I cheated by hiring an assistant (although that was after I had gotten things somewhat under control). By that time, I had my own marketing business and, in those "olden" days everything was done with sets of film for color separations, which meant driving to/from the color house, in heavy traffic, every day. My assistant's main job was to drive back and forth from the color house, sparing me lots of driving. He was also there to answer the phone if I was down for the count. Before I had my own biz, everyone at the publishing office knew that if I suddenly left the office it was to spend hours puking in the back of my van. I once scared a client by leaving in the middle of a fight over which image should be on the cover of their annual catalog (really big deal). They were even more worried when I didn't return to their office before they closed. Someone did have the presence of mind to bring my wallet out to the van. At the time, I hadn't been having V&V very often, so the warning I'd given them months earlier had been forgotten, for the most part.
It was easier for me to ignore my Meniere's problems as much as possible, because during all the decades I worked for the publisher, I was the one who packed my pickup with cases of books and magazines, drove to all the West Coast trade shows for the outdoor industry, back in the 70s and early 80s, when there were virtually no women in booths (other than a few wives of Mom 'n Pop businesses) and very few women who attended outdoor shows. It required a good deal of toughness to survive in that situation, always being the, ahem, odd woman out! The two questions I almost always heard were, "Hi, Honey...can I talk to the boss?" (answer was, "you are.") and "Do you really fish?" (Answer was yes, definitely, mostly fly fishing for steelhead and salmon.) On top of the oddity of being one of very few women in a huge arena full of men, I had to do business with other exhibitors, selling them advertising in the magazines, or, if they had a shop, books and magazines for their shop. You need a tough skin to do well in that situation. It's all very different today: the last show I did, in about 2006, was helping my husband who was then selling boats for one of our clients. He was schedule to do the big show in Seattle, with a 60' booth and three boats, all by himself, so I offered to go up for the weekend to help. I row their biggest drift boat, an 18', and I've helped with design over the years, so I was thoroughly ready for questions. If it had been the early 80s, no one would have talked to me; they all would have waited for "the man." Instead, not only did people listen to both of us (which meant we could both be actually selling a boat at the same time), but we set a record for how many boats we sold during that five-day show that still stands. I couldn't believe it: not one single man doubted that I do know a good deal about boat design, why our client's boats are the best choice, etc.