By Nathan Joslin

I am about to open a small BBQ restaurant called Dizzy’s Smokehouse in central Illinois. While that might not seem to have anything to do with Hearing Health Foundation (HHF), the reason I am writing is that while setting up my point of sale system for the business I noticed a feature called “rounding up for charity.” 

I have bilateral Ménière’s disease and at times have suffered greatly from the vertigo attacks and subsequent symptoms afterward, and of course even on my “good” days I have horrible tinnitus and can’t tell what folks are saying. I wear hearing aids in both ears that are just about maxed out, and my ENT is starting to think cochlear implants are on the horizon.

So HHF’s mission is near and dear to my heart and I’d like to contribute a little here and there. My POS system is called Toast and HHF is already set up in their database so I believe my contributions will be seamless. Since HHF will be the recipient I figured I'd share my story with you.

Family Roots

I was born in Fort Polk, Louisiana, to parents serving in the U.S. Army. When they retired, we moved to Riverton, Illinois, where we had a small grain farm. My dad’s second job, when he wasn’t fixing motorcycles for me or my brother, was the farm. We raced motorcycles all over the United States when we were younger—I don’t know how any of us survived it!

When I wasn’t at school or on a motorcycle, I was down in eastern North Carolina with my grandparents. I spent every summer and winter break there, learning to hunt, fish, garden, and set up and use a BBQ pit. That’s where I had my first taste of “good” barbecue—Grandma’s hot and sour flavors are still what I think of as the real deal.

Just before graduating high school, I saw an ad for a job at a manufacturing plant. I figured I’d work there for the summer before community college. But it turned out to be more than just a summer job—it was the start of a career I loved. 

A couple of years later, I was blessed with my first child, a baby boy who turned out to be my “mini-me.” A little unconventionally, we waited eight more years before having our second child but Dad got his little girl and my heart just melted. Then life happened, and after a divorce, I eventually met my beautiful wife Kristina. We blended our two families—she had two kids from a previous marriage—and became one big, happy family. I never knew true happiness until I met her.

Life was cruising along well with four kids running around, ball practices, work schedules, and all the usual adulting. I always had something in the smoker or on the grill. Life was great for about 10 years before things changed again.

The Start of Spells

In January 2020, I started having minimal dizzy spells. I say minimal because I’m a stubborn ass and won’t go to the doctor until I’m half dead so, you know, they weren’t any big deal. Sometimes I would just start spinning for about 10 seconds. It would feel like I had just gotten off a merry-go-round. But over the next couple of months the spinning was happening more frequently, lasted longer, and became more violent. 

In March 2020, just a few days before the first state lockdown due to Covid-19, I was unlocking the plant and walking down a warehouse aisle when all of a sudden I started spinning terribly and uncontrollably. Down to the cement floor I went, face first—BAM! There I lay, bloodied and vomiting from the extreme vertigo, until the first employee showed up for work that morning who could help me. Which just so happened to be my son working part-time; it scared the daylights out of him!

When I saw the doctor the first thing he said was, “You’ve got a tumor.” Way to lead with the good news, Doc! But after countless tests, thank God there was no tumor. I went back to work, but the spells kept happening. 

Finally, an ENT diagnosed me with Ménière’s disease in my right ear.

Ménière’s disease is an inner ear problem that can cause dizzy spells, or vertigo, and hearing loss. Most of the time, it affects only one ear, and there’s no known cause or cure. My hearing in my right ear started getting worse, and the vertigo spells were becoming more severe. But at least I could still work and function most of the time.

Then, things got bad. Real bad. The vertigo attacks became way worse, and instead of recovering quickly, it was taking me a week to recover, if I was lucky. I could barely get out of bed, was routinely falling at home, and even took spills down entire flights of stairs. All this was going on during the height of the pandemic, so getting in to see a doctor was a nightmare.

Finally, I got an appointment and more tests. I now had Ménière’s disease in both ears. This explained why things had gotten so much worse so fast. I reached out to every major health institution I could find, looking for hope. But I was either turned down or told the same thing: There’s not much more we can do. Drink lots of water, take a diuretic, cut down sodium, and reduce stress. That’s the “treatment” for this disease.

I was already doing all of this, but I did have a lot of stress centered around my job. The attacks were so frequent that I had gone from working 50 to 60 hours per week to sometimes barely being able to manage 10, and even when I was able to make it to the plant, I was always playing catch-up. 

Since stress is a trigger for Ménière’s episodes, the vicious cycle continued. Something had to change, so ultimately, in early 2024 my employer and I parted ways after 25 years of wonderful work together and wished each other well.

A Pit With Purpose

With a boatload of stress removed, I can say that I am feeling significantly better, although I do still have episodes. They’ll never go away completely, and my hearing will continue to slowly fade away with time. 

However, with what time I do have left I’m going to use it doing something I truly love and that is feeding people. Cooking for folks has been a passion of mine all of my adult life, and barbecue in particular takes me back to my roots in North Carolina and my grandma’s hot and sour sauce.

I expect you now know how I got the name Dizzy, but if you're ever in central Illinois and fancy some barbecue with a side of hearing loss awareness, swing by the smokehouse. I truly wouldn't be here now if it weren't for my loving family. Even though this ain’t no fun, there's a lot worse problems to have. Dizzy signing off now—I’d better go cook something!

Nathan Joslin lives in Illinois. HHF is so grateful for his interest and support. For more, see dizzyssmokehouse.com.

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