Part of living with illness is mastering the art of concealment. We hide our pain, we hide our worry, we hide our discomfort. We, essentially, hide every clue we can to how we truly feel on a daily basis - because no one needs to know all of those details. We don't go around expecting to hear about every single detail of someone's 'normal' routine, so we don't share ours - even though what is normal to us is not necessarily normal for others.
But every once in a while we leave subtle clues, and if you look hard enough, you might catch one.
A few of my general clues include my eye color, loss of color in my cheeks, seeming winded, sometimes even tone of voice. But there is a new one that I just noticed myself.
The other night I spent a few hours practicing and uploading videos of me performing cover songs for my youtube channel. It is something I absolutely love and I desperately miss singing on a regular basis, so I record music to put up on youtube.
Anyways, at one point, while I was recording, I had a major dizzy spell. If you have ever experienced Vertigo, you will know what I mean. All of a sudden, the world turned sideways and, even though I was looking straight ahead, my I saw my keyboard and music turn vertical and I thought I would fall off my stool. But I kept going. I focused on the keys and my hands and even though my entire perception had done a 90° turn, my fingers were still on the correct keys and my voice still worked, so I kept going.
I shrugged it off and kept recording more songs. I knew it was during one of the last two or three songs, but I could not remember exactly when it happened - until I watched the videos over today, a little more closely.
It's not obvious, mind you, but it's there. Nearer to the end of the song, I sped up. I am looking intensely at my fingertips and the entire song speeds up.
It is neat to be able to continue without stopping even when the world is, perceptually, being turned on its side, but I couldn't hide it entirely.
See if you can notice when it happens:
Cover of "Unsteady".