In December 1993, while enjoying the last days of her honeymoon, Stephanie was involved in a life altering scuba diving accident off Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

She sustained a serious inner ear injury which lead to two
overseas surgeries and one year of intensive vestibular therapy at New York City's renowned Rusk Institute. Typically beyond the normal view of others, she was trapped in her private world plagued by dizziness, ringing of the ears (Tenitis) and fought with bouts of depression.

The following article is an account of Stephanie's remarkable ordeal and subsequent recovery from this debilitating condition as appeared in First For Woman magazine.

I Couldn't Even Tie My Shoes

Published: First for Women - Sept 16, 1996

Healthy, happy and newly married, Stephanie Oakes had a bright future -- until a freak occurrence sent her life into a tailspin. Here's how she fought to regain her balance.

The scene outside my hotel room was picture-postcard beautiful.

Palm trees swayed, waves crashed on the sand, and every so often a gorgeous tropical bird would hop onto my patio.

Why, then, did I cry myself to sleep at night? Because every time I tried to move, the room spun, the bed rolled from side to side. "Put your foot on the floor to stay steady," I would remind myself. "Hold on to the bed."

Welcome to my nightmare. It all began on what was to be an idyllic honeymoon in sun-drenched Australia. My new husband, Chris, and I planned to swim and scuba dive at the Great Barrier Reef.

But those plans -- and my life -- changed drastically on our first dive. Chris, an experienced diver, plunged in. A novice, I went in with a divemaster. Ten feet down, everything was just fine. I paused and "cleared," holding my nose and blowing to equalize the pressure in my ears. But at 20 feet, it didn't work. "Wait!" I waved frantically to my divemaster as I felt blood steaming from my nose. Suddenly, the myriad colors of the coral became one big blur. Back on the boat, I tried to convince Chris -- and myself: "I'm just seasick. I'll be OK."

Wishful thinking. Instead, the dizziness and nausea got worse. And since it was Christmastime, every local doctor was on holiday. So I called a friend in the States who was an ear specialist. "You've blown a hole in your ear," he said. "Don't put any extra pressure on it. Don't get in a car. Don't sneeze. Don't even think of flying home. Lie down," he ordered, "and don't get up until a doctor takes care of this."

Two weeks later, when the ear doctor finally returned from vacation, I underwent surgery. My hopes sank with the results: continued blurry eyesight, dizziness, shaking hands, violent headaches.

And soon I was on my own. Chris had to return to the U.S. and his job as an investment banker; I couldn’t travel yet. For six weeks I stayed in Australia alone, getting by on phone contact with him and my family. Flat on my back, I watched a lot of TV news, agonizing that I should be up there – back home I was an on-air reporter.

Two months after that dive blurred my world, I survived a flight home. I then stumbled from one doctor’s office to another, and the prognosis went from bad to worse: “Put your career on hold,” said one. “You’ll never walk without a cane,” said another. I fell into a deep depression.

At times it was unbearable. I looked normal – no casts, no bandages, no scars. “What’s wrong with me?” I’d wonder. “Maybe it’s all in my head.”

The hardest part was losing my independence. Once an active person, I was now prevented from doing things for myself. Because of my dizziness and an inability to balance, I had to rely on Chris and friends for everything: shopping, washing my hair. I couldn’t even tie my shoes.

Then one morning I read about a physical therapy program at New York University that helped people like me who were chronically dizzy, people with “vestibular disorders,” or inner-ear problems. I quickly signed up and began therapy to retrain my brain and regain my balance.

Some days I felt like I was in a topsy-turvy circus madhouse. Like when my physical therapy demanded that I balance myself in a mechanical device with a furiously-moving platform and walls, while using a toggle switch to guide the computerized screen image of a little man into a box. “Make it stop!” I begged, setting in a wave of nausea.

Still, I was determined to have a normal life again, even if it meant suffering through daily therapy.

After the first week of the NYU program, I could put on my shoes. At three weeks, I walked two blocks by myself. At two months, I could even wash my hair.

By nine months, when I kept that little man inside the box for a full minute, I knew I was almost well.

Today, I’m 98 percent there. I’m interviewing for a job as a TV reporter. I exercise to keep my balance sharp. And I go back to NYU to encourage patients in physical therapy. In their faces I see the same fear and frustration I felt. “I look normal,” one patient told me. “Sometimes I think it’s just…”

“All in your head?” I finished. “It’s not. You have to keep trying. I know you can find your way back. I did.”