A Founder's Fever Dream: Surviving Vertigo & Sickness

TL;DR

A severe illness after a work trip taught me two things: always leave your place clean, and if you're too sick to shower, you need a hospital. #FounderLife #Resilience #VentureStep

INTRODUCTION

A successful work trip can quickly turn into a personal nightmare. For Venture Step host Dalton Anderson, a productive conference in Ohio was the prelude to a debilitating two-and-a-half-week ordeal involving a mysterious virus, a 30-pound weight loss, severe night sweats, and multiple hospital visits. The experience pushed him to his physical and mental limits, forcing a complete pause on work, the podcast, and life as he knew it.

In this deeply personal solo episode, Dalton recounts his harrowing battle with the illness, which culminated in his first-ever experience with vertigo. He describes the disorienting and challenging reality of dealing with a condition that makes simple tasks like getting water or eating a banana feel like monumental challenges. This wasn't just a story about being sick; it was a test of endurance and mental fortitude while navigating the recovery process alone.

From this challenging experience, Dalton extracts powerful and practical life lessons applicable to every professional. He discusses the critical importance of preparing your home environment before travel, a simple rule he calls "keeping a clean shop," and shares the vital health indicator he now calls the "shower test" for knowing when to seek immediate medical help. Ultimately, he reveals how this brutal experience forged a new level of mental resilience that has fortified his outlook on life and entrepreneurship.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The "Clean Shop" Rule: Always leave your home spotless before you travel. You never know what condition you'll be in when you return, and coming back sick to a clean space is far more manageable than returning to a mess.
• The "Shower Test" is a Critical Health Signal: If you are so sick that you lack the confidence or physical ability to take a shower safely, it is a non-negotiable sign that you need to go to the hospital.
• Embrace Hardship to Build Resilience: Overcoming a severe physical and mental challenge like vertigo can forge incredible mental strength and fortify your ability to handle future adversity.
• A Virus Can Be a Vicious Teacher: A simple virus can be unexpectedly debilitating. This experience serves as a stark reminder to prioritize health and cherish every moment with loved ones.
• Vertigo is a Disorienting Battle: Vertigo attacks your equilibrium, making you feel like you are constantly spinning or falling, turning basic human functions into exhausting challenges.

FULL CONVERSATION

Dalton: A great work trip turned into a nightmare. I lost 30 pounds, night sweats, fever, vertigo, throwing up, hospital visits, urgent care, but I'm back. ¹

Dalton: I'm back. I'm better than ever. I'm not really as back as I think I am, but if you tell yourself that you're back, you'll be back eventually. 2It's the mindset; it's all in the mind. 3But in all seriousness, I was legitimately very sick. 4So sick that I had to take two and a half weeks off of work. 5I couldn't record any podcast episodes, which was very saddening that I broke my streak. 6But I was thinking, well, if I record all the episodes that I owe and publish them, am I necessarily breaking the streak? 7

I'm not really as back as I think I am, but if you tell yourself that you're back, you'll be back eventually.

Dalton: Technically the streak is broken, but I would like the ability to bring it back. ⁸ I liked my streak. It was something I had great pride in, but regardless, I am back on the podcast scheduling of once a week. ⁹

Two Critical Lessons Learned From Being Sick

Dalton: I think the two big takeaways I have from being sick is one, if you're too sick to shower, you gotta go to the hospital. ¹⁰And then the second takeaway I have is never leave your place in a mess because you don't know how you're gonna come back. ¹¹Those are the two that I'm gonna bring into my life now going forward. ¹²

Dalton: I travel quite a bit for work and occasionally things come up at work or in my personal life and things just get away from you. ¹³You get to this point where you're right before the trip is happening and you haven't packed and your flight leaves in an hour and a half and you just pack your stuff and you go. ¹⁴You come back and your place is disorganized and it's not neat, not tidy. ¹⁵

You want to have a clean shop when you leave because you don't know how you're to come back.

Dalton: You want to have a clean shop when you leave because you don't know how you're to come back. ¹⁶ People tell you that all the time. When you go on a long trip, make sure you clean your sheets and stuff like that. ¹⁷You always hear it: make sure you leave your place in a great state. ¹⁸You might get sick when you come back. ¹⁹ It never happens. And then the one time it happens, you're sick for weeks, like bedridden, horrible. ²⁰So going forward, I'm going to have a clean shop when I leave. ²¹

From a Great Work Trip to a Health Nightmare

Dalton: Before I went out of town, I spent a week in New York, took some PTO, got settled in my place, ish. ²²I was doing touristy stuff the whole time and didn't really pay much attention to my place because I was never home. ²³I was with Sarah, we saw the Statue of Liberty, our family name on Ellis Island. ²⁴ We went to Queens Night Market. We went to Flushing and got some Chinese. ²⁵ We went to these famous delis and all sorts of New York stuff that you do, mostly centered around eateries and museums. We went to the Met. Really good time. ²⁶

Dalton: And then the week after that, I had the work trip. I went to Ohio for the Scout Insurtech conference. 272727

The Scout Insurtech Conference in Columbus

Dalton: So I went to Columbus, Ohio for the Scout Insurtech conference, which was absolutely lovely. Well put together, beautiful venue. ²⁸It was at the Columbus Crew Stadium. ²⁹ It was phenomenal. I ate lunch on the stadium seats and just watched people tend to the grass. ³⁰ It was so peaceful, beautiful. It was a great conference because it was big enough to be meaningful, but small enough to be intimate. ³¹I've been to other conferences where the conference is so big that you have to make sure you have enough time to get to your next 15 minute meeting to talk to your next prospective vendor. ³²It might be a 25 to 45 minute walk over there. ³³This was a little bit different where it was pretty much open service where you had meetings and stuff, but you could just chat and it was great. ³⁴ I really liked it. So I had an awesome time in Columbus. Great, wonderful city, by the way. ³⁵

A Severance Vibe: The Unspoken Dominance of Nationwide

Dalton: I was surprised how cool the city was. The only thing, it was kind of a Severance-y vibe. ³⁶There's a company, Nationwide Insurance, that pretty much... they've got Nationwide Arena. ³⁷They've got so many buildings that are just plastered with Nationwide logos. ³⁸And then they have buildings that are owned by Nationwide, but secretly owned by Nationwide. ³⁹They own so much of the city. ⁴⁰And it's just like an unspoken rule that you don't really mention it. ⁴¹ It was so funny. When I was at this work event, I was just like, "I'm just amazed how integrated Nationwide is here. It's impressive." And just dead silent. ⁴² They just knew that, yeah, that's a no-go for us. Can't say anything. ⁴³

The Onset: Fever, Night Sweats, and an Unrelenting Sickness

Dalton: On my flight back, I was like, am I hungover or am I sick? ⁴⁴And then I'm on the flight and I've just got this brutal headache and fever. ⁴⁵And my eyes start hurting. ⁴⁶ I was like, I got to get a mask. I might have COVID or something. ⁴⁷And then I get home and man, I've got a crazy fever and my eyes are killing me. ⁴⁸I'm like, Oh, this is COVID, no big deal. ⁴⁹The fever was going on for a couple of days, but it was fine. ⁵⁰ And then all I had was just night sweats and I was sweating so much. It was crazy. ⁵¹I had to rotate where I was on the bed. ⁵²It was getting to the point where I was sweating so much that I had to rotate covers and then I had to sleep on towels. ⁵³I've never experienced that before. ⁵⁴

What Vertigo Actually Feels Like

Dalton: Then what happened was out of nowhere, I got hit with vertigo and that was my first experience of vertigo. ^55555555And if you've never had that, I hope that you never do. ⁵⁶The folks that deal with vertigo consistently, I don't know how you do it. ⁵⁷ It was very difficult, probably up there on one of the most difficult things I've had to deal with, especially dealing with vertigo alone. It was exceptionally challenging. ⁵⁸Basically what happened to me was a virus attacked my stomach and then also somehow attacked my inner ear drum thing. ⁵⁹One ear was saying one thing and the other ear was saying something else. ⁶⁰So they were just out of whack. ⁶¹

It just feels like you're spinning around like all the time. Like I always felt like I was upside down or sideways or falling, rolling down a hill, stopping rolling down the hill and then rolling up a hill.

Dalton: So it just feels like you're spinning around all the time. ⁶²Like I always felt like I was upside down or sideways or falling, rolling down a hill, stopping rolling down the hill and then rolling up a hill. ⁶³ You're just never in one spot. You don't know where you are. ⁶⁴ It is really difficult to walk around, get out of bed. Even when you're laying down, it's still brutal. ⁶⁵ That leads to you not being able to put any food down. Basic human functions are really hard, like getting up and getting water or taking out the trash or taking a shower. ⁶⁶

Every little thing that you take for granted is an absolute challenge.

Dalton: Every little thing that you take for granted is an absolute challenge. ⁶⁷A brutal challenge. ⁶⁸You know, do I take out the trash and throw up or do I leave the trash? ⁶⁹Do I make myself really sick taking a shower and having to lay down for two hours to recover or do I not take a shower? ⁷⁰Do I get up and get water and have to lay on the floor for a bit or can I do without water for now? ⁷¹It would take me an hour to eat a banana when I was super sick. ⁷²Or it might take me 45 minutes to eat five saltine crackers or something like that. ⁷³

The Shower Test: Knowing When to Go to the Hospital

Dalton: I couldn't eat anything for a while and I was losing a lot of weight and I was not feeling too good. ⁷⁴And then at a certain point I was having trouble keeping down water. ⁷⁵And that's when I went to the hospital and I got an IV and they did a whole bunch of scans on me. ⁷⁶Everything from my health perspective was perfectly fine besides me being severely dehydrated and not having enough nutrition. ⁷⁷What I was getting at is, man, that sucked. ⁷⁸

Dalton: The last thing that's pretty important is, and it's crucial to understand is if you can't shower, if you're not confident that you can shower, you gotta go to the hospital. ⁷⁹If you're like, "man, I don't know if I can shower," if I make it to the shower, I might pass out or I might fall down, you've got to get help. ⁸⁰I think for a couple of days I was like, I'm not confident I could shower. ⁸¹Then I was like, okay, if I can't shower, then I gotta go to the hospital. ⁸²That day I was having trouble putting down water and the next day I was having trouble putting down water. ⁸³So it was two days, no water, four and a half days, no food. ⁸⁴And I was like, okay, you're going to the hospital. ⁸⁵

If you're not confident that you can shower, you gotta go to the hospital.

The Road to Recovery and Mental Fortitude

Dalton: I'm getting back to old me. ⁸⁶I lost the 30 pounds as I mentioned, I'm up 10 pounds. ⁸⁷And so the strength is returning where I'm not so weak. ⁸⁸ Things just felt really heavy. Like my phone one day felt heavy. ⁸⁹ So I'm eating meals again. I'm eating big meals. ⁹⁰The resilience that I have found with dealing with this nonsense that I've dealt with, I was sick, and just the battle of vertigo, mentally, I am so much stronger. ⁹¹I feel like my mental strength is stronger than maybe the majority of people, but this occurrence tested me. ⁹²

It sucked so much, but I was like, yes, this is my mission. This is my mission. I'm gonna get better from this.

Dalton: That's one weird thing. I really enjoyed it. 93 It sucked so much, but I was like, yes, this is my mission. I'm going to get better from this. 94Maybe I'm just a little twisted and brutal, but I loved it. 95 It was great. I wouldn't do it again and I wouldn't recommend it, but it was really fun afterwards. 96I'm like, yes, now I'm going to be a little bit more fortified in certain areas. 97

Make sure you cherish those moments. You don't know when it legitimately is your last time talking to those folks.

Dalton: I just want to encourage everybody to prioritize their health. That's one of the most important things. 98You never know when you're going to have your last day or your last week or your last conversation with your mom or your dad or your grandma or your girlfriend or your kids. 99 Make sure you cherish those moments. You don't know when it legitimately is your last time talking to those folks. 100It could be your last time or their last time. 101When you're ending conversations, you try to end them in the best light. 102

What's Next for the Venture Step Podcast?

Dalton: I've been out for a couple of weeks. ¹⁰³ I owe you three episodes. So I'll deliver those. ¹⁰⁴Once I get a couple of episodes ahead, I'll just start releasing two episodes a week for a bit until I catch up. ¹⁰⁵And then we'll go back to the original once a week cadence. ¹⁰⁶ There's a lot of stuff to talk about. My mom had brought up an interesting topic about how AI data centers are using up a lot of water and electricity. ¹⁰⁷There's the Grok AI companion that I thought was pretty interesting. ¹⁰⁸ There was some news from OpenAI. I'm looking forward to their open weights model. ¹⁰⁹Meta has just been on a recruiting spree. ¹¹⁰And one thing that I think is huge is the Windsor founder team and big engineers left the company and were hired by Google. ¹¹¹It's a complete mercenary drive from the founder's team, which is very disappointing from a startup. ¹¹² You just left them high and dry. That does not jive with me. ¹¹³So I'd like to talk about that as well. ¹¹⁴

Dalton: I've also got some interesting guests that want to come on the show from the conference. ¹¹⁵ I've got a couple lined up. I just got to schedule it and kick that off. ¹¹⁶

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Scout Insurtech Conference
• Columbus Crew Stadium
• Nationwide Insurance
• The Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• Queens Night Market
• Ellis Island
• Uber Eats
• Grok AI
• OpenAI
• Meta
• Windsor
• Google

INDEX OF CONCEPTS

AI data centers, Columbus, Columbus Crew, Dalton Anderson, Ellis Island, Flushing, Google, Grok AI, Meta, The Met, Nationwide Arena, Nationwide Insurance, New York, OpenAI, Queens Night Market, Scout Insurtech, Statue of Liberty, Uber Eats, Vertigo, West Village, Windsor