Imagine the world spinning so fast around you that you cannot steady yourself well enough to get out of bed. Imagine that when the dizziness finally lets up long enough to let you muster the strength to venture out of your house, it strikes again so suddenly and severely that crippling anxiety steals your breath.

Rhonda Jackson lived that life almost every day for nearly three years.

An inner ear disorder called Meniere's Disease robbed her of a normal existence. Striking when she was only two months short of earning an associate's degree in nursing, it almost robbed her of her education and career. However, chiropractic treatment helped her reclaim her health, and the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Title I Adult Program helped her complete her college education and reclaim her career.

Today, Rhonda Jackson, R.N., cares for 24 elderly residents of the Williamsburg Nursing Home. She shows no outward signs of her disorder, which she continues to manage through "atlas orthogonal" chiropractic treatment.

Rhonda said she loves her patients, whom she calls her reward for not giving up on becoming a nurse, even when her body seemed to be telling her that giving up was her only option.

"There's this one little lady that, every time I go to her room, or approach her in any way, she always gives me a hug," Rhonda said. "When she does that, I know that what I've been able to give has been received in the way it should be, and maybe a little more. Others can't even talk, but they'll look at you and you see in their eyes that they're thanking you for helping them.

"That's why I keep coming, and that's why I'm glad I'm here," she added.

Although Rhonda began working at Williamsburg Nursing Home in November 2003, she could have begun as early as 2001 if she had graduated on schedule from Lincoln Memorial University (LMU). That was her plan before Meniere's Disease intervened, she said.

Rhonda had begun her studies at LMU's Corbin campus in August 1999 with the help of the WIA Adult Program. The program-administered by the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP) and provided locally by the Daniel Boone Development Council-provided tuition assistance and supportive services included help with the costs of books, food and her travel to classes. WIA Case Manager JoAnn Nolan helped Rhonda enroll.

Unfortunately, Rhonda was involved in a car accident in late 1999. She was able to continue her studies, but about six months later she began suffering random severe dizzy spells. Rhonda said she had experienced a few mild dizzy spells as far back as 1993-attributing them at the time to bad cases of the flu-but the new attacks were much worse.

"Every other day, I was so dizzy that I could hardly be a mother to my son, and I could barely function at all," Rhonda said. "I said to myself, 'Normal people don't feel like this,' and I had to go get checked out."

The diagnosis was Meniere's Disease, an inner-ear disorder that causes severe episodes of vertigo. Doctors are not completely sure what brings it on, she said, and there is no sure cure. She was told her only options were prescription medications to reduce the symptoms or a surgery that could not be guaranteed to succeed.

"To look at my outward appearance, you'd think there's nothing wrong," Rhonda said. "It doesn't break the skin, it doesn't bruise you from the outside, and it's nothing someone can diagnose by just looking at you. But it will scar you mentally."

That scarring deepened when the disease began affecting her performance in her classes. Initially, she had continued to attend her classes and maintained a "B" average, despite the onset of the attacks. But the medication to help control the condition made Rhonda very sleepy, and as time passed the attacks became more frequent. That semester, she was unable to take one of her final exams at the scheduled time because both a dizzy spell and anxiety attack struck her prior to the test.

Rhonda said she was barely able to fight through her third semester of classes. On the verge of graduation-with only two months left in her fourth and final semester-Rhonda realized she could not continue because of the debilitating toll the vertigo was taking on her. She made the tough choice to drop out of college.

Her case manager, JoAnn, sadly had no other option but to terminate Rhonda from the WIA program.

Unsure of her future, Rhonda became mired in a deep depression for roughly 15 months after dropping out.

"I had plenty of time to lie around and think about (dropping out) because I couldn't function or do anything else," she said. "I would lie there and wonder what they were doing in class on the days I couldn't get out of bed, and just get so sad and depressed."

Ironically, treatments for other injuries from her 1999 auto accident led her to the treatment that relieved the dizziness and allowed her to go back into college and the WIA program with a new lease on life.

During the period after she dropped out, Rhonda began massage therapy treatments at Baptist Regional Medical Center in Corbin to relieve residual symptoms from the accident. The therapy sessions offered opportunities for long conversations with the therapist, who coincidentally had also suffered from Meniere's Disease for many years.

The therapist said that treatments from a Corbin chiropractor had eliminated her symptoms to the point that she needed no medication and rarely experienced any dizziness. The treatments focused on adjusting the "atlas bone" in the cervical area of the neck, Rhonda said. The therapist repeatedly stressed that Rhonda ought to try the same treatments to see if they would help.

"I was a little scared about it, but she told me I ought to be scared about having to live the rest of my life with this disease," Rhonda said. "So I went, and from the very first treatment, I felt blood flow going up to my ears and head that I never had felt before. From that first time, I started seeing improvement."

Rhonda said almost all evidence of Meniere's Disease disappeared after six months of the chiropractic treatments.

As her symptoms disappeared, her urge to get back into college slowly reappeared. In the summer of 2002, Rhonda finally felt confident enough to re-enroll at LMU and finish her remaining nursing classes. The university allowed her to come back but required her to sit-in on some classes she had already completed and retake some tests.

"I wanted to resent that at the time, but I admit it helped me get back up to speed," she said. "They did exempt me from my clinicals, so I didn't have to go back for them until my fourth semester."

Although she had received a Pell Grant to help with tuition, she needed an additional $4,250 to cover the total cost of tuition, fees, and books for her final semester. She had conquered her physical problems, but it appeared that her financial problems would block her educational goals.

Once again, WIA delivered the necessary assistance. Rhonda spoke to JoAnn and EKCEP Program Coordinator Debbie Bowman about her intention to finish her degree and her dramatically improved condition, which she documented with letters from her chiropractor. Based on that evidence and her sincerity, Rhonda was re-enrolled in the program. WIA funds covered the entire shortfall and made it possible for Rhonda to finish her degree.

Rhonda graduated with honors in May 2003. Soon after, she landed an RN job at Baptist Regional Medical Center, where she remained until she accepted her current position at Williamsburg Nursing Home.

"I graduated at the top of the nursing program at the Corbin campus, I had the best grades, and I made the Dean's List," she said. "At graduation, I was so giddy, and I was proud of myself because I had gotten help and made it through."

It has been a long, arduous journey, but Rhonda said she is glad she made it-if just for her relationships with her patients.

"It's my belief that everything was meant to happen, and there is a reason I'm supposed to be here at this place, at this time," she said with a smile. "Even if it's just because of those hugs, that's fine, I'll take that."

Rhonda said she reached that destination because her chiropractic treatments got her life back in line, and because the WIA got her education back in line. She shudders to think where she might be now without either part of the equation.

"Without the help of my chiropractor, there is absolutely no way I'd be here today," Rhonda said. "And the same thing goes for the WIA. Without JoAnn and the WIA, I couldn't have gone back and finished. When nobody else was there to help me, they were, and I'll always be grateful."