how I was going to handle all this when I could not have more than a couple days a week where I wasn’t so sick that I couldn’t get out of bed.

After I came out of working at 911, it was time to start handling my parents affairs. It was time to decide what to do with all my parents things. A home that they had been in for 48 years. Since 1971 when I was 2. It had been weird enough going over after my mother passed 2 years ago. Now I had to go deal with the memories and their stuff with daddy gone as well. What was I going to do with all their things. My house was full enough and they were let’s just say organized hoarders. My daddy still have the first bicycle he owned as a child. 3 of every tool ever invented. My mother loved ordering some QVC . Boxes never opened or stuff she had ordered for the house and herself. What a as I to do with all this stuff. Thank goodness they had some awesome neighbors that would help me and I decided to donate so much to them and others that were in need. By the end of October 2017 all was gone. My parents home was just a empty house. My parents home of 48 years and my childhood home would forever be gone. Emptied!!! I was so very heartbroken. All that was left was the precious memories of them and their things were passed out in hopes others could appreciate.

Thanksgiving 2017 we honored our fathers and spent Thanksgiving in Gatlinburg. My parents absolutely loved the Smokies. They had spent their honeymoon on November 19, 1965 there and fell inlove. Trust me when I was a kid the Smokies looked nothing like it does today but they fell in love with the area. We would then spend most every thanksgiving in Gatlinburg thru my childhood and adult life. It was a yearly thing my entire life and definitely my sons. I swear he could literally be a tour guide for that area no problem lol.

This would be the first year of my entire life that I wasn’t buzzing up and down the Parkway in Gatlinburg or riding rides. My son and I not hitting the alpines slides at Ober Gatlinburg and racing down the mountain to see who would hold the winner title until the following thanksgiving. It was tradition every year for us to race the alpine slides as my cousins and daddy did every year growing up . There would be no go carting laser tagging or anything as I could barely walk around on the island In pigeon forge with a cane. I was ever so sick and was pretty sure at that moment that might be my last ever trip to the Smokies as I did the past 48 years of my life.

After the diagnosis of Ménière’s disease in 2015, I changed my eating habits, took meds as directed, did everything to try and have good days without attacks of ringing ears, nausea, sporadic diarrhea and the vertigo oh the vertigo was horrific. I did literally feel like I was dying.

January 2016, I returned to my ENT doctor for more tests. The results had come back and I was diagnosed with bilateral Menieres. The Doctor said Menieres had progressed rapidly and was now in my left ear as well as the right. ENT doctor then referred me to a ear specialist in Birmingham. My Doc said he was the best in the southeastern region.

March 2016 I went to for my appt in Birmingham. The specialist tried different head/body maneuvers known as The Epley Maneuvers. This was to settle the crystals around my ears that had become detached that was to be believed what causes the Menieres. Yes! basically I have rocks floating around my head. There was no success in that treatment as well. My Ear specialist then discussed steroid injections in the left ear, the “new ear”. For the next six months I would have a hole in my ear drum.

I believe it was about April 2016 I would start the injections in the doctor office as a outpatient. The treatments would take a couple of hours. First visit, Doctor cut a hole in my left ear drum and shot it full of steroids injections. I would have to lie on my side with little to no movement for a hour or so. I imagine as if you were going for cancer treatments. Thank goodness I never had to deal with cancer and I applaud all cancer patients.

Shortly after that first treatment, I became so sick I would be unable to perform my job that I had done for many years. I came out on short term disability from work as I went thru the treatments. I wound up being out of work 4 months during the other treatments. The steroids were to progressively hit the left ear in hopes to settle the crystals back to my ears and settle the violent vertigo attacks down to a minimum

Mid August 2016, I returned to my job. I was still having some vertigo attacks but thought I could manage. I did for the most part. I was working but struggling outside of work. Basically just working to go home and go to bed when I got home after struggling thru the day.

At this point, I’m somehow juggling work, life and don’t forget a father I worried so about still dealing with the loss of my mother and my son ,my heart, was battling so much of his own. I would have good days and then very bad days of non stop nausea vertigo and the ringing of the ears was ever so maddening. There again I knew I had some force within driving me as I was the one that was trying to handle it all. My daddy and my son were struggling with the loss of my mother as I was. Mother had a way of keeping us all in line. Now I felt that it had fell on me trying to manage all while I was struggling to even manage myself.

In January of 2015 at the age of 45, I was diagnosed with Ménière’s disease. I went to my primary doctor because I had became violently sick, dizzy and just couldn’t shake what I had going on. My primary doctor referred me to a local ENT specialist where he would run tests to determine what was going on with me as they did.

I will never forget the day that my ENT Doctor read my results as I was as diagnosed with Menieres Disease. My first question for the doc was “ Am I going to die?” Doc said “No Menieres will not kill you, but about times your going to think your are dying. There is no known cure for Menieres at this time but with Medications, diet and lifestyle changes Menieres is manageable.” Wow!!! That Hit me like a ton of bricks !!! WTF!!! So then I was prescribed medications to help with the dizziness and nausea. I was given a low sodium diet plan. The do’s and don’ts of food and drink as it was believed that certain food’s especially salt caffeine and alcohol could trigger the violent attacks that comes with having Menieres. For the next months I followed all advice from my ENT doctor but was still remaining violently sick at times. It was a scary time because I’ve always been very active socially, physically and mentally, I could juggle anything life threw at me.

A few months rocked on and I was managing to have a few good days and was still working 40 hours a week. I stayed exhaust drained and was just barely getting thru. The struggle was real.

In April of 2015, my mother got the flu and turned into pneumonia and was hospitalized. My daddy and I had her transferred from a Gadsden hospital to Brookwood in Birmingham the best infectious disease hospital around our area. Daddy and I stayed in Birmingham as he wasn’t going to be that far away from my mother. We got my daddy a motel room by the hospital and I was sleeping in the CCU waiting room. The staff were so awesome to us. Sneaking me in empty rooms just to grab a shower. Sadly, within two weeks my mother had went septic and passed away. At this point, I honestly look back now, I don’t know how I managed it all. I had just lost my mother, I’m a only child, I have a 75 year old father with his own health issues that has just lost his wife of almost 50 years (they were inseparable) and my only son had just lost his Nana, a MAJOR role in his life. My mother and daddy would have gave my son the moon and did honestly. I felt the wait of the world on my shoulders. By the Grace of God I was able to plan my mothers funeral. I wanted to do my mothers hair and makeup as I did her mothers. May 2, 2023, I went to the funeral home to make my mother beautiful as she always was. I went alone. It would be mine and my mothers last time alone. Our last Mother/daughter day. I found her the prettiest blouse blue and turquoise green. Mother was never one to wear dresses. She loved beautiful blouses and slacks. I did everything Linda wanted except I just had to get my part in and I painted her nails a beautiful blue to match the blouse. Linda was a neutral color nail person and I was not. Yes there is a lil rebel in me. I’m the flashy one. 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️ The day of the funeral came. Daddy got to see mother first and he cried when he said your mother would be so proud of you that you made her look so beautiful that she just looked like she was sleeping. I come from a line of vein women so the bar was already high. Mother had a beautiful service. I played all her favorite music in the background from gospel, Elvis, Sweet home Alabama and even KidRock All summer long. Yep I had got her hooked on some KidRock lol. Mother’s service was beautiful and the Menieres was staying at bay and letting me handle what I needed to handle. (My mother was my best friend, we were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Down to the arguing that my daddy just knew to stay out of). This day was one of the hardest days in my life. I know I had to have had help from above to get thru all of this. After all, We all have been taught that God will not give us more than we can handle. And That We all have a inner strength to get us thru the hardest of times. My inner strength must have kicked it in 4-wheel drive at this point.

I’ve always been adventurous, love to laugh and have fun and a bit on the good crazy side. Actually the picture above was taken at the comedy club in Birmingham Al. Little did I know at that time I would be in the best of health compared to what lies ahead for me in so many different ways. Stay Tuned!

Hello! My name is Renea and I suffer from Menieres Disease, Adult Scoliosis, 4 Blown discs, Colitis, Gastritis, Severe Hypertension Anxiety Disorder plus a domestic violence survivor and flood victim. I have been feeling the need to share my story in hopes to help anyone that may be struggling. This is my first blog but I hope you find my posts helpful and interesting. Please hit that “Follow” button. Thanks in advance for your time!!