Saturday night, my wife and I were watching the finale of "Happy Valley". It's one of the best series on TV. If you haven't watched this brilliant English crime drama, I highly recommend it. Just be sure to turn on the closed captioning because the Yorkshire accents spoken by the characters are as unintelligible to Americans as Scottish. Or Swahili. But I digress.
Suddenly, I felt a throbbing pain in my left shoulder.
As everyone -- especially folks my age -- should, I've committed to memory the symptoms of a heart attack. A sudden pain in the chest and/or arms and/or shoulder is one of them. There were no other symptoms but the pain was intense, growing and scary. One minute I was fine. The next I was doubled over. A half-hour later, after Advil failed to relieve even an iota of the pain, I went to the ER.
Five years ago, following a colonoscopy, I wrote a post pointing out how ridiculous it is that medical workers are required to ask every surgical patient the same two questions. Every person I encountered that day (except my wife) asked me my name and birthdate. Apparently they thought either A) I was an idiot or B) I might be an imposter, posing as a patient who was scheduled to undergo the procedure that day so I gagged him and left him tied him up in a closet and showed up claiming to be him because I love having colonoscopies and all the attention I get.
I was informed it was a rule. They had to ask those questions of every patient.
Saturday night, everyone at the ER -- the receptionist, the guy who walked me to the exam room, the nurse, attending physician, and radiology technician -- asked those same stupid questions.
And as I was lying on a gurney with my shirt off, waiting for an EKG, the attending nurse asked another question. It's one I’ve never been asked and I bet you haven’t either: “Are your genitals the ones you were born with?”
I was gobsmacked. For starters, the question ended with a preposition. She should have known better. Secondly, my genitals were covered by my jeans and I can’t imagine I was giving off vibes that would have given her any reason to doubt I was an ordinary 72-year-old male with his original genitals; I had washed off my mascara and taken off my favorite leopard-print bra from Victoria's Secret before I left for the ER. Last but not least, I hadn’t come to the ER because I was having a problem with that part of my anatomy so what difference did it make if, in fact, mine weren't original? Asking a potential heart attack patient about his genitalia is as silly as asking a patient with a broken leg about his tonsils.
“Why are you asking me this?”
She replied it’s a new rule, a question the hospital requires workers to ask every patient. Not wanting to delay the treatment I was sure I needed to survive, I answered “Yes” and, in retrospect, I’m almost sure I was right about that, but, to be honest, I don’t remember anything from the day I was born. A nurse at the hospital could have pulled a fast one and switched mine with some other newborn’s.
I have since thought of all sorts of smart-ass answers I could have provided.
“No, the ones I was born with were much smaller.”
“Last time I looked they were.”
"No, I cut my originals off with a chainsaw while on an acid trip and the ones I have now are plastic."
“I’m not sure. You're the medical professional. Why don't you take a look and you tell me?"
After a thorough examination which, I couldn't help but note, excluded my genitals which may or may not be original, the doctor gave me a muscle relaxer and pain pill and ordered blood tests, X-rays and a CAT scan.
When the results came back, I was greatly relieved to learn it wasn't a heart attack. It was a shoulder spasm. The doc said ligaments had suddenly seized up and tightened around the muscles in my shoulder, like a noose around the neck of a criminal being hanged. The likely cause, he said, was arthritis, a condition I didn’t know I had. He asked if I had ever injured my shoulder or collarbone and said that, if so, that might be the cause of the arthritis. While i don’t remember the incident, my mother always told me that, back when my genitals were covered by a diaper, I broke my collarbone falling out of my high chair. Mystery solved.
The doctor prescribed a week of steroids along with gentle stretching exercises and, three hours after I walked in sure I was about to die, I went home.
Although the shoulder still hurts, I am feeling much better, but now I am worried. I wish my mom or the doctor who delivered me were alive. If they were, one of them would have been able to provide a definitive answer to the question the nurse asked but neither are, so I guess I’ll never know for sure.
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