A BIG Scare, But Thankfully, Just a Scare

Last week for date night, we saw Shutter Island – not much to say about that; it was disappointing.  We then went out to eat, and my husband mentioned that his fingers were tingling.  At the same time, I noticed that he was slurring his words – uh,oh.  Although he is only in his mid-30’s, I was sure that he had had a stroke; I know those are two of the warning signs.  He did not want to go to the hospital, so I agreed that we would drive home, pick up the kids, and I would look up these symptoms on the internet to see if he should indeed get to the hospital.  When I looked it up, the info was scarier than I originally thought.  It said yes, these are indeed symptoms of a stroke, and a person needs only to exhibit ONE of them, not all.  It also said that people who have strokes often refuse to get medical treatment, and their loved ones must INSIST that they seek medical treatment – so I made Hubby go to the ER while I put the kids to bed.  Well, before you panic, let me say that the stroke tests all came back negative.  Turns out that his arm had gone numb during the movie because it was a long movie and he was giving me backrubs (AWW!), and his “lazy tongue” was a result of his visit to the dentist in the morning – he doesn’t like novacaine, so when the dentist re-did one of his fillings, he sprayed some kind of numbing spray which got into my husband’s bloodstream and caused him to feel it 9 hours later.  PHEW!!!  It was a wasted night at the ER, but I’m so glad that he went because otherwise I would STILL be wondering and panicking that he had had a stroke.  And besides, it made for a really funny story to tell later…  people really seem to like the irony of the directions on the internet:  “Expect the person to protest — denial is common. Don’t take “no” for an answer.  Insist on taking prompt action.”  Well, insist I did, and as a result, poor Hubby spent the end of date night in the ER!