HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2007-10-25, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2007. PAGE 5.
Bonnie
Gropp
TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt
Battle of the bugs
Acouple of years ago I suffered –
briefly – from a condition called
Benign Paroxysmal Position Vertigo –
BPPV for short.
Dizzy spells, to put it even shorter. If I got
up too fast or turned my head too sharply or
bent over too quickly to pick something
off the floor, my internal gyroscope
went into overdrive and I lurched
about like Ozzie Osbourne on New Year’s
Eve.
You don’t get BPPV from bad dietary
practices, using street drugs or hanging out at
the Willie Pickton pig farm.
BPPV is an equal opportunity bushwhacker
that nails vicars and villains alike. Anyone can
get it, at any age, at any time.
An attack comes when microscopic
grains of calcium crystals floating about in
your inner ear brush against tiny
hairs therein. This sends signals to your
brain that you are falling down, or
veering left or right. Your brain attempts
to get your body to compensate in
11 different directions all at once and,
hey presto, you feel like you are going
through the spin cycle in some galactic
Maytag.
Happily, there is a procedure called the
Epley Maneuver. It’s a relatively simple
manipulation of the head that any qualified
ear, nose and throat specialist is trained to
perform.
Basically, Doctor ENT takes your noggin
and gives it a vigorous spin. The idea is to
shake up those calcium crystals in your ear
and get them to settle down where
they’re supposed to be, well away from the
hairs.
Does it work? An astonishing 85 per cent
of the time – providing you actually
are suffering from BPPV. If your
vertigo is caused by something else (and there
are several possibilities) then the Epley
Maneuver won’t help.
My vertigo was cured in one visit
and I wrote a magazine article about it.
End of story.
Not.
I get an e-mail from one Muriel Kaufman.
She is a spokeswoman for a group called
BADD which stands for Balance and
Dizziness Disorders Society. As a former
sufferer, she wants to know, would I consider
coming to town and speaking to her group?
Well, sure. Public speaking is what I do for
a living. I e-mail her back with details of my
speaking fee, my expenses expectations and
my availability.
I get another e-mail. You don’t understand,
writes Muriel. We are a non-profit
organization. We don’t even have an executive.
Would I come and speak for free?
Hell, no. I’m a professional. I don’t give
away my services. Would you ask a surgeon
to do a free appendectomy? A lawyer to
defend you in court, gratis?
You don’t understand, Muriel e-mails back.
She makes many passionate arguments but
what it boils down to is, what I don’t
understand is that she is Muriel Kaufman and
she will not be denied.
When I arrive to deliver my (free) speech at
St. Paul’s Church in Vancouver, the auditorium
is not only sold out, there are people sitting in
the aisles and a conga line of latecomers
trailing out the door.
This is entirely Muriel Kaufman’s doing.
She has dredged up every soul who ever
suffered from vertigo in the entire British
Columbia lower mainland and they are all here
tonight.
And as almost always happens when I
abandon my narrow preconceptions and go
with the flow, I learn amazing things and hear
incredible tales.
I hear one sufferer tell how her doctor pooh-
poohed the Epley Maneuver. “It’s a hoax,” he
assured her. I hear of another vertigo victim
who spent 10 years –10 years – as a prisoner
inside her own house, terrified to
face the world for fear she would fall on her
face.
After a decade of self-exile, she went into
the office of an ear, nose and throat specialist
in a wheelchair. And walked out on her own
two feet.
I hear stories infinitely more interesting –
and harrowing – than my frail tale, but
incredibly, my vertigo story – thanks entirely
to Muriel Kaufman – continues to snowball
across the nation. So far, I have been
interviewed by two Vancouver newspapers,
CKNW radio, the Edmonton Journal and the
Calgary Sun.
I have yet to return calls to the Toronto Star,
the Montreal Gazette and CBC radio’s
national radio show, The Current.
I’ve got e-mails, cards and letters from
BPPV sufferers from Joe Batt’s Arm to
Buffalo to Baffin Bay.
I’ve written books that didn’t get one-tenth
this attention.
Point of the story? A metaphorical bouquet
of roses to the Muriel Kaufmans of the world
who Get Things Done and Don’t Take
No For an Answer. Muriel’s a volunteer
and like all volunteers she gives her
time and her energy and her cunning, all for
free.
Volunteers – bless ‘em – are the backbone
and the lifeblood of our communities.
Moral number two: count your blessings. If
you got out of bed this morning and
didn’t fall flat on your keister or
do a hundred-and-eighty-degree face
plant into the wall, consider yourself
lucky. Award yourself an extra scoop of corn
flakes.
Arthur
Black
Tory struggles to hold job
They’re not the first to be here. Others
have come before to disrupt the calm
and security. They have arrived in
numbers, in a variety of forms. They have
repulsed, repelled, outsmarted and in some
cases terrorized.
I long ago learned that living in an older
house means you often find yourself sharing
your haven with unwelcome intruders. As a
young married almost 30 years ago, we came
to our new home with plans for remodelling
and revitalizing.
But, we discovered that another little
project awaited us. Having sat vacant for a
few years before we purchased it, the house
had become sanctuary for some unpleasant
squatters. Over the course of the next several
months we battled against and defeated an
army of mice, trapping 25 before our work
was done.
Next was my close-up introduction to their
flying cousins, who periodically managed to
distress our household with a late-night
arrival. This particular war was waged
sporadically until a few years ago. Then, my
husband finally managed to find where the
odd one had strayed in, and plugged the hole.
Unfortunately, it seems he had actually
locked a few of them in. As a result their
nocturnal invasions upset my life for quite a
while until we (and trust me I use that in a
strictly editorial sense) caught them all.
The daytime version of flying critters also
made a brief appearance, when a starling
caught in an old chimney broke its way
through a bedroom wall to bid me good day
early one Sunday morning.
Yes, the nooks and crannies of older homes
definitely serve nature well. And while we
have (crossing my fingers on this one)
apparently solved the problem of mammals
and birds, the bug world is another story. Like
the furry and feathered, the creepy and crawly
have made themselves at home in the Gropp
residence over the years. A wasp’s nest in the
attic brought those nasty creatures into our
living space. Also, it’s no surprise that big, fat
flies have clustered in windows. These were
usurped two springs ago by ladybugs. Yet,
with swatter and vacuum I have claimed at
least some victory over the bug world.
And I have little doubt that will change.
However, I have always known my enemy
before, and this is what brings me to the
reason for this column. A new bug has come
to live with me, a repugnantly beautiful
creature, that simultaneously fascinates me
and creeps me out.
I discovered it last summer hanging around
the fringes of the house. Now it has moved
right in and it would be helpful to know
exactly what I’m dealing with. My internet
research to this point has led me to believe it’s
a boxelder beetle, though the pictures are a
little misleading.
The new Gropp resident has red-orange
markings on its back, or perhaps the wings. A
slow, easy-going little crawler, it surprised me
one day when it took off flying. The back is a
black-grey in colour, with an almost diamond
shape. The antennae are quite obvious.
Without proper identification I don’t know
what I’m in for, whether this pest will simply
be an annoyance or if it can in some way be
harmful to person or home. I suspect neither,
but it would be good to know that my walls
aren’t being eaten away from around me.
So if anyone can offer some suggestion,
feel free to bug me with any information you
might have. I must be armed with all the data
possible to prepare for battle.
Other Views Of vertigo, vanity and volunteers
Defeated Progressive Conservative
leader John Tory is receiving a lot of
encouragement from many quarters as
he tries to hold on to his job, but he will have
trouble persuading his own party to persevere
with him.
The Conservative leader lost the election
and riding where he ran, to Premier Dalton
McGuinty’s Liberals, but has said he wants to
continue and will unless the party rejects him.
Tory, who lost particularly because he
promised to fund private faith-based schools,
which offended many and became the biggest
blunder in an election in memory, said he is
not afraid to face critics in his party and rivals
for his job, but will do what is in its best
interests.
The Conservative party’s president has said
it needs time to assess the results, but there is
a huge goodwill in it for Tory, because of his
work as leader since 2004.
Tory is being described by many in and
outside his party as hardworking, likeable, a
good TV debater and public-spirited,
because he gave up a highly paid job running
a cable TV company for the risks of elected
politics.
He also is admired for trying to bring much
needed civility to politics by urging members
of the legislature to be less strident and by
leading somewhat by example.
Former Liberal premier David Peterson said
Tory is civic-minded and should remain in
politics. The Toronto Star, which supported the
Liberals, said the Conservative leader has
shown he is decent and compassionate and
cares for the vulnerable.
The newspaper added Tory has much to
offer, can learn from his mistakes, deserves a
second chance and it would be a mistake for
the Conservatives to push him out.
The Globe and Mail concluded Tory’s loss
may make him stronger and there is no reason
to believe he cannot still be a successful
politician and the Conservatives should not act
precipitously.
One sympathizer has established a website
to collect support and pointed out McGuinty
and former Conservative premier Mike Harris
each were defeated when leading parties in an
election before they won.
All this is heady stuff and some
Conservatives may be tempted to tough
it out for a while under Tory. But leaders
traditionally are eulogized even by enemies
when they retire or no longer seem threats.
The newspapers also are fair-weather
friends. Before the vote, the Globe said a
leader has to produce followers and Tory
failed utterly. The Star felt Tory had
questionable leadership skills and lacked
credibility in managing finances.
If Tory were to stay and lead in the next
election, critics would remind he promised to
fund faith-based schools in 2007 and The Star
would be the first to mention it.
The reality is Tory as leader was able to
bring the Conservatives only 31.6 per cent of
the vote, less even than his predecessor,
premier Ernie Eves, who took over the party
when there was so much hostility toward it he
had no hope of winning.
While McGuinty and Harris led and lost in
elections, each managed to win his seat in the
legislature as a platform for standing up to
government.
Tory has no seat, because the Conservatives
opened up one for him in a safe, partly rural
area after he won leadership. He gave it
up to run this time in Toronto, trying to show
his party could win in the province’s biggest
city.
The Conservatives would look somewhat
undemocratic, and even a joke, if they had
another of their MPPs step down to open up a
safe seat twice for the same leader in four
years. They might not even be able to persuade
another MPP to step down and have no power
to force one.
Tory, as a result of his promise to fund faith-
based schools, also has the heaviest baggage
of an opposition leader in memory. The
Conservatives are more likely to want to win
next time than help a well-liked but
unsuccessful leader rehabilitate himself.
Eric
Dowd
FFrroomm
QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk