Argh....

….the worst night in a long time. D’s shoulder has been hurting him lately, for maybe two weeks or so. I thought he’d either pulled it or had a pinched nerve or something but it was getting worse and worse, probably because he never let it rest. Last night, though, the pain was unbearable in his neck and shoulder (which for him is really saying something—he’s pretty stoic) and he woke up with his left arm numb except for shooting pains from his shoulder to his elbow. I ended up driving him to the ER at two in the mornng, thinking heart attack? At forty? Oh God. It turned out that is was “just” a pinched nerve but we were there until 5:00am. It was miserable. They did the EKG while I did all the insurance stuff so I missed it; when I got back to his room D apologized for having to go to the hospital for something so minor. What, did he think that I’d rather he have had a heart attack, to make the trip worthwhile or something? In my mind, it makes up for my trip to the ER in Vermont, when I had to go in for poison ivy. (Don’t ask—but it was the worst rash any of the triage nurses or ER doctors had ever seen, or so they claimed.)
This is the first time in four years that D has been to any kind of doctor. He’s the kind of guy who, if he wakes you up in the middle of the night and says, “We need to go to the hospital”; you just go and ask why on the drive over. I told him that I’m putting him on a diet; fish and veggies, and trips to the gym until he’s lost 10 or 15 pounds. I don’t need another scare like this—because he is forty, he did smoke most of his life, and he is a little overweight (why have a six-pack when you can get the whole half-keg, right?) and he works too hard. It’s not that hard to imagine that next time it could be something worse than a pinched nerve. I guess he agreed because he agreed to the diet.
So, a Friday at the bank (busiest day for those who can’t guess) on roughly 3 hours of sleep; extra fun! I’ve devised a new system to my strange punctuality problem. What’s strange is that I’m one of those who are always on time or early, no matter what. And when I had to be a work at 7:00 in the morning every day, it was no problem, I was there at 5 minutes till. But somehow when the powers that be changed my in-time to 9 or 10, I get mixed up and three times now have rushed in either on the dot or a minute late; not my style at all. So now, I make sure I’m dressed and ready to go, dog walked, teeth brushed, etc, before doing anything nonessential like the dishes or going online. So far it’s working.