We’re on the move again. I think.
The original plan was to wait out hurricane season before hitting the open Atlantic for a damn-the-torpedoes crossing to Montenegro; a country that will let both Russians and Canadians in, and which we have a good feeling about allowing temporary residence to yacht owners. We’re pretty sure it’s a scam, but one grabs at any blade of grass one can on the tumble to hell. But plans never survive an encounter with reality. In this case, a weirdly quiet storm season, and then, my suffering a rather catastrophic medical situation.
A couple of weeks ago, I crawled in to my bunk with crazy-bad pre-migraine symptoms and four hours later, made a lurch for the toilet, vomiting, dizzy, cross eyed, unable to stand or walk and stone-cold-deaf-as-a-post in my left ear. Scary. I crawled back to bed. I couldn’t even sip water for several days with the vertigo and nausea making it impossible. I worried about dying of dehydration. Elena found some Gravol (8 years past expiry) and I got that down with some water. A couple of days later, I managed a cracker. I’m eating and drinking again, but still wracked with vertigo making walking or turning a winch or driving a boat nearly impossible. It’s still hard to make my eyes point in the same direction, and I am still 100% deaf and lacking sensation in my left ear. Oh, and I am experiencing more than a few panic attacks over this: holy shit! I’m deaf. I was a musician!!! This is bad. Not to mention the auditory effects/hallucinations my brain (deprived of data from that sensory organ) is churning out. Kind of a phantom pain effect: it sounds like a jet engine strapped to the left side of my head when things are quiet. Let someone talk or noise rises above ambient, and the jet engine is accompanied by what sounds like an infinite number of monkeys hammering on empty oil drums.
Medical attention: get a grip! We’re off-grid. Anchored off a remote island with no services. I was completely out of it while what ever damage took place, and a medevac is frankly beyond our financial means.
It doesn’t take a pricey diagnostician to narrow down what befell me to one of three possibilities: stroke; brain cancer; or sudden sensorineural loss caused by neuroma or viral labyrinthitis. Each diagnosis/hypothesis has various factors in its favour and those that make it less likely. None can be ruled out at this point. That the neurological sequalae are not abating, and may be worsening, points toward a brain tumour. It could also point toward a stroke, seeing as recovery would be very long in coming, if at all. That it came on so suddenly, leans heavily toward a stroke diagnosis. Then there is viral labyrinthitis, a hypothesis we both hope for, seeing as it gives me more time alive, and even some possibility of recovery.
The main point in all of this, it that even with medical intervention, what may come, doesn’t change. All medicine could do at this point is alleviate symptoms: steroidal anti-inflammatories, anti-nausea drugs like Gravol, and possibly physiotherapy to learn to walk without slamming into walls or faceplanting into one’s dinner. Of course, there is also the price tag, which is beyond the likes of us!
In conclusion: one does what one can, given the circumstances one finds oneself in. Kind of like Mark Watney (The Martian), finding himself impaled and left for dead on the surface of Mars.
We’ve stopped. Elena is kind of captain now. Crossing the Atlantic with me all broken down and the boat a veritable wreck after 18 years of stateless drifting, might be on hold. Time for plan Z. I’m pretty sure Elena will reveal it along with her thoughts in her next update.