Nina woke up Sunday morning (the 18th) with a sore arm. She said it felt kind of like a very sore nerve running down her left arm.

It kind of got worse during the day and by the time we went to bed she was having difficulty finding a comfortable and somewhat pain-free position to get some sleep. I woke up about 1 a.m. Monday morning as she was coming back into the bedroom in obvious serious pain. We talked about the situation a bit and decided we needed to make a trip into the Emergency Room and get it looked at just in case it was something serious. Further, they might be able to give her a pain killer that would let her get some sleep.

Nina doesn’t have much in the way of medical insurance, so trips to the ER are carefully rationed … this one was important. Besides, I got to drive way too fast through the 20mph park and almost needed to run a red light. The last time I got to do that was back in 1973 in Germany when our daughter Traci was being born.

After a bunch of tests, heart problems were ruled out along with a number of other potential ailments. What was left was a musculature / skeletal problem commonly known as “tennis elbow”. A couple of good doses of morphine and a prescription for Lortab took most of the edge off the pain. Problem was, however, we had to stay in the ER for an hour after the last dose of morphine. Around 5 a.m. she was finally discharged and we picked up the prescription at the 24-hour Walgreens and went home to bed.

I drove the speed limits going home. I didn’t have an excuse to do anything else!