Dirtbag Writer

Here’s to Pura Vida and a Hopeful Return to Costa Rica

Posted on 13. Feb, 2010 by Writer in On Living

There I was my first year into a PhD program in Social Psychology and everything was going according to plan but something didn’t feel right.  I felt like there was something out there just outside my grasp, something bigger, something grander that I was suppose to do.

December 12, 2005 – I want to run away to a crazy mountain town and write my soul out.  I want to write about offbeat places, bizarre experiences, and amazing people I meet, and everything important to me.  Could I write?  Could I try it?  Could I just travel around soaking up all of life and making sense of it on page.

Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve

Long story short, I filed a leave of absence from graduate school and bought a ticket to Costa Rica in the same day.  In May of 2006, I traveled to Costa Rica by myself and had the most amazing, life-stoking time ever.

I returned from that trip already planning the next – I would spend the fall traveling from Guatemala to my beloved Costa Rica.  I waited tables all summer and saved every cent.  I lived on friend’s couches and in the back of my Subaru while passing the days writing at coffee shops and scheming up big plans until one day, towards the end of summer, I woke up and couldn’t move my head without feeling the room spinning wildly out of control.

I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t turn my head without projectile vomiting, I seriously thought I was dying and I didn’t even care.  I was poked, prodded and given a bunch of drugs.  Coming out of a week of heavy sedation, my world had drastically changed.

My travel fund was soon drained with ER visits, spinal taps, MRIs, and CAT scans ruling out tumors, seizures, aneurysms, and rare forms of migraines.  Over the next 3 years all that lust for life slowly fizzled out of me.

I thought I was going crazy. My world felt shaky, like I was always looking through a fun house mirror.  All my dreams of traveling were gone, hell at times I couldn’t even make it to the grocery store alone.

I sought solace in an office job, just leaving the house was an accomplishment.  I had debilitating anxiety, never knowing when the vertigo would strike. I now know that my symptoms were the result of the slow deterioration of my vestibular system due to something called Meniere’s Disease.

Finally with a diagnosis, some vestibular rehabilitation, and much encouragement from a team of Physical Therapists I slowly regained a sense of who I was before all this.

Not Freaking While Lead Climbing with Highly Dysfunctional Balance System

On September 1, 2009, I left my job (and health insurance – eek) to dedicate myself full-time to writing and travel and started off in Colorado (solo) for a magazine internship.  I still get vertigo from time to time but the episodes seem to get further and further apart and I get less incapacitated than before.  I think I am just learning how to deal better and I don’t freak as much.

My independence was strengthened this fall by traveling through the West alone, but what I really need to do now is leave the country – solo! I need to prove to myself that I can do it and use it to jumpstart that trip through all of Central American that I never got to take.

I’m still scared – scared that they really don’t know what is wrong with me, scared that someday I will start to spin and it will never stop, scared that the vertigo will strike while I am teetering on a mountain top or hiking through the rain forests of Central America alone – but I am not going to let that fear keep me from doing anything ever again.

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Inspired by recent talk about transparency and encouraged by Nomadic Matt’s and Gap Adventure’s Costa Rica contest– I was trying to find a way to discuss this top for a while now.  Can’t think of a better way than to try and win a 2-week trip to Costa Rica with Gap Adventure’s sponsored by Nomadic Matt.

Additional Meniere’s Disease Resources

Vestibular Disorders Association

Meniere’s Disease Info Center

Alternative Treatments for Meniere’s Disease

Something I like to clarify for people – there is a difference between what some people think of as dizziness (light-headedness) and full-on whirling vertigo.  Imagine being spun full speed on a Tilt O’Whirl now imagine that feeling while simply trying to sit up in bed.  Sometimes I spin so bad that I don’t know which way is up.

Tags: Contest, Costa Rica, Vertigo