Off balance

I have often felt off balance in Switzerland, especially at the beginning. Culture shock is just so much more shocking than you expect it to be. You come in expecting not to know the language (unless you already speak it, which was not the case with me), so you're prepared for that. You expect to feel like an idiot when somebody says something to you on the train (did they just ask me what time it is? or if this train stops at station X? maybe to open the window? or if I'm reading that newspaper on the seat next to me? or if the seat next to me free? whatwhatwhatwhatisit?!), and you just look at them with big eyes. You expect to order the wrong thing in a restaurant once in a while. To take a long time making friends. You expect to get lost, to get on the wrong train, to misunderstand the weather report. You expect that. It's still disheartening, but you expect it.

Then there is the unexpected. Or perhaps better to say the unconsidered. There is just so much I didn't think about before moving here. You think about the big things - language, how to find work - but leave the little things unconsidered. Take, for example, personal space. Swiss people (and, I understand from Stringbean, Germans) have much smaller zones of personal space than we're used to in the US. So when I stand in line at the grocery store, the person in line behind me is often actually touching me. It freaks my inner American right out. When I stand in line for an ATM, or at passport control in Zürich Airport, sometimes people cut in line in front of me because I leave so much space between me and the person in front of me that they can't believe I'm actually in line. After five years, it's perhaps the one thing I still cannot adjust to.

There are so many little cultural things you could not possibly know until you arrive. What do you do when you want to occupy an empty seat in the train? Even if it is blindingly obvious that the seat is empty, if you are about to sit down next to somebody you always, ALWAYS ask if the seat if free. You just do. When you buy movie tickets you get assigned seats, which you sit in, even if it means sitting right next to somebody in an otherwise empty theater. When making a toast you make sure you clink glasses, make eye contact, and address by name each person at the table, even if there are 15 of you and you just met half of them. When leaving a gathering you take your leave of everybody individually, either with a handshake or kisses depending on your relationship, but always by name. It seems even after five years I am still learning some unspoken social rule every week, if not every day. Naturally the learning is usually the result of a breach. It keeps me ever so slightly off balance. Even as I'm feeling more and more at home here, I'm also getting used to being ever so slightly off balance.

This week, however, I am literally off balance. I'm suffering from benign parosysmal positional vertigo. I woke up at 04:00 Tuesday and the bed was spinning like a carousel and I had to throw up, only I couldn't stand up. I made it to the floor, but that was spinning, too. I couldn't even crawl to the bathroom. Every movement made the room whirl. R had to go get a bowl for me. We called the emergency on call doctor, who made a house call (at 5 am!) and diagnosed me. I have a prescription to reduce nausea and one to increase blood floor to my ears, but treatment essentially is wait until the crystal dissolves and, as tempting as it is to stay still in bed, don't. Move my body, even when it makes me sick. I could be better in two days, I could be better in two weeks.

If it weren't for Small Boy, this would be an annoyance. A big annoyance, but an annoyance. But with Small Boy, it becomes a danger. Bending over to pick him up after a nap, hoisting him onto the changing table, soothing him in the rocking chair, all these things could make me spin and fall and with me, the Boy. Simply walking across the room with him in my arms could be dangerous. R has taken some time off of work, and my mother-in-law is coming out today, tomorrow and Friday, and a friend will be coming by. For the few hours we haven't been able to cover between now and the weekend, we've hired a nurse to help out. Remarkably, I'm doing much better today. I saw the doctor again (who just might become our regular Hausartz since our old one is back out by Small Village) and he also thinks I'm on the mend. I don't feel dizzy or nauseous, and this morning I actually forgot I was supposed to be careful and flipped my head over to comb out my hair. Nothing happened. I feel, amazingly, almost normal.

So, do we cancel the 35SFr/hour nurse for the one morning we have uncovered, or do I play it safe? It's not about me - even if I were to fall, I'd be okay. I've got a hard head. I know it's no joke. It could be quite serious if I were to be here alone and fall and hit my head. But somehow I always think I'm going to be okay. It's the Small Boy I worry about. I think I'm going to play it safe. Probably.