I noticed it first when I was out walking. Every now and then my left leg went across the right instead of going straight and I had to adjust my legs so I wouldn’t trip. It didn’t seem normal so I mentioned it to my doctor. She suggested dehydration.  When you walk a lot, she said, you need to carry a water bottle. I knew that wasn’t it, I’ve been walking for years without a water bottle so I humoured her and mentioned it the next time saying it was not dehydration. She had the wax cleaned out of my ears and arranged a brain scan. She rang me to tell me that my brain scan was normal and cleaning my ears seemed to improve the situation even though my right ear has more wax and I should have been leaning to the left. She decided that had been the problem and that was the end of the matter. I was an old lady and all the old lady problems had come up negative.

Except I was getting worse. I was grabbing anything on my right side as I walked along: tree trunks, large roots, posts. I looked up Parkinsons Disease on the web but apparently, I don’t shake enough. I do shake but only when I’m standing and my hands aren’t shaking at all. And I sleep well. People with Parkinson’s supposedly toss and turn all night. The brain scan would show if I had Parkinson’s so I not so reluctantly gave up that idea. It’s incurable anyway.

The next time I tried to see my doctor she was in Spain so I saw someone else at the practice and kept seeing her even though my other doctor came back. The new doctor didn’t know what it could be either. By then I had to concentrate on walking which made me slow but the new doctor just shrugged her shoulders and said my triglycerides were high and I should try to eat less carbs. I mean I was old, right, and all the old people diseases had been negative, right. But all sorts of thing happen to old people, some of them happen to young people too. I wandered if they thought I was inventing it. Perhaps my mind was playing tricks on me.

I couldn’t really walk. No matter how often I tried to convince myself that it was all in my mind, I kept falling on the stairs and in strange places. I fell once in the shopping centre at Erina, I don’t know why but I walked carefully after that and hugged the walls. I fell once at East Gosford, I was crossing the road, a side street without much traffic, when a car came up behind me, intending to park. I heard it and tried to look backwards and then I tipped the other way and I fell. You don’t know when you’re going to fall, suddenly you tip and you can’t stop it. I fell once when a friend waved me up some stairs and if another friend hadn’t caught my head, I might have fallen on rocks and had a haemorrhage like the one that killed my mother. In the lower brain. It makes walking scary, it makes me nervous leaving my house. I began to envy people who take walking for granted, who just mosey on down the street without hesitation. I walk and watch every crack in the pavement. I try not to cross any roads, except at crossings.

After twelve months, the doctor sent me to an ear, nose and throat specialist, just to be sure, that it wasn’t an ear infection, though her tone said she doubted it. I thought it was another thing to try and tried not to get my hopes up. It took me four months before I could get an appointment with the ear, nose and throat specialist, so it was sixteen months of watching my feet and walking slowly by the time I saw him. I had to park a few hundred yards away and walk there as best I could, crossing the road and hoping I wouldn’t fall over. It did turn out to be an ear infection. I don’t know whether the doctor was right or wrong. Fluid had built up around my left ear and that’s why I was listing to the right. After a week of antibiotics and a month of nasal spray I was walking straight but I was still wobbly. Walking was still an intensive activity, like driving. I still had to watch the path in front of me for cracks I might trip over. “Don’t worry,” said the health coach, “your yoga is keeping you strong.” I have a yoga practice which I do every day. My yoga is keeping me balanced, I think, though falling over is quite a shock to the system. Stairs especially make me nervous, and slow. I place both feet on the step before I try the next one. I walk like a drunk and feel like people are judging me which is stupid. I keep telling strangers in my head that I really don’t drink at all.

Everyone wants to help you, which I wouldn’t mind so much if it didn’t say more about how the helper saw himself and less about whether I needed help or not. I wish people would ask me if I need help and what help I need. But some people just grab you like a sack of potatoes, like you lost all agency with the fall. I know they are just trying to help, and sometimes they do, but mostly they’re more of a hindrance. That said, I remember falling once and lying on the sidewalk bracing myself to smile at the people who would try to lift me, when nobody came. Nobody saw me fall. There was just an old woman ahead, older than me, tick-tacking along with a walker. I felt bereft.

 The ear, nose and throat specialist was excited when I saw him three months later. “I didn’t think we’d have you walking straight again,” he said.

“Why am I still wobbly?” I asked. I took the train to see him the second time. I still had to walk and there was a large flight of stairs at the station but I had plenty of time, I took it slowly. I’d planned it that way. The ear, nose and throat specialist shrugged and sent me to a neurologist. It took me three months to get in to see him too and I’m wondering about the result given that my brain scan was normal. Especially how much that result will cost.

Meantime I saw a physiotherapist for balance training. She got me to sit on a plastic gurney like they have in doctors’ offices and dropped me backwards. She said I had vertigo and there were exercises I had to do. Thank God, I thought, a solution. The physiotherapist gave me a list of exercises and I did them religiously, three times a day. I made sure I remembered by hooking the memory to things I did every day. After two visits, the vertigo was gone, but I was still wobbly. It was driving me crazy. I wanted to know what caused it so I could fix it.

There were other exercises to do. I had to march everyday to strengthen my balance and balance with one leg in front of the other. I had to do sit-ups and bicycle in the air to strengthen my core. I suggested exercises for my legs which always seemed shaky. I did all the exercises every day but after three months I was still wobbly and I still worried about falling every time I crossed a road. Or even walked down the street and carried my coffee. The more tired I was, the wobblier I’d get. Mostly I didn’t fall, but worrying about it was tiring. I long to just be able to walk, like I used to, without worrying.

After about four months, the physiotherapist had a brainwave. “There’s something wrong with your vestibular system,” she said. She sent me to another physiotherapist who has the machines to measure the vestibular system. At least they’re cheaper than the neurologist but I can’t get in until November. I want to know if there’s a cure to this vestibular thingie and if I can get started right away.

I looked up vestibular system on Dr Google. It was confusing. It will either go away spontaneously or it won’t. One website recommended changes in lifestyle but didn’t say what. In general, my lifestyle is good, I eat well and don’t smoke. I don’t drink either despite the wobbliness and I have coffee once a day. I hope they don’t want me to give up that. One website recommended counselling so I could learn to live with it.

I think I have benign paroxysmal positional vertigo because turning my head makes me dizzy which is why crossing roads is difficult. I have to check both directions before I cross and preferably when there’s something to hold on to. All websites recommend balance training because they say that there’s a tendency to fall. That, I know already. They recommend exercises that change the position of the eyes and head and I used to do those, three times a day, till the physiotherapist told me to stop. Maybe I should start again.

Every morning I get up and walk around, hoping my walking problem’s fixed itself overnight. It never does. If I’m feeling particularly wobbly, I tell myself it’ll get better later, after I’ve done my exercises. I think I’m getting better, slowly, some days are wobblier than others. It’s hard to know, I live with the problem day-to-day and any improvement is slower than that. But it does seem that I need to grab supports less and I’m not so freaked out by stairs. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking.