I lost control of my left hand as I was typing at work. It fell to pieces, and I couldn’t type with it anymore, and I could barely grip a cup of coffee. My hand went as crooked as a tree, and it stayed that way. So after work, I hurried on foot to urgent care to have it looked at.

The waiting room was as crowded as a bar at six o’clock at night. They were closing at eight. I was lucky to find a chair, and I had to fill out one of those daunting medical forms, which asked me about my family history of health of course. I had to draw a checkmark next to stroke, which my grandfather had in his late age. It was something I worried about as my hand was still numb.

When I waited, I googled hand numbness and came up with possibilities such as a mini-stroke, the worst possible scenario. All I could do was wait with a lot of people ahead of me. One of them was a woman with a suitcase. I always wonder about people who bring suitcases to urgent care. She kept asking the receptionists when they would call her name. Then a woman stormed in, bawling, and went straight to the receptionists. She could barely speak because she was dry-heaving and said she needed to see someone right away because she thought she was having a panic attack. They let her in before all of us, and I could keep hearing her bawling, even in the doctor’s office. I figured they would close at eight and tell me to come back tomorrow, but I was lucky because the nurse called me in at about a quarter till.

I sat in the examination room. The nurse checked my vital signs. Everything looked good. I waited some more afterward before the doctor came in: an old man with a plaid dress shirt. “What seems to be the problem” is what every doctor asks. I told him I couldn’t feel my left hand. He asked me if it hurt as he was rubbing it. I told him no.

He rubbed his finger up my left hand. “Can you feel this?”

I told him yes.

“I’m worried it might be ITA,” he said.

A mini-stroke, in other words.

“I suggest you go to emergency.”

All I could think about was waiting longer. I would’ve rather gone home and suffered more than wait another several hours to see a goddamned doctor. I took his suggestion and rode a Lyft to the nearest hospital. The Lyft took all night it seemed to pick me up from urgent care.

When I got to the hospital, there were several people sitting outside in the pickup area. I went right inside to the receptionist. He was a bald man with tattoos and yellow fingernails. I handed him the sheet that the doctor from urgent care had given me, explaining the sudden loss of feeling in my left hand (which I’m experiencing right now). I can’t believe that I’m typing this, to be perfectly honest. I filled out the form and handed it back to the same receptionist.

“Have a seat,” he said.

I was lucky again to find one in the waiting room, where lots of people sat and waited with their babies. I always see babies and little kids in waiting rooms for some reason. I worried I would catch COVID being in the ER without a face mask on–not that face masks would ensure protection. I waited and waited for about two and a half hours. A young man came back out to the waiting room with bandages on both hands. My first suspicion was that he’d slit his wrists. He looked quite annoyed for being there, and I had to agree. There was also someone moaning the whole time behind me. I contemplated walking home because home was about a mile away. I stayed there because I was worried about a stroke.

The receptionist finally called me in a little after ten o’clock. I sat in a chair behind a curtain. A nurse checked my vital signs. Once again he said they were perfect and asked if I drank, smoked, or took illicit drugs.

“No, yes, no,” I said.

“The doctor will see you shortly,” he said.

Nothing is ever shortly at the ER, except when they see me, which usually lasts under five minutes.

She came in about twenty to thirty minutes later, young and blonde, with a surgical mask on her face. I told her what was going on and handed her the sheet that the doctor at urgent care had given me. She felt my left hand. She asked me the same questions that the urgent care doctor had asked and said it could be possible ulnar nerve entrapment. She rolled her eyes after I said the urgent care doctor thought it could’ve been a possible ITA and that I needed an MRI. She said she didn’t think so. Right away, she made me grip a piece of paper with my left hand and told me to try to take it away from her as she pulled it. But I couldn’t hold it. She tried the same thing with my right hand. I was able to hang onto it.

“It definitely could be ulnar nerve entrapment.”

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s the same thing as when you bang your funny bone and your arm goes numb.”

I definitely know what that’s like.

She referred me to a hand specialist and wrote me a note to take time off work. They released me about twenty minutes later.

I took another Lyft ride home and got there around eleven o’clock, glad to be there because I hadn’t eaten all day. I wrote to my boss that I went to the hospital that night and I wouldn’t be able to make it to work the next day.

I ate and went to bed an hour or two later and woke up late at ten o’clock with my left hand still partially numb. I took a shower, wrote my morning pages, and called the hand specialist afterward to set an appointment. They said they would get in touch with me later. Now I wonder how long I’ll be out of work for. I don’t see how I can work with my left hand like this. It might require surgery.