Vertigo Did Not Make Me A Victim, I Became Victorious

An encouraging story about things we can overcome and then we become a victor. Hunt Valley-Cockeysville, MD By Elita Sohmer Clayman (Open Post) -  May 26, 2012 11:55 pm ET  Someone asked a friend of mine how she held her head up high when she has been been through a lot and she said no “ matter what I am, I am a survivor.” She got the message from something she read written by Patricia Buckley. How true Patricia Buckley is to have thought of that. I do not know her but I think it quite a relevant writing of thoughts. I have told you readers many times in different articles, that my own dad had many hard times financially before I was born; though he had been quite well to do when he married my mom in 1927. I guess he lost a lot of money in the Depression days and he had known what good times had been. He never let it break his spirit and he always felt that tomorrow would be good and the following day even better. Financially, he really never recovered too much; but we had everything we needed and were in the same ‘boat’ as all the neighbors where we lived until we moved, when I reached fourteen years of age. I use to take the streetcar to get to my junior high school building which was in downtown Baltimore and was for accelerated kids who were selected to go there for their education at this school. It was a dump of an old building, but we were told the education we would receive there was well worth the ugliness of the building inside and out. We had no gym there; we had to walk six blocks to another school once a week for our gym class. That was OK with me, because I was not the athletic type. The school we walked to was a dump too, but not as dumpy as our school. We survived each session walking in this not so nice neighborhood and we did not allow ourselves to think we could be victims of a robbery or anything else. We walked in groups and we were OK.Actually, there was nothing that could be stolen from us of value other than tennis shoes and in those days, we wore regular daytime shoes and carried our sneakers as they were called and they were bought at a store called in those days ‘five and ten cent stores.’ They probably cost about a dollar and there was no sales tax then either. So if anyone would have wanted our shoes, why I do know how any person could want to wear a stranger’s shoes, we would have given it to them. We would have thought ourselves ‘lucky’ that day because we would not have had to take the not so pleasant gym class, if we did not have shoes. More from Across Patch •Hospital Safety Grades: National Rankings Released •ENOUGH! Southern Mama Shoots Her Childrens' Cell Phone •Kindle Fire Kids, Women's Fashion, Tote Bag: Monday's Patch Deal Hound I could not climb the ropes and the obnoxious gym teacher thought I and others like me to be very unathletic teens. Who cared, we did not let them victimize us, we smiled and did what we could and that was fine. When I ballroom danced for over thirty years, I use to think how proud the obnoxious gym teacher would have been to see me now, moving my body, flinging my feet out for a fancy step, twirling with my teacher’s use of his arms to let me do that and even racing down the dance floor with him for an especially daring dance step. When we cannot do something that some others can do, that does not let us be prompted to be victimized verbally or physically. We show these unpleasant people whether they are teachers or regular people; that we can accomplish other activities even better than the one we cannot do well. Who is to decide if we are doing it properly especially since the one making the decision is not so great themselves? As I previously wrote in a critic article several weeks ago, some critics cannot accomplish what they want us to do them self, yet they can critique us, review us and find fault with us. It does not always mean they are correct and if they were a proper teacher, professor or coach, they would show us how to do it right and not demean us. Lots of children get very upset in gym classes because they are not athletic and are experts in other aspects of life. In my time, we had no gym classes in the schools until we went to junior high school (now called middle schools) until we were twelve years of age. The schools then from kindergarten through sixth grade were not equipped with athletic apparatus and so we got our exercise from doing other things. I use to play tennis with Mom some evenings when I was thirteen or so. We really did not do it the way folks accomplish it now; but it was still something. When in gym class in junior high, the teachers made you feel that if you were not an athletic maven, you were really worthless. Silly teachers, most of the kids who I went there with, in the days of 1946-48 are now all professional people. They are lawyers, CPA’s, doctors, business people and actors. Who was the famous gym teacher who liked to put down the teens in those days? She, always a she, was an insecure teacher of sports who was there to give us youngsters a taste of sportsmanship. She, herself, was not acting in a sportsman’s like manner trying to give young people thoughts, that if they could not climb the stupid ropes or run the track in a fast mode; they were not doing what they should be doing. We all cannot be athletes and nor do we want to be athletes. When we dance, we are involving our bodies in very definite athletic happenings. We move our legs, arms, shoulders, feet, head and brains in sports for sure. We have to think and move at the same time in order to do the steps we have learned. We do not make them up as we go along. We know them in advance and store them in our brains and thoughts. As the grandkids say when I, now at this age of almost seventy-eight and I am walking up their townhouse high steps slowly and deliberately carefully with my bad knees, they call out “go grammie, go.” I am not a victim; I am a survivor because even though the knees have slowed down, I still get around and use no cane as of now. I am able to go to a mall and stay at one store for a while and then leave to go to another one soon after. I am able to shop some in a grocery store and pick out any sweet desserts at the delly/bakery and take my time deciding which item has less calories or sugar. If I need a medical test to check some things out, I can lie back on the exam table and not get bouts of Vertigo that I was getting for many years due to a hit on the head from the car door in 2002. The Vertigo is gone and I did not let it make me a victim when I had it. I did not lie back on exam tables, I sat up and was able to get EKG’s in the cardiologist’s office, I was able to go to the hair salon and get my hair done and not lie back to get hair washed. I solved that problem and washed my own hair at home where I could stand up in my own shower stall. When I went to the dentist, he stood for me rather than have you lie back flat like is done now in dental offices. I managed everything for about nine years until one day a few months ago, I was able to lie back and have no Vertigo; which is when you lie back, forward and other ways too, and you feel like the room is spinning or some feel they are spinning. It is a terrible thirty second event and leaves you with an awful headache for many hours. It is described as an inner ear thing and the ear, nose and throat doctor cannot do anything for you. It is usually a wait it out event, though now there is a procedure to get rid of it, but the procedure can be more aggravating than the actual happening. Most people lose it after a few months or years and if you are or were like me; you can take steps to avoid it and everything goes back to normal I did not let the Vertigo make me a victim, I said to myself I can do it and I will survive and I will not be a victim. Let all of us never let things deter us; possibly things will change for the better and if they do not, wait, it will happen. Then you will be more of a winner, than if you climbed ropes when in junior high school and you will be a blue ribbon, trophy, certificate person in your mind and you will be a victor and a champ in your heart. This is the most important thing you can actualize. No victim for you, a victor you are. elita sohmer clayman Fairfax Station Patch