Mal de débarquement syndrome (MdDS)

The Inside Passage is relatively calm water.
This is the churniest it got.

It feels like I’m still on the cruise ship. We left the ship weeks ago.

I thought it would be worthwhile writing about my condition, because it’s so strange and rare.  Maybe someone else experiencing this syndrome will find this post and know they are not alone.

The symptoms

Most people, when they get off a ship, feel the simulation of the boat rocking for a few minutes or hours, and then the feeling goes away.  They get their land legs.  We got off the boat the morning of Aug 3rd, and by evening I still had the swaying feeling.  Oddly, though, I did not feel the rocking motion when I was on the bus to the hotel.  I also didn’t notice it when we were on the plane flight home.  And I drove us home from the airport without giving it a thought.

Now, nearly seven weeks later, I still have sea legs, or perhaps more accurately, sea brain. Just sitting in my chair now, it feels as if I am bobbing up and down.  Or if I get up to walk, it feels like things are swaying side to side.  If I stand with my feet close together and close my eyes, it’s a recipe for feeling off balance completely.

But if I’m in a moving vehicle, I don’t feel the sensation at all.  Even though the moving vehicle is a car that is not rocking from side to side.

If I concentrate very hard on a task, I don’t notice the feeling as much, which suggests to me that it is a brain condition.  We’ll see if I can teach new tricks to my old dog of a brain.

Enemy of enjoyment while boating: fog.
Enemy of enjoyment after boating: MdDS.

The diagnosis and correlations

The vestibular therapist, whom I shall call Irene because she is so peaceful and calm, diagnosed me with mal de débarquement syndrome (MdDS).  (She did the maneuver on me with the infrared ocular device and turning my head, to rule out BPPV, which I have experienced many times before.)  

Mal de débarquement means “the illness of getting off the boat” or, the darker interpretation I prefer, “the evil of leaving the cruise”.  As a former French major, I delight in saying débarquement as Frenchified as I can, “DAY-bar-que-MAHN” but that is about the only delight I find.  Americans, including VT Irene, say “dee- BARK- ment.”

VT Irene said my condition is caused by a mismatch between my brain and my ocular and vestibular something-or-other.  In short, my brain can’t believe my eyes nor my inner ear.  

This condition may be more prevalent in people who get frequent migraines, which I get only occasionally (one every few months), which starts with a visual aura, followed by a headache, but not an excruciating one.  Last week, though, I experienced two of those visual auras in one afternoon.  Maybe VT Irene also mentioned a correlation with anxiety, which I have but not officially diagnosed, and not treated by drugs. I also have acrophobia, which is defined as an unreasonable fear of heights.  

I feel that anxiety and fear of heights are reasonable in these interesting times.

Our cabin was on Deck 11.  I did not look down.

The treatment

VT Irene said that there is no for-certain immediate cure.  

She encouraged me to try the dai protocol stripes exercise of watching a video of stripes moving one direction (video available for either direction!), while tilting my head slowly from right to left and back again.  For 5 minutes.  I’ve tried it once a day for a few weeks (missing a few days when we had visitors) but it has not measurably changed my plight.  I probably haven’t done it enough. Blah.  It’s very boring.

VT Irene also has me doing exercises involving looking to the right and left (or up and down) rapidly, including while walking. I discovered that the Big Box store at about 9:30 AM is an excellent place to try this.  I have the shopping cart to hang on to.  Consumer traffic is light at that time.  The aisles are really long.  If you see a woman walking her shopping cart down the aisle looking rapidly right to left, that’s me, pretending to look for the kitchen tools aisle but surreptitiously doing vestibularity.

A few things have temporarily helped:

- driving the car.  Seems to also be ok as a passenger.  (However, perhaps sometime I will write another post about my BsDS = back seat driverism syndrome).  At today’s gas prices, this is not a viable solution.  The MdDS returns as soon as I get out of the car.

- walking while holding 3-pound weights in both hands, with my arms by my sides.  This was one of the V.T. exercises.

- walking while imagining holding 3-pound weights in both hands, with my arms by my sides.  See, it’s all about retraining the brain.

- sitting down, concentrating on a task.

Probably traveling by train or plane would also relieve the symptoms temporarily.

No idea if canoe travel would relieve symptoms.

No amusement park rides for me!

The life

In my life, I have not usually suffered from motion sickness.  Thankfully and amazingly, the MdDS has not made me nauseous.  But it does make me reluctant to walk by myself, for fear I will fall down or look drunk to the other humans.  My walking feels worse to me than it looks to others, friends tell me.  I have not fallen, but occasionally flail my arms around to regain balance.  And MdDS has made me very frustrated.

I’m afraid when walking through crowds, as I did last week at the high school football game, that someone will bump into me and I will crumble.  The MdDS limits my motivation to do my other therapy exercises, for the sciatica.

One of the electeds I am campaigning for.

I have decided to just go on with my life, which right now includes knocking on doors to talk to voters.  It’s for my mental health more than anything else.  When I’m door knocking, the MdDS is not quite as bad, as I’m concentrating on a higher purpose, so I manage to somewhat ignore this unwanted companion.

I’m already prone to vestibular issues, with many occurrences of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, sadly not a French ailment.  And I had one horrid episode in June 2025 which sent me to the ER; afterward the ENT doc said that was not BPPV but something else vestibular, the cause never firmly determined.   Despite my regular inner ear ailments, I never imagined this MdDS condition would be the long-lasting outcome of our marvelous cruise along the Inside Passage of Alaska.  I talked to plenty of experienced cruise-goers before our trip and not a one mentioned this as a possibility.

The brain in the train or airplane feels mainly on a flat plane. 

Make it so.

St Michael's, Annapolis, Maryland.

NIH article for those interested. I haven't read the whole thing.

You Have the Power

TEETH.
American Museum of Natural History,
New York City, August 2014

On Wed. March 11th I went to the Dentist Whom I Do Not Trust (DWIDNT?) and acquired my first crown, on a tooth that has not been causing me any pain or trouble.  I kvetched and moaned beforehand to anyone who would listen.  My friends offered concern and solace, patiently telling me that they had had this procedure and it was not painful.  Expensive dental work without pain? Can’t be, I reasoned.

I entered the appointment in a bad mood, because of All The Things, including but not limited to anticipation of pain.   I told the dentist at the start that I was nervous, for which the response was the usual medical-personnel brushoff, “Oh, you’ll do fine.”  

This reminds me of Nov 2016 after the Orange Menace was first elected, when someone at church said to me, “It will be okay.”  It has not been okay.  It has been horrendous.

I said to the Dentist Whom I Do Not Trust, “You’ve done a billion of these, right?”  Yes, pretty much.  He spent about 30 seconds administering the local anesthetic, went away until I was numb, came back and spent about 5 minutes drilling the old filling out.  Then he left the room, never to be seen again by me that day.  The rest of the work that hour was done by Kelly, the Person Whose Title I Don’t Know.  Or maybe her name was not Kelly.  I don’t remember.  (I wish that I would be handed a card at every dentist visit that says, “Your hygienist today was FirstName” because after six months I can never remember the hygienist’s name.)  I was worried about how the dentist was going to be, professionally, but I should have worried about how the Unknown Titled Person would be.  She did a lot of intricate work to make the temporary crown.

They knew I had never before received a crown, and that it was a long time since I had had anything done requiring local anesthetic.  I wanted them to tell me, for each part of the procedure, exactly what they were doing.  They did not.  Informing the patient is too much to ask in 2026.  As best I could, I asked questions, despite my mouth being numb.   But if I didn’t ask, there was very little info forthcoming.  

Wedding crowns from
Pakistan.

I was told what not to eat, and not to floss, that it’s probably a good idea to rinse with warm salt water, the warmer the better.  This info should be handed to the dental patient after the procedure, on a little card which also says, “Your hygienist today was FirstName.” I am now terrified to brush my teeth on that side.  

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had no pain, even after the anesthetic wore off.  All my friends were telling me the truth, and I am grateful.  I rinsed with salt water, while the Common Household Husband peppered me with questions:  How much salt?  How hot the water?  How often?  I have no idea, because I was not handed a little card with detailed instructions.  I am the grandchild of a train engineer and the daughter of an engineer and a teacher.  I want detailed instructions.  Or, to put it more bluntly, I want to be pampered.

It is a temporary crown, but gives me the authority to say, on March 28th, “You say ‘No Kings’, but I actually have a crown. Bwa ha ha ha !.”  It is very unlikely I will actually say that.  

I offer no final judgment until I receive the permanent crown. The temporary one makes me feel like I have glue on my gums.

*** Two days later ***

On Friday March 13, 2026 we had a huge wind storm, which knocked the power out, just after I finished cooking dinner.  We ate dinner in the light of the shabbat candles.  I had just charged up my kindle earlier in the day.  The Common Household Husband was home and, though his EV was below 50%, it had enough charge to run the fridge.  The outside temperature was above freezing.  No trees fell on the house. You can decide if all of that means Friday the 13th is lucky or unlucky.   The power was off until around 3 PM the next day.

Near our son's apartment

During the night, I skipped around on my kindle, starting three new books and eventually finishing one I had been reading, in the hopes of falling back asleep.  I had been longing to have the concentration to sink my teeth into a long book, and I took this as my opportunity, although it is hard to concentrate with the wind howling.  I bought a 571-page Pulitzer-Prize-winning history book about Cuba. I am enjoying it so far.  I will probably finish it in July.

We made it through the night, waking up on Saturday to an ambient temperature of around 58 degrees in the house.  Brrr!  We got up and made our way to Eat ‘N’ Park, a fine local eating establishment, where we found everyone else also in search of a hot breakfast.  

I completely forgot to rinse with salt water.  But I still remain without any pain or infection.  So far.

We cleaned up branches and sticks from the yard until the bin was full.  We drove over to our son’s apartment – his power had been restored Friday afternoon – charged our devices, chatted, and went for a strenuous walk to view the local damage.  When we returned home in the afternoon, the power had been restored about half an hour prior.  NAPTIME.

So we have electrical power back at our house (not so much for my church, sadly), and I have temporary regal gear, at least for Molar #31.  This afternoon, the wind is really picking up speed again.  Thanks, 2026.

Voting is my superpower, and probably yours too.  I refuse to cede that power: I have a crown. 

Hope to see you all in the streets on March 28th.

No huge branches down in our yard.

The bin is full but we still have
more branches to put in it.
And another windstorm today.

Does she wear a crown or a tiara?

To Do List or Not To Do List, That is the Congestion

 January and February are months of True Drudgery for me. My duties and tasks are overwhelming.  Is it this way for everyone, specifically in Jan-Feb?  

In 2024 I wrote myself a Jan-Feb To Do list, I guess so I wouldn’t be surprised by anything, such as:

• It’s January 15th!  Have you paid your quarterly estimated taxes? Due today!

• Church stats (this is actually 9 separate tasks). Forget the Feb GA deadline, YOUR deadline is January 26th!

• People are clamoring for retreat info.  Better send that email soon!

• Learn the music for the retreat!  Better practice some more!  And get that song lyric sheet done and printed.

• Why are the Christmas decorations not in the attic?  Eh?!

• Where is your email inviting voters in your precinct to the fundraiser for which the deadline is in 10 days?  Better get on that!

And so on.  

I completed these tasks.

There are 55 individual items on my list for these two months.  So far I have completed 24 of them.  That’s just the regular stuff.  I have also had a $#!t-ton of stuff to do in the grassroots category, all rushed and desperate-feeling, and not part of the 55 tasks.

I feel competent to do each task individually, but not competent to complete all of them during this short time period.  I even would enjoy doing some of them, if they weren’t bunched together.  

Most of these are not yet finished.  The deadline looms.

The Common Household Husband is facing huge stresses, real and equally overwhelming.

Add to this the anxiety of just living in these times.  

And the challenges that come naturally with aging.  

And the tasks that come with our paid jobs.  

And winter storms.  

And prolonged cold.  

And the grocery store always being out of raw-fresh-not-frozen turkey breast to roast at home.

Another 2 inches of snow overnight.
Windchill in the negatives.

Had to shovel a carveout to reach
the mailbox.

These are things that even an abundant supply of tea and dark chocolate cannot cure.

Sooner or later something in the Common Household was bound to explode.  Two nights ago it did.  Both members of this household uttered harsh words.  Used nasty tones to each other.  A door was slammed.  Both members of this household went to bed angry with each other.

The next morning, thanks to both members of this household being thinking and feeling human beings, we said our apologies to each other, and acknowledged that the unbearable stress is getting to us.  

This is all while we are adequately fed, clothed, and sheltered.  I cannot imagine the trauma of those being beaten down by our own government, literally beaten, shackled, threatened, tossed around, separated from family, racially profiled, subjected to illness, disappeared.  And murdered. All that is brought to us by several unfeeling, greedy, racist human beings, and moreover by their enablers who hope to profit.   Never forget that human beings are capable of what they are doing.  

All this is to say, please take care of yourselves and each other.  The Common Household Husband and I said out loud that we must recognize when the stresses are getting overwhelming for each of us, and take extra precautions not to act or react harshly.  

Please do gather in groups of people who will care for and look out for each other.  

Please do art.  

Please do music and singing.  Keep a song in your pocket. Here is mine for this year.

Find beauty.  Encourage each other.  As the scripture I heard today says:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.  - Philippians 4:8

Pie should be on that list in Philippians 4:8.

First Lines: August 2025 edition

 I finished 8 books in August, with two long plane rides working to my reading advantage. 

 

 

Book 1

An Abduction

Jean McConville was thirty-eight when she disappeared, and she had spent nearly half her life either pregnant or recovering from childbirth.

 

 

Book 2

As we stepped off the plane at the small airport, the howl of the jet engines deafening and the snowcapped foothills of the Himalayas looming behind us, two old friends embraced.

 

 

Book 3

The Golden Beetle of New Caledonia, 1914

When Margery was ten, she fell in love with a beetle.

 

A beetle, but not the one in the book.

 

Book 4

The Diamond as Big as the Ritz

Q.  I hate to ask you this, but–approximately–how many people do you think you’ve slept with?

 

Book 5

The small, slender woman with apple-red cheeks, greying hair, and shrewd, almost naughty little eyes sat with her face pressed against the cabin window of the BEA Viscount on the morning flight from London to Paris.

 

 

Book 6

Chapter 1: Women’s Rights in Antiquity: The Seed is Planted

4500 BCE to 859 BCE

“Welcome to the history of women’s rights.  Sometimes you have to start at the beginning to understand where you’ve been and where you want to go.”

 

Book 7

Chapter One: It is Important for Children to Learn About Electricity

Mma Ramotswe remembered exactly how it was that the subject of taking a holiday arose. 

 

Book 8

The voice of her new friend, bidding her good night, followed Miss Hannah Mole as she went down the garden path, and the laurel bushes, as she brushed by them, repeated in a whisper, yet with a strange assurance, the persuasive invitation of Mrs. Gibson to come back soon.

Did not finish

Prelude

The conversation took place over dinner in October 1837.  Dusk had likely fallen, and the city’s gas lamps had lit up the central streets of Berlin.

 

The titles and authors revealed:

 

 

Book 1

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

Patrick Radden Keefe

441 pages • first pub 2018

nonfiction, history, politics, true crime

This was a book I could not read at night.  Northern Ireland was a violent place.  The unfolding of the crimes and the trajectory of the major characters was well told.   I thought one big shortcoming of the book was that it did not explain the background of the hatred between Protestants and Catholics in N. Ireland.  That said, I did not want this book to be longer than it was.  The inadequacy of the Good Friday Accords was touched on - I was unaware of that.  I read it for book club, where it engendered a good discussion.

Some of my maternal ancestors were from what became Northern Ireland, most likely from County Tyrone.  I don’t know when they emigrated to the US - likely in the late 1800s.  

 

 

My parents on their honeymoon in Ireland.

Book 2

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

Desmond Tutu, Dalai Lama XIV, with Douglas Carlton Abrams (Translator)

384 pages • first pub 2016 

nonfiction, philosophy, self help

Good ideas (but I disagree about the nature of suffering). Repetitive.  I didn’t read the last 20%, which was basically more self-helpy, mainly because one of my book clubs might be reading this book next year.  I’ll probably read that part next year.

 

 

Book 3

Miss Benson's Beetle

By Rachel Joyce

352 pages • first pub 2020

fiction, historical.

I read it for book club.  It was sort of thriller-ish, veering from one tragic event to another, but I had been led to believe it was cozy, light lit.  I didn’t really come to appreciate any of the characters.  I suppose most of the scenes were meant to be comic but there was just too much gripping tragedy for me to find amusement.  The author’s first novel, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, is one of my all time favorites, but this one was not for me.

 

 

Book 4

Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President

By E. Jean Carroll

368 pages • first pub 2025

nonfiction, feminism, gender, memoir, politics

 

Oof.  A fast read.  Big trigger warning - rape and sexual assault are described in full detail.  Also, bullying, because, you know, the FFOTUS is an adjudicated rapist and a sexual predator but can’t admit it and has to lash out at other people to cover up what he has done.  The writing style is breezy, chock full of references to high fashion, movies, and literature.  I am not sorry I read this book, but after Miss Benson’s Beetle and this one, I was truly ready for something not thrilling, without any crimes.  

 

Book 5

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (Mrs. 'Arris #1)

143 pages 

By Paul Gallico.  Electronic edition published 2022.

First published as Flowers for Mrs Harris in Great Britain by Michael Joseph in 1958.

fiction, classics 

Snobby British people look down their noses at the cleaning lady Mrs. Harris.  But she finds congenial types on a lark of a trip to Paris to obtain the dress of her dreams.  

I had to read it on my tablet, which is less preferable than reading on my kindle.  A pleasant diversion from today’s cruel world.

 

Purim celebration, 2014
The Common Household Husband as
The Phantom, and yours truly as Esther, in a
fancy dress and child's costume tiara

 

Book 6

Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women’s Fight for Their Rights.

By Mikki Kendall (writer) and A. D’Amico (illustrator)

208 pages • first pub 2019

nonfiction, feminism, graphic, history

This graphic book covers a huge amount of history, and as such is a good overview of the fight we’ve had.  The artwork was well done.  Includes intersectionality, and the fight for LGBTQ+ rights as well.  

One line made me so sad, I almost decided to hand-write an update in the library book: “These are some of the successes of the women’s movement in the ‘70s.  Even though the E.R.A. didn’t pass, women won the right to have an abortion if they wanted one.” (page 152)  The book was published before the right to an abortion was snatched away by the corrupt and patriarchal SCROTUS.  

Page 178 has the sad truth:   “The women’s rights movement still has a lot of work to do.  Although some women–insulated by wealth and privilege–have been able to rise above most of the concerns affecting the majority, it’s a precarious perch that can be toppled as long as some women aren’t equal.  The patriarchy will hold up the exceptions as examples of what can be achieved and blame everyone else for not being as successful.” 

Political pins.  
All of them state the truth.

 

Book 7

The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

By Alexander McCall Smith

224 pages • first pub 2015

fiction, mystery

Blessedly familiar characters, lots of tea drinking, and an interesting twist near the end.  

 

 

Book 8

Miss Mole

By E.H. Young

288 pages • first pub 1930

fiction, classics, historical

Less cheerful than I had expected, but there is no violence, blood, or gore.  I was not in the right frame of mind to read this book, starting it when I was nervous about job-related matters, and not able to fully concentrate. The writing style is anti-Hemingway, with giant sentences.  There was quite a bit of irony, although I’m sure I missed more of it than I got.  The novel seemed to be deeply psychological at points.

There is wringing of hands at the breaking of social norms and at not having the latest style of hat to wear.  The main character, Hannah Mole, has the desire but not the resources to break free from all of that, and uses stinging repartee as her main weapon against the patriarchy.  She had been educated “above her station”.  And she is also a vulnerable human with valid feelings and needs.  I read on because I liked the main character, and wanted to find out how the author wraps up the story.  When I was about ¾ of the way through, I discovered E.H. Young was herself quite the rule-breaker and feminist.  I think it is probably a very good book of its time, as a daring commentary on the role of women in 1920s society, but I picked the wrong time to read it.

Did not finish

The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

Siddhartha Mukherjee

490 pages • first pub 2022

nonfiction science

I enjoyed reading about the people involved in doing the science, but got muddled in reading about the actual science.  I appreciated learning about Rudolf Virchow.  The library snatched it off my kindle before I could finish.