Is there a spin doctor in the house?

I was very much looking forward to Ian's* finally visiting Texas (and me) last weekend. But it didn't turn out that well. 

The first bad news is that his wife had booked him a hotel room for his stay, and he felt he should pretend to stay there. He has always lied about the occupant of the house, substituting a single male friend for me. This didn't make a lot of sense as this house has three bedrooms, and it looks like Ian could have simply said he was staying in the guest bedroom. But it seems he was also worried about the neighbors across the street spotting him - the ones who are still friends with his wife.

The second bad news is that although Duncan didn't criticize or chew me out, he said I would be better off with fewer cats. This is not something I would argue with, but not news to me either.

Things really went downhill the second afternoon/evening of his visit. We were watching TV, I leaned over to pick something off the floor, and I promptly had the worst vertigo attack in memory. The room wouldn't stop spinning and I could feel my eyes twitching (this is called nystagmus and it's extremely unpleasant).

After a few minutes, I crawled backwards into the bathroom as I was convinced I was going to be ill. I was more than simply nauseous, I was sweating like crazy to boot. I have had the occasional vertigo for the last 20 years, but kept it at bay by never becoming dehydrated or sodium-deprived.

Ian ended up taking me to the ER where some kind staff gave me an IV of diazepam (aka Valium) to stop the nausea and spinning. After a few hours of IV treatment, a CT scan and some dozing, I was sent home with a recommendation to see an ENT specialist asap.

Through all this and his entire visit, Ian kept running back to his hotel room to keep up the facade of my non-existence. This bothered me, especially as he was gone the following eveningwhen I had another awful attack. I had gone to the kitchen around 3:00 am when I dropped a water glass, and I ended up dozing on the kitchen floor for at least a  couple of hours until he showed up.

Ian also managed to rear-end another car with his rental car during the weekend. I did feel sorry for him for his misfortune. 

The visit wasn't a 100% waste, though. He managed to get his Passat properly registered so he can sell it back to VW for a profit - it's one of the diesels with the hacked emissions computer - and I was able to help him figure out what he needed to do to refinance the house. This will save him a fair bit of money.

Now that Ian's gone, I am trying not to be too hard on him. A bad vertigo attack causes total helplessness, which is a state I particularly hate, so this had me all wound up. It wasn't his fault I became ill, and I feel bad that it happened after I waited all year for him to visit. But this isn't the sort of long term relationship I want, and I'm not sure I want to wait for it.

* See The Usual Suspects.