I have this bad habit of sleeping funny on my various limbs, and then waking up with a hand that's asleep, or an arm. I'm used to it, and try to "remember", while I'm sleeping, not to lie on top of my arm or leg! Sometimes I'm successful, and sometimes I'm not.

Early this morning, I was sleeping nicely on my right side, and HAD been on my right side for a significant amount of time. I woke up suddenly at 6:00 a.m., and realized that my LEFT arm (resting gently on my left side) was numb. That got my attention, so I wiggled my hand, and shook out my arm. It began to tingle, just like an asleep arm would, except that I hadn't been lying on it! Also, it tingled below my elbow, but was numb from the elbow to the shoulder, and the tingling wasn't going away, even after several minutes. The thing that worried me is that there wasn't any apparent reason WHY it should have been tingly and numb!

I woke Jim, and told him that my arm was weird, with no apparent reason for its being so. It was still tingling, and this was really becoming disconcerting. I was seriously waiting for the coronary or the stroke to hit! He asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, and I said, "I actually think that I do." Then he asked if I wanted an ambulance, and I said, "You know, I actually think that I do!" I'm telling you this because it'll give you an indication of how serious we both thought this might be. Having had a near-fatal blood clot in the past, I didn't want to fiddle around with anything, even though I'm already on coumadin. I really wouldn't have been inclined to call for an ambulance if I didn't think that there was something going on that shouldn't be.

The EMTs arrived (what great guys!), checked me out at home, and said that things appeared to be okay, but recommended that I go to the hospital. (Arm STILL tingling and numbish, even after all that time.) I thought it would be massively stupid of me not to go, especially since the ambulance was already there, so I was loaded into the ambulance, and Jim called our son to come stay at the house, in the meantime. (Lucy was freaking out with the arrival of the EMTs, so we really didn't want her to go nutso in the house while we were at the hospital.) In the meantime, neighbors were wondering; one telephoned while our son was here, and another one stopped Jim as he walked Lucy quickly before heading for the hospital.

In the meantime, my arm was slightly better in that it wasn't tingling quite so much, but my shoulder hurt. Well, it didn't hurt exactly, but felt bruised. It was weird.

At the hospital, I was supposed to be seen by a Dr. Greenberger, but she never showed. We finally asked, and were told that she was dealing with a trauma situation two cubicles down. Ultimately, another doctor took care of me.

They did a CT scan of my head (yes, there ARE a few remnant brains in there), a chest x-ray, an ekg, and drew massive quantities of blood.

In the meantime, we found out that the trauma patient two doors down hadn't made it. It turns out that she was a probable suicide (a woman in her early sixties), having taken a massive quantity of antidepressants. She went into cardiac arrest, and although the medical team used defibrilators on her, etc., she was too far gone. So that was a bit horrifying...

Ultimately, four hours later, I was released. The emergency room doctor had consulted with my own doctor, and they didn't think that there was sufficient reason to do a doppler on my arm since my coumadin was working well enough to prevent any clots.

My shoulder still feels bruised, and I now look like I have one of those tatoos encircling my upper arm from where the EMTs tied the tournequet, in order to get the IV in. There's also the nice bruise from the IV itself! My arm is...better...but still slightly strange.

We're speculating that I have a pinched nerve, or had some kind of muscle spasm that triggered the whole episode.

Fun.