This is crazy - On Thursday, the day I wrote about ‘Hoosiers’, that’s what was playing on the TV in the emergency room waiting room.

When I was thinking of possible new things that could help fill these writing days in 2025, this was not one I anticipated:

On Thursday night I made a trip to the emergency room.

It was for me, and it wasn’t major, so there’s nothing to worry about as I build up to the problem here. But, for context, I am not someone who ever thinks, “I’d better go to the ER.” I know some of those people - they treat it like an everyday option. Which, whatever - that’s what it’s there for. But it’s not something I feel compelled to do, partly thanks to good health but also due to a little bit of a constant “I hate to be a bother” feeling.

I don’t even know what precipitated this, but sometime early on Thursday I kind of remember reaching for something and feeling my shoulder get weird. It might have been in the car in the morning reaching for something in the backseat, it might have been reaching into a cabinet at work…it might have been both.

I didn’t think about it again until I got home and the feeling just kept getting worse.

By the time I went to bed I was very uncomfortable - and I kept thinking, “Uh-oh. This is not a usual amount of pain.”

What is a usual amount of pain? I don’t know. Sometimes I wake up with a very stiff neck that I feel in my shoulder but I can kind of stretch it to the point where I know it will go away. Also, I have a fairly high tolerance for my own pain. (Not other people’s pain. If I see someone particularly uncomfortable I will pass out.) This was painful for me, which is unusual, and definitely was not close to going away.

So Kathy took me to the ER. (I will refer to my own travails here but understand she was with me the whole time and is a real champ.) We left the house at 10pm. I think it was something like 12:45am when I finally saw a physician’s assistant, who sent me to get x-rays, and then the doctor saw me sometime around 1:15, I guess. We were out of there by 1:30am, home just before 2am.

The verdict: I had inflammation in my biceps tendon. The doctor said it would probably get worse for 2-3 days but it should feel better after that. I’ve been able to manage the pain since then with Tylenol and Advil. And when I remember, with some icing.

There was a point around midnight where I thought maybe we should just go home - I thought maybe the pain was better enough and I would benefit from more sleep than sitting and waiting.

I’m glad I stayed though.

It was not any better Friday morning and if I hadn’t found out what was going on, I would have worried all day Friday and another trip to the ER would have interfered with our weekend plans.

A quick note, also, to show appreciation to emergency room workers. There’s all sorts of stuff going on there all night long and they were nice to me and friendly all while they’re trying to save lives. I appreciate that amidst everything else going on they were able to help me with my shoulder pain.

Hopefully this is the last of the ‘unexpected medical issues’ posts of 2025.

Assume everything got better if I don’t post about this again.