Choking Is Not Fun: Wednesday's Woe #21

Nearly choking is a really scary thing - I hate to imagine what actually choking feels like! Last week I had a near death experience invovling me choking (ok, so it wasn't quite near death but I did get awfully scared). I got up late afternoon after sleeping all day, bright eyed and bushy tailed and hungrier than a bear after hibernating all winter. I got an English muffin prepared and chugged back two large pills with a gulp of tea. No biggie -  I do it every morning. I proceeded to take a bit of English muffin drenched in butter and brown sugar when it hit me. A burning sensation in the middle of my esophagus. I took several gulps of tea. Nothing changed. The burning pressure sensation just got worse. Those two pills were lodged tight, stucker than a pig in a mud hole, and now my partially digested English muffin was swimming in a sea of tea above them. I started sweating and my hands started shaking. Was I choking? Was I going to die? I breathed in and out - hmmm, breathing didn't seem to be too much of a problem but that high-pressure lump in my mid-thoracic region was causing reason to be alarmed. I ran across the house and found my mom - "Mom, help! I'm choking!" Visions of me throwing myself over a chair to dislodge the obstruction flitted through my brain. Does mom even know how to do the Heimlich Maneuver? I started breathing faster and shallower as I imagined my airway becoming completely blocked off. In my mind, if I had passed out from lack of oxygen, I would never have made it. "Pear sauce!" Mom shrieked. And she was off in a flash. I half thought she had lost it, but I obediently followed Mom to the kitchen. Mom has a lot of experience with "food getting stuck in her throat" and pear sauce has been a miracle remedy. Due to its smooth, viscous consistency, it works better than a thin liquid to dislodge stuck objects. Anyways, I took a few spoonfuls but still, no change. I started getting panicky. The pressure was awful and making me feel nauseous. I flung myself to the sink and started puking, and puking, and puking. Not much came up but the pear sauce but thankfully all that retching got my peristalsis back up and doing its job properly and landed my pills safely into my stomach. Phew! And that's the end of my tale of woe... Lesson to be learned: drink ample fluid when swallowing pills!