What Constitutes an Emergency?

What constitutes an emergengy?  That is the question that I posed to the covering neurlolgist on the phone when for the zillioneth time my arms both went numb - only this time instead of lasting minutes, it had been hours. 
It was easy to be calm at first.  It was easy to reassure myself that since every other time it had gone away without fuss it would go away this time too.  It was easy to just sit still for the first five minutes, and then ten, but two hours into an episode that left me unable to lift a piece of paper, there was nothing easy about it . When picking up the phone was a challenge and dialing it an event, with the granddarling due to wake from her nap and the grandson due to be picked up  from a friend's, my afternoon was not feeling easy.  Still,  I wasn't so sure it was an emergency either.

 I did pick up the phone and dial it and when the troops had rallied, when my grandson had been picked up and my daughter had arrived  to tend her little one and me, the question of when it would let up had changed to would it let up? and  what if it didn't ?

And so the question -  
The neurologist actually chuckled.  For many, perhaps more reasonable people, there would have been no question.  Not being able to lift a spoon full of cereal from bowl to mouth would answer any doubt in most peoples minds, but ....  for me?  Well, I am a nurse, and pragmatic and, damn it , it HAD always gone away before.  Besides, I could walk and talk, I had no real pain and I wanted it to go away!  I did not want to be having an emergency right now.  I have had several surgeries in too few years and I had run out of reserve and resources for  all that an emergency would involve.

 I wondered as I sat watching CNN in the neurologist's office the next morning if the people of Japan had felt like I had the day before.  There was an earthquake warning.  In Japan there are often earthquake warnings.  They are used to them  ( if one can be used to earthquake warnings.  I, personally, think it is easier to get used to your arms going numb )  So, if you are in Japan, and there is an earthquake warning, you might think to yourself - what would constitute an emergency?  What would make this one different than the ones before ? How long would you wait? I wondered. When would you know?  Would you need someone else to tell you?

I watched the footage of houses and cars swept into the sea.  I watched the wall of water wash over hundreds and thousands of homes.  I watched the screen focused on the nuclear plants and prayed that there would be no greater disaster even as this disaster was unfolding and other potential disasters were pushing their way across the Pacific Ocean.  This, I thought.  This is an emergency.  There is no doubt in anyone's mind.  There is no phone call to be made,  no doctor at the other end of the line to ask questions of, no emergency room to choose to go to, no one to answer if you want to call  911. I was watching an EMERGENCY or epic proportions.

And yet, I could not use my hands. I could not fill out the papers they handed me, I could not yet undress myself for examination, I could not go to work. I could not pass the most basic neurologic tests. I had to face the fact that while I was not in Japan, I was, in fact, facing my own, potential, emergency. 

It was very strange to be fighting  my own anxiety for my own wellbeing while being filled with such overwhelming sadness and compassion for others.  It was strange to fight the desire, the need to just sit down and cry, to have a pity- party,  while at the same time acknowledging how very fortunate I was.

It is one week later, and the question, actually, still has not been answered. I am better. I can feed and dress myself. I can type now though writing is still a challenge.  My hands will not yet do the things I need them to in order to do my tasks in the kitchen or at work. I have  had the MRI and the xrays and will have more sophisticated tests this week. The episode is not yet over as I have wished and willed and prayed for it to be.  And perhaps it will indeed become an emergency. I do not know.

This is what I know. That  today as I sit in my office in my old house that is warm, late at night, typing on my computer, a cup of tea with fresh water on my desk, my belly full, my dog asleep at my side, my old  car full of gas in the driveway, it is a nuisance.  And I know it.  I know I have a right to acknowledge it for the mess it may make of my life for a bit.  I know I have a right to cry; that just because someone, many thousands of someones, are suffering, does not mean that I will not be afraid, that I will not need help too, that I will not have an emergency. I know all that.   But today, tonight, as I sit and type this message, what I know beyond question, what  I know without calling anyone to ask is this. . .... 

My heart breaks with sadness for those across the waters. At the same time it is filled with gratitude.
I may be scared. I may be tired. I may be facing some tough times, but I am blessed beyond measure.