Turning 63

So Saturday night I felt my usual cold and throat infection coming on, just like that, and I spent a miserable night coughing and snuffling.

But when I woke up, my whole upper back was in outrageous pain, burning, paralyzing, all the way down my arms and up into my neck and jaw. I couldn't even lift my arms to get dressed. After about a half hour, my breath started getting short, and then I felt a squeezing in my chest. As soon as Jack got home from church, I told him I was heading to the ER. Of course he wanted to be with me, but Vagabonds had a parade that not only needed him, but also Mike who was riding with us.

Of course, given my symptoms, I got right in, got an EKG right away -- and it was normal. So I got a chest X-ray. It was normal. They did a CT. It was normal. Meanwhile, I still can't move my arms, can't stand up straight, crying for pain.

The ER doc said I probably pulled a muscle. Jackass. But since I was still feeling the pain in my chest as well, they agree to hold me overnight, test my blood for heart attack enzymes, and do a full nuclear stress test. Meanwhile, my throat infection is getting worse, my ears are ringing, now my head is on fire, and everyone's ignoring that. The doctor allowed them to give me a muscle relaxer because he insisted I was having a spasm. The muscle relaxer wasn't enough to calm down the the restless legs. And I kept getting woken up for blood draughts. I finally asked for Tramadol, and then I was finally able to get a few hours of sleep before the stress testing.

So that's how I spent my birthday today--4 hours getting stress tested. But Jack was waiting for me when I got back to my room, and the hospital staff on the wing had brought me a balloon and a bag of gummies -- so sweet!

The doctor came in to discharge me, and approved a flu shot for me as well as a Z pack for my throat. He still insisted it was a pulled muscle.

So I'll probably never know what it was all about!

But happy birthday to me.