SCDS is superior canal dehiscence syndrome, a condition of the inner ear. Typical symptoms are autophony (hearing your own voice in your head), dizziness, and balance problems.

After a restless night, I got up this morning, cleaned up, and fetched Todd some breakfast from the hotel lobby. After all that exertion, we both took a nap. And then, despite all my lectures yesterday, I drove Todd in the direction of Fontainebleau State Park, which fronts on Lake Pontchartrain. After some to-ing and fro-ing, we had lunch at Sake Garden because we thought it would be a quiet restaurant. It was a small, lovely restaurant, in fact, but not particularly quiet. I would have taken a picture of the light blue walls and the sushi clock (like a bird clock, but with pieces of sushi marking the hours), but I swear one of women in the wall-hangings frowned at me when I thought of it. Todd managed to eat most of a bento box, including fish katsu, sushi, gyoza, and rice, and I had gyoza and a Crunchy Roll (I just adore those crispy bits in crunchy sushi rolls). Certainly the flavor-changing medication has not stifled his appetite.

For some reason, my gyoza wasn’t crispy at all, and his was extra-crispy. And mine tasted like shumai rather than gyoza (but don’t ask me to explain the difference in flavor, because I can’t).

After all that time in the car, including a U-turn (not at high speed), he had trouble with dizziness when he got out of the car. When we arrived at the state park, the same thing happened. I likened it to him getting his sea legs. He proceeded down the pier at a slow walk. When I pointed out the sailboat on the horizon, he had to stop and turn his head to see it. He explained that “forward march” was no problem, but anything that required him to change direction or move his head challenged him.

He also noted that walking this way, on somewhat uneven terrain (not rough, just not level or smoothly sloped), was better balance practice than the exercises he had been given at the hospital. Not only was he standing, as in the most demanding of the exercises, but he was walking and turning his head at the same time.

He sat down on a bench near the shore and waited for me to do a little birding. Then we drove back to the hotel. Without all the detours of the trip out, it took about 20 minutes. I sat down in the “living area” and read my novel for a while, and he took a short nap. I expected him to be more tired after the trip, but I think he just seemed tired because my driving was affecting his inner ear, especially when I had to stop quickly.