1. It all started with…

As nearly as I can surmise, it all started with a simple catnap.

I was sitting at my desk, waiting for a phone call. It was late in the evening and, as I waited, I sat “indian style” in the desk chair, reading a book that lay open across my lap. My right elbow was poised on the chair’s armrest and I was resting my head on my right hand.

The ringing phone woke me. I stretched my right arm to snag it from the desktop, and knew immediately that something wasn’t “right.” My right hand hung limp and lifeless from my wrist.

I managed to answer the phone before the caller gave up. Holding it in my left hand, I tried moving the wrist and fingers of the palsied right hand. Nothing. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t tingle. “My hand’s asleep,” I said into the phone. And I waited for it to wake up.

I hadn’t been asleep for long and the little nap was unplanned. My head seemed clear enough but my hand just sort of hung there. This was weird. I wondered: had I had a stroke instead of a nap?

I was 45 years old. And this was beginning to scare me.

I ended my phone call and placed another: paging my surgeon-ex-husband’s beeper with my number and adding *911 to indicate that there was a serious need for him to respond. Even so, I was surprised that he did, rather promptly, and that, just minutes later, he was at my side, checking my blood pressure and pulse, listening through his stethoscope as I took deep breaths – and my heart beat at its normal pace.

He assured me that I had not had a stroke – for which I might have hugged him – but  then – and I swear this is true – he said, “Take two aspirin and give me a call in the morning.”

For that, if I had had two good hands I might have choked him.