My usual Monday post would begin something like grumble grumble moan moan regarding work and transit. However, today I didn't get to go to work. I got to go to ER with hubby instead.
He's been having pains through his upper back for the past few days, and I guess he figured 5:30 in the morning was as good a time as any to see a doctor. Since he didn't want to drive (or pay for parking), or go on bus, we walked. Yes. We walked. He was pretty sure he wasn't having a heart attack - turns out he was right.
Before we left, I asked him if he had trouble breathing. He said no.
I asked him if felt dizzy or nauseous. He said no.
I asked him if he felt pain in his arm or shoulder or neck or jaw. He said no.
So we went. He was triaged, and RAZed (at the Rapid Assessment Zone.) He had blood work and chest xrays, and then he got to see a very nice doctor.
The doctor asked him if he had trouble breathing. He said no.
He asked him if felt dizzy or nauseous. He said no.
He asked him if he felt pain in his arm or shoulder or neck or jaw. He said no.
(and I only make $12 an hour)
Then the doctor said his blood work was fine, his x-ray was fine, and started thumping around his back, where he found the trapezoid muscle was what was causing the discomfort. So after a couple of Tylenol (which made him nauseous), a warning not to lift anything heavy, and an order to see Dr Chao regarding his high blood pressure, he was allowed to go home.
Today reminded me of all the times last year I accompanied him to doctor visits, xrays, MRI's, etc when he had a bad wrist. This was a blog I wrote on a different site in February of 2011. Seems some things never change.
Scenario 1
A midnight trip to the hospital, the man driving even though half asleep, the wife almost crumpled in a breathless (literally) heap on the floor mat below the passenger seat. Half a block from the emergency doors, he slows down enough for her to open the door and do a jump and roll, and as he turns around and heads back to his warm comfy wife-less bed, she staggers and stumbles to the emergency room entrance, where the kind doctors and nurses spend a night bringing her back to life.
A phone call home the next morning at 6am.
"Can you come pick me up?"
"Why, where are you?"
You'd almost think I made this stuff up, wouldn't you?
Scenario 2
A man with a sore wrist, perfectly healthy in all other ways, has to visit his doctor so another report can be sent to WorkSafe, therefore insuring another cheque in two weeks time. His poor wife, who is suffering with a tremendously hurtful cold and is wheezing with asthma thinks that maybe she will stay home while he's gone, as she aches all over and can hardly move without her inhaler stuck in her gob - however, as she sees a huge S&P coming on (Sulk and Pout), she manages to half-crawl to the truck and accompany him to the doctor's office, an adventure he never wants to pursue alone.
When the doctor asks him how limited he was in the use of his arm, Howard tells him he can't take a pan out of the oven, or a pot off the stove, with his right wrist. So now the doctor thinks I'm making him do all the cooking, since he's home all the time. Thanks a lot. He didn't even give me credit for being a sous-chef and doing all the crappy stuff like peeling onions.
The next step for him is to see a Sports Injury Doctor, and he will probably have to have an MRI or a CT scan to see what's going on inside his skin. And I am worried that he will want me to crawl into that machine with him....
Whoever said women are the weaker sex was obviously male. At least I can take a pan of chicken legs out of the oven.
I'm happy to say his wrist got better after a corticosteroid injection, and as long as he doesn't go crawling around on his hands and knees, it'll probably stay better. I guess I'd better stick around into his second childhood to make sure he doesn't do that.
I think he's feeling better now though - he's off for beer.
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