It wasn't a heart attack...

So I have that going for me, which is nice. So sayeth the prophet Bill Murray.

This happened back in August, and I am just getting around to writing about it. I've been busy nearly dying, after all.

Friday.

I was working out with a friend at the gym. A trainer-type. A natural athlete. You know, someone exactly my opposite. Why I thought this was a good idea? No clue. So, he's putting me through these jack ass exercises, like his personal guinea pig and I kind of go along with him cuz he's hot, right?

I should have know better from the time we were doing preacher's curls and something ripped in my elbow, which prompted his eyes to make like saucers and him to say, "Are you ok?" Sure, it does that all the time, just ignore it. But nooooo, not me. I mentioned he was hot, right?

So this time, it's just a little pinch in my neck while doing the roman chair. Of course, since I am his guinea pig, it's a modified roman chair. "Put your arms out in front of you like Superman"...my inner voice translated that to "Flail your arms around you like someone free-falling off a cliff". But I buck up and keep going through the work out. What's that called now? Manning up? That's what I did.

Saturday.

I wake up a little stiff-in all the wrong places. A little sore. I pay it no mind, a pulled muscle does that. Later in the day when I am running a little 5k, my arm starts hurting. This is about halfway through, 12 or so minutes in. Then my arm goes completely numb from the shoulder to the finger tips. Next comes tingling in the finger tips.

So here I am thinking, heart attack-wouldn't you? My mind, inhabiting my body as it does, thinks, "Keep going or stop and get help?". I keep going. I'm sure as hell not leaving the gym on a gurney while I have a pulse. I'm going out like Douglas Adams. Google it.

I try shaking it off while I finish my run. But I can't tell where my arm ends so I end up just thrashing is about, occasionally bonking the treadmill with my senseless wrist.

That night I can't sleep because I normally sleep on my left side but can't because it's too painful and uncomfortable. Although I cannot feel my arm, my neck aches like crazy, too. There's another random pain just to the left of my sternum that migrates from front to back, depending on where I am laying.

Awesome!

Now the best part, I really think I am dying. But I won't go to the emergency room because I don't have enough cash to pay the $75 co-pay. Rough year. And frankly, aside from the darned inconvenience of, y'know, dying this seems like about where my year would end up. so I wait for the end. I'm actually sort of mad. There's been plenty of time for my life to "flash" before my eyes, but nothing.

Sunday.

Thank god I am off work. I lay in bed most of the day. Then I hang out with a few friends. I'm doped up on some expired Advil I found in my linen closet. Seems mildly effective, but not 100%. My friend Silver Fox in Portland tells me that I'm not having a heart attack after taking me through several motions on the phone. He has a PhD, so that's a comfort. I still don't sleep Sunday night.

Monday.

I go to work. Seriously. But I do call my doctor and make an appointment for that afternoon. All I have to do is make it through the day til 2:45, then I am off to the doctor's office and hopefully the hospital after that. I tell my boss, he asks me to come back after my appointment! Now, I am a little pissed. I think I tell him "No problem", thinking "Like hell, buddy". At this point I am the only manager he has that hadn't taken a bunch of sick days in the first half of the year. Besides, in my mind, I'm going to the hospital. I'll just call from there, won't he feel bad then? Maturity is one of my finer qualities.

I get to the doctor's office and he asks me what the problem is. I can practically see him warming up a needle of penicillin wondering what I've done this time.

I'm pretty sure I'm not having a heart attack, I tell him. I'd just feel better if someone with a medical degree would tell me that.

You're not having a heart attack, he says from behind a smirk in his seat across the room.

Any desire to earn your $120 and come over here and say that after-oh, I don't know-listening to my heart? That's like $10 per step, y'know.

He assures me he will listen to my heart but tells me to stop worrying because he can tell from where he's sitting that I am fine. I'd be sweating profusely and unable to lift or move my arm if I was having a heart attack.

Again, I translate this to something flecked with names like "wussy" and nearly overrun with barely contained laughter at my discomfort.

You just pulled a muscle. Probably pinched a nerve from the sounds of it.

But the pain...putting on my best relieved expression even though I am not sure I want to give up dying so easily. My rational mind knew after the first day or so that I wasn't dying, but there was still some niggling doubt as to my guaranteed survival.

Trust me, he tells me while listening to my heart. I wanted to drop dead in his office just to wipe that grin off his face but my body wouldn't cooperate. To make me feel better he assures me this will be the worst day for pain-day three always is for a muscle pull, he says.

Great. Pain. Can I get that with some mushrooms and eggnog, just all the stuff I hate at once to get it over with?

The pinched nerve should heal in about six to eight weeks.

W-w-wh-whud? Six to eight weeks? What am I supposed to do until then?

He's laughing-compassionately, I assure you-telling me not to worry, just take it easy with that side of my body. No gym. No lifting at work, under five pounds is fine.

The reason he's laughing is cuz he knows I'm right handed...for most things. Why did I think I could tell him what I use my left hand for? I mean it was a year and a half ago, who knew the little perv would remember?

Now he's leaving the room, talking about something else. Himself. Look, just because I worry doesn't automatically make me a hypochondriac, sure, I'm a bit of a wussy, but I don't want to talk about you expanding your practice. Yet. I mean, maybe there will be a cute doctor joining the practice, but I need a few minutes here to grieve for my continued persistent survival.

I can't live yet, I'm not ready!

When I come to, I'm back at work. WTF? And I'm wet. Was it raining? All the rest of the management teams seems to be heading for the door. I have enough of my wits about me after my brush with not-death to realize they are all leaving early but not enough to be mad about it.

Well, inside I am raging about it. I have to come back so you clowns can leave early? No, not a chance. I'm a little too busy not dying to work. But they don't hear my internal raging over the woosh of the automatic doors.

Thankfully-or not, in retrospect-my right arm is my drinking arm. And I like really fattening beer. No PBR for this boy. Naughty Nellie's, Prohibition, Redhook ESB...that's how I roll. And that's exactly what I drank myself into-a roll around my middle. Sure, it took me from a 32" waist to a 33" (barely, but I am not admitting to anything larger) but this is one place no man wants an extra inch!

Four weeks later, follow up.

I can't feel my fingers. I think I'm going to puncture my eardrum scratching my ear or poke my eye out with these dead fingers.

Yeah, yeah...really funny. I'm going back to the gym, I'm bored.

Five pound weights? You can't be serious? I can feel the right side of my body just fine, five pounds won't do jack for me. Fine, fine, fine...let me out of here, I tell him intending to do whatever I please once I get to the gym.

As it turns out, five pounds was just about right. The 25's I was using while "taking it easy" on the dumb bell presses almost ended up twisting my shoulder out of it's socket as the weight in my left hand went careening toward the ground. Fine...my doctor went to medical school and I didn't. I'll do it his way.

In talking to the membership manager at the gym about my gimpy arm I discovered that this particular injury was called a "stinger". How appropriate, since I couldn't really feel anything.

Well, that's not true. Here I was feeling proud that I had a jocky sounding sports related injury. 'Bout friggin time, I'm 40 here!

Two months later.

My left index and middle finger still go numb now and then. Like when I am commiting run on sentences to the internet on this here blog. I'm fully released to be back at the gym. My obstacle to getting back? My body feels depressed from not working out and not eating right. I am managing to get there twice a week, but I feel weak and worn out after about 45 minutes. My spirit is depressed cuz I haven't been blogging like I used to to clear my head and indulge my-limited-creative side. Double whammy.

Gonna have to work on that.

I had pretty much forgotten about putting this mildly amusing episode to this virtual paper until yesterday when I got a voicemail from my friend Big-Word-Ben in Portland. My old neighbor had been hospitalized and undergone surgery for a heart attack. He's only 50, maybe 51 now. The good news is that the damage had been repaired and any lingering damage could be controlled with medication. That's actually great news. His partner had had a heart attack about ten years prior to this and never really recovered, in spirit anyway. They corrected the heart muscle witha pace maker, but he was constantly aware of it's presence, and it basically haunted him until he shot himself a couple of years later. It was devastating.

But here, we had good news. All would be well, we are told.

The only bad part? He'd been having what his doctor called a "rolling heart attack" for about a week.

WTF? My doctor told me a heart attack that lasted three days would be unbearable!

OMG, I could have died!