Vertigo … and Through the Looking Glass
Written by Ann Pietrangelo on April 2nd, 2008 in Doctors, Emotional Issues, Family, Linked Articles, Symptoms.
Detective Ferguson climbs tentatively to the top of the step-ladder. Nervous and perspiring, he is completely overwhelmed when he reaches the third step. His fear of heights manifests itself in the form of dizziness and he collapses in a near-faint. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 classic thriller, “Vertigo,” starring James Stewart, uses unique camera angles and imagery to capture the fear of heights as never before. There is one small problem with that. Vertigo is NOT fear of heights. Until recently, I, along with many other people, drew my knowledge of the subject from that movie. Just further proof that life does not imitate art.
Two things happened upon hearing her neurologist at Johns Hopkins utter the words “This is MS” while examining the MRI films of her brain. First, there was a feeling of exoneration. We weren’t crazy. All the inexplicable on-and-off-again symptoms that were plaguing Mandy had their roots in an actual, true-to-life disease. Then the other shoe dropped and we froze. Though we were afraid to say it aloud, we each thought the same thing – ‘what now?’
