and finally, i said yes, i will show that you are no longer accepted by this meniere's disease. so there i was having made the right decision. >> i think we better backtrack a little here, because obviously, this is going to bring you into direct discussion about a fellow named deke slayton. we had established the fact that him, like you, had gotten knocked out of flying. let's go back to that, because picked titillate, that happened in the mercury days, when he was getting ready to fly. i wonder if you had first heard -- >> we were assigned to follow john. >> right, and suddenly, he was bumped from his mercury flight. that was a heart condition, wasn't it? >> yes. there was a lot of controversy about that. because it was a heart murmur, or a palpitation, some irregularity, but one which was not obvious. i mean, it was not a continuous thing. it was not as if he was getting getting ready for cardiac arrest, or anything like that. it was just occasionally, he'd have a twitch down there. >> but, a real blow. i wonder what your reaction is, and if you can get a little background on

the problem i had was a disease called meniere's disease, involving fluid in the inner ear. they tell me it involves people who have a type a personality. unfortunately, it causes a lack of balance. it causes dizziness. in some cases nausea. disorientation going on up there in the ear. fortunately, it is unilateral. it only happened to me on the left side. but it was so obvious that nasa grounded me right away. and they signed another crew. for first gemini flight. so there i was, what do i do now, do i go back to the navy? do i stick around in the space program? what do i do? i finally decided that i would stay with nasa and see if there wasn't some way that we could correct this your problem. several years went by, there was some medication, which alleviated it but i still couldn't fly solo. can you imagine? the world's greatest test pilot? and some guy in the back, flying along with you? talk about embarrassing situations. but as a matter of fact, it was stafford, who came to me, and said he had a friend, a los angeles who is experimenting correcting this meniere's diseas

but sometimes fluid sometimes accumulates when meniere's disease and so calcium and sand. and what happens this sand presses on some receptors, then the difference of command comes to others and to the bridge from the fact that conflicting commands go to the brain. you get dizzy, the problem is that it is not treated with medication, the problem is that this sand that is inside. you have to change the position of the head to make him eventually come out there is a place, so to speak, through which you can roll out, you know, it's like a toy. where the ball rolled everything into the maze and you have to roll the ball out like this. you have to get rid of it by a doctor should show. you can find positions on the internet yourself, because it is she who lies down, puts it in her head, and after 30 seconds puts it down, again there are special exercises. why see a doctor you have to understand somewhere on the right or left of you? because uh, it's what they're going to see in this direction of eye movement that's going to show you what's called benign oppositional vertigo. o