Sleepless in Seattle; I blame my desk

[mdlbear]

So, in the interest of raising my word count for the day, have a post.

Please note: this post describes a medical situation that turned out not to be the emergency I thought it might have been; I'm ok and, as it turns out, was never in any danger. However, if you have problems reading about medical emergencies, scary symptoms, hospitals, or needles you will probably be best off with the cut text.

tl;dr: I'm ok. Nothing to worry about.

While out driving on Saturday, I think it was, I felt a momentary twinge of pain around the right side of my chest about a third of the way to the shoulder. I did a quick self-assessment, and took an antacid at the next opportunity. I would have gone on to take an aspirin if it had persisted, but it didn't.

Fast forward to 11pm pm Sunday night, when I rather suddenly felt pain in the same place, my right shoulder blade, and especially my right hand, which hurt when I flexed my fingers, but did not feel like my more usual arthritis pain. I took a naproxen, went back to bed, and waited for it to go away. It didn't.

At my age, with my family's medical history, chest pain is nothing to take lightly. Even after two previous trips to the ER with what turned out to be a severe anxiety attack.

At that point I decided it might be a good idea to call 911; Colleen agreed with me. I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to wait. I tracked down my slip-on shoes, made sure the front door was unlocked, and texted G and N to make sure they knew what was going on because one of them was going to have to go out at some ungodly hour to pick me up if I ended up going to the ER.

The fire department arrived first and started taking information. Ticia came downstairs to investigate and, very conveniently, went into the Great Room rather than coming to me directly. I had one of the firemen shut her in, since it was clear that the door was going to be open for a long time.

The medics arrived a few minutes later with oxygen and an EKG unit. Everything appeared to be normal. G, and a few minutes later N, had come upstairs at that point; we agreed that even if everything looked normal it was probably worthwhile going in to see if they could find anything wrong. I don't like unsolved problems when not knowing the solution could be fatal.

Had a nice talk with the medic in the ambulance; turns out she spells her first name the same way my older daughter does, but with a nickname Chaos has long since abandoned.

I got wheeled into a room pretty quickly, considering that it looked like a busy night. They gave me papers to sign, took an EKG (giving me a second set of electrodes to take off after I got home), and put in an IV needle for labwork. (Aside: I'd had what was probably exactly the same set of labs done Saturday as part of a routine visit to my doctor. Left hand, meet right hand.) I put my phone into airplane mode to save batteries (in retrospect this was a mistake since it caused my family extra worry), lay back down, and prepared to be bored.

I was bored. And drifted a little without being able to actually sleep. After a while they wheeled me in for chest X-rays. More boredom. I should have brought a book. I'd wanted to bring a laptop, but it would have been a bad idea.

Lab work, EKGs, and X-rays all looking perfectly normal, around 3:30 am they gave me my discharge paperwork, and I called G for a ride home. He was sleepy; N came instead. Have I mentioned recently how awesome my sister is? She's awesome.

Note that at this point most of the pain had gone away, but there was still a little achiness around my right shoulder, and the second joint of my right index finger was still almost as painful as it had been at the start. It still is, over 12 hours later.

On the way home N, who is a professional massage therapist, said that it sounded like a pinched nerve was the most likely explanation. Specifically, something called thoracic outlet syndrome. Which is sort of like carpal tunnel syndrome, only between your collarbone and your first rib.

When we got home, I put a sick day on my work calendar -- if I go to the ER in the middle of the night I've damned well earned a sick day no matter how much better I feel in the morning.

So here's what Wikipedia says about it: "Pain can be present on an intermittent or permanent basis. It can be sharp/stabbing, burning, or aching. TOS can involve only part of the hand (as in the 4th and 5th finger only), all of the hand, or [...] the pectoral area below the clavicle, [...] and the upper back (i.e., the trapezius and rhomboid area)." Um... right. What they said.

"The two groups of people most likely to develop TOS are [...] and those who use computers in non-ergonomic postures for extended periods of time. TOS is frequently a repetitive stress injury (RSI) caused by certain types of work environments." ... and I noticed, as I sat there at my desk with my right hand on the trackball, that my right shoulder was uncomfortably higher than my left one.

My desk at home, which consists of a sheet of plywood resting on a 2-drawer filing cabinet and a couple of 2x2 legs, is about 3" (7.5cm) higher than it needs to be. That would probably do it.

... so it looks like I need to take everything off my (cluttered) desk, disassemble the thing, make shorter legs for it, and put everything back. Grumble.