I can't believe it's only Tuesday

With two and a half hours still left as Tuesday, this week has gotten off to an eventful start.

Let me just first say, I'm fine. Read on if you're interested in the narrative version.

Everyone knows I'm a perfectionist (even if not perfect), and this tendency carries over into all facets of my life. From a work perspective, it means I often willingly take on more than I should, and sometimes I will take extra time to complete something just so it has the finishing touches, even if it would have been fine as is. Regardless, it translates into a little workaholicism at times, and I fully cop to that. This also makes it hard for me to step away at times.

My team is gearing up for another big announcement, and I'm helping lead out on it. We're under tight deadlines to write and get approvals on all the content, materials and positioning, so there's no time to waste. Going home at 5:30 isn't really an option right now, and I'm ok with that since it's a cyclic business. As long as I'm on my game.

Yesterday, around 5:00, I started to lose the feeling in my right arm. It went tingly, not like it's asleep - a little lighter than that - but it stretched from my shoulder to my finger tips. With several family or friend health emergencies already this year, it quickly occurred to me that I could be experiencing the symptoms of a heart attack or a stroke. It also occurred to me that I could be overreacting to a pinched nerve or something...after all, I'm only 27 and I've been typing for 10-12 hours/day at work for a while (not to mention no the blog at home - what am I doing on the computer?).

After about 30 minutes, what do I do? Well, first I took an aspirin, just in case. Then I called my mother who is 2,000 miles away and could do nothing for me. She is a medical professional, however, so I was expecting her to say "oh yeah, that has happened to me/some of our customers from time to time." She didn't say that. Though she rattled off other symptoms - and luckily I was experiencing none of those - she recommended I get this checked out, and soon.

So by now it's 5:45...doctors' offices are closed, and urgent treatment facilities tell you not to come if you think it's a life-threatening emergency (and who knew?), so I asked my friend and co-worker Camille to drive my car to the hospital just in case I started to feel worse along the way.

Meantime, I called my boss to let her know I didn't drop off the face of the earth, but that I was actually putting my health before work. Some of you are probably thinking "duh," but other perfectionists may be able to relate the feeling of "I'll just get this one more thing done." Needless to say, she told me to take care of myself and to forget about work of all things.

I'm proud to say I did just that. Brian met us in the ER, which was very comforting and relaxed me quite a bit. This is good, since we of course had to wait a while to be seen because I appeared to be the most normal person in the waiting room. Eventually, they took me back, ran my blood pressure (elevated for me, but still below 120/80) and took an EKG just to be sure.

And apparently I have a VERY strong heart - my pulse is in the 50's. Now I don't want to brag about what a good walker I am (sarcasm here), but apparently this is well below the average person's (60's or 70's according to our doc). He said only marathon runners other really intense athletes might have heart rates in the 40's. I certainly haven't trained for any triathlons lately, but I'm grateful for my healthy heart.

So what did I have? Something called peripheral neuropathy - a condition affecting the nerves in the arms or legs, causing a change in physical feeling or sometimes weaknesses in the muscles. Yep, that's it. The good news is the numbness subsided after a few hours, and everything seems to be fine today. It was just scary for my family and me to think - even for a few hours - that something could have been wrong.

For once, I'm glad I was wrong.

P.S. Brian also finally received his official birth certificate from the State of New Jersey, so he can continue on his quest for a passport!