The world didn’t spin for Arthur Crenshaw; it listed, like a ship taking on water. That was the first sign, though he didn’t recognize it at the time. Three weeks ago, he would have described himself as a man anchored to the ground—a structural engineer who designed foundations. Dizziness was an abstract concept, something other people experienced after a third glass of wine or a carnival ride.

“Arthur, you’ve been ‘just getting up too fast’ for a week,” she said, kneeling beside him. She pressed two fingers gently between his eyes. He winced. “That hurts?”

By Thursday, the pressure had morphed into a full-blown ache. His upper teeth began to hum with a phantom pain, as if he’d just had his braces tightened. The air passing through his nostrils felt thick, like breathing through a wet sponge. And the dizziness was no longer a visitor; it had moved in. It was worst when he moved his head too quickly—standing up from his chair, turning to back his car out of the driveway. Each time, the world would lurch, his balance would vanish for a terrifying heartbeat, and a wave of hot, prickly nausea would wash over him.

But the tilt returned. And it brought friends.

The first three days were a special kind of hell. The antibiotics hadn’t kicked in, the prednisone made him feel jittery and strange, and the dizziness seemed to mock him, peaking just as he tried to walk to the bathroom. He felt like a man walking across the deck of a ship in a storm, constantly reaching out for a handrail that wasn’t there.

It began as a dull pressure, the kind you ignore. Behind his eyes and right between them, a persistent, low-grade ache. Arthur assumed it was allergies. He bought an air purifier for his office and took a daily antihistamine. But the pressure didn't relent. It solidified, like drying cement, into a focused, throbbing weight nestled in the hollows of his skull, just above the bridge of his nose.