Hi. I just returned from a 2 day stint in the hospital. How are you?

Sunday morning, around 10A, my left index finger and part of the hand below it felt numb and tingly, like I'd slept on it wrong. But you know, your brain is a funny place to live. It knows shiat you don't, so it tapped me on my shoulder, and, after stopping freaking out because my brain was standing beside me, I hear her (yes, and she's hot) say: "Hm. Something else is going on here. Just thougt I'd let you know!" When I told Dara about my hand, she flippantly joked, "What's that heart attack thing: Is it a sharp pain in left your arm?"

I chuckled and said that this was numb, more like a nerve was fucked up, but being the obsessive that I am, I checked the intarweb and she (and, SHE'S hot too) spouted out a bunch of stories about folks who'd had strokes (rhyme intended) and the first signal being a "heavy" left hand; numb and tingly.

Dara and I made plans to eat lunch at a local place, go to Pier 1 and pick up a cushion for our big, comfy poppason chair, and then go for our respective runs. I was gonna go short, just 3, since I'd pounded the Topanga trails for 1 1/2 hours Saturday afternoon. While hunched at the counter, I told Dara that the internet thingy gal talked about stroke symptoms being stuff including a numb left hand, and mine wasn't getting better. So What do ya do in this situation, class? You are correct: Finish your eggs and coffee and head home.

Good thing we did. When we got home, I felt like a fucking king ASS and I uttered words I have never once spat out because I'm so fucking tought:

"Let's go to the ER."

I don't know if you've never had the pleasure of being the *sick one* in the ER, but it is night and day from being the good friend, spouse, or hanger-on that's kind enough to sit with said sicky. The room was packed and, inside my head, spinning. It took forever to even get my blood pressure and heart rate checked, but funny, afer they did, it only took 20 mns or so of waiting before I was whisked back. It turns out that my pressure was, hold yer hats, 197 over 102. In other words, FUUUUUUCK DUUUUDE. Thus began the adventure at 1:30pm.

A litany of docs asked me the same 2,055 questions and were stymied: No, I don't smoke. I've never smoked. No, I don't do drugs regularly, nor have I ever used steroids. Yes, I drink, oh do I, but I also run 100 + miles/month and don't eat too shittily.

I knew it was coming, and Dr. Frankenburger confirmed it at 8 pm: You are staying the night and getting a CT Scan, young mister. And no cookies before bed. Here, have a celery stick and get used to 'em.

I was driven over to the CT people, who were very accomodating and surprised as hell to see someone born in the past 55 years show up to their doorstep. 2 minutes later, I was waiting in the ER room for room to be readied.

Blammo, up to 1015 in the new wing of St. Joseph's in Burbank, and I gotta say, as far as hospital rooms go, this one was teh ROQ!!!!11!!one!! Firstly, it was a private room, no moaning roomies at 4 am. Secondly, it was swanky. Seriously: Pale green, hardwood floors, retro sofa and lazyboy chair. STYLIN'. My love, Dara, spent the night there with me, the sweetest thing in the world. I will never be able to make it up to her in this life.

So bla bla, the 1am pressure takings, the 4am pressure takings, the 6am - I meet the neurologist, a funny, heavyset Egyptian ( I think) who asks me a litany of questions from his own arsenal, and he's puzzled. He'll know more after my MRI he says. Now I know what an MRI is. I've seen the Incredible Hulk, and it doesn't look like someplace where you vacation with some hot piece of ass.

I'm carted off for 2 other tests, both ultra-sounds, one for my arteries in my neck (carotid and...somethin' on the other side) to look for buildup and then to cardio to see how strong my heart muscle is. Both people who ran the tests told me (off the record) that I looked totally fine. Good thing they didn't ask me to lift my gown (badoom - chee!)!

So back up to my room to wait for my MR - fucking- I and lunch. The wait was interminable: Long, boring, tension mounting, Dara was away, and all that was on TV was Full House and something actually less funny.

Dara came over (she again stayed the night, the wee saint), and almost as soon as she showed, it was MRI time. I was given a sedative ("Sedagive!!!?" - Young Frankenstein) which was warm and too awesome and down I went, to the depths of the hospital, all sorts of "Do Not Enter Area Without Metal Testicle-Cover On" signs posted all over. A very cool gentleman and pleasant woman put earplugs in my ears, laid me back on a table, and slid me in to a tube that looked similar to this. Yeah, you don't feel like a crazy person at ALL in there. "It's kind of like one of those drawers in the morgue, except that I'm alive enough to know the terror," is what I thought as I slid all the way in.

A series of 2, 3, 5, and 10 minute tests were performed, totalling somewheres around 1 hour and 10 mns. Then, wheeled back to my room was I, to my waiting wife, still doped outta this world. My pal Michael dropped in with my ukulele, which came in handy the following day as I awaited the tests results, which were...inconclusive. Of course they were. The neurologist said that everything looked perfectly fine, except that MRI's miss really, really, tiny strokes, so we'll never know for sure.

yay!

I follow up on Friday with my doctor to get the what's what, but I do know that I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol somehow.

*sigh*, but it is good to be home.