Media Medley Blog

This morning, like every morning, my husband, Earl, walked the dog. And like every morning, he ran with the dog for a ways. Unlike every other morning, though, Earl miss stepped and took a tumble. As he rolled forward, he fell partly upon Buddy dog. Much chagrined, he and the dog both limped home to be tended, scolded and pampered. Luckily it appears neither were seriously hurt.

My oldest son, Walter, was here and witnessed the aftermath. Walter made “I’m glad you are not seriously hurt” remarks, then went out to the garage to begin building a workbench for Earl.

Walter is a big guy, has a big heart, but is not a big talker. He usually listens and seems to think deeply before he says anything. So most of his conversations are fairly direct. Some people underestimate Walter at times, because he is a bit eccentric in how he does things. For instance, he is about 6’2″ and recently dug a 3 foot hole using a 2.5 foot fox hole shovel, instead of a regular shovel. The people that hired him to dig a hole thought it was strange. Walter though, was testing the hypothesis that a knife sharp blade (even on a short shovel) made digging easier than with than a dull blade (on longer shovel). His nonconformity, his willingness to try out his ideas, is what makes him both strange and brilliant. I had forgotten to ask if his hypothesis worked out for him. I’ll have to remember to ask Walter about that.

At any rate, I followed Walter out the garage to help him since the design of the custom workbench was my idea. Walter is always patient to me and we work well together building stuff. As we neared the finish of building the bench, my son grabbed the sander and started sanding the table top and the edges. When he finished sanding the squared edges to a softer rounded edge, Walter grinned at me and said, “Thought I’d better put a rounded edge on that bench since Earl’s started auditioning for the Cirque Du Soleil.”

I love my son’s gentle jokes. Maybe one day when I have nothing else to do, I’ll paint a Curque du Soleil scene on that bench. But for the nonce, we papered over the top to prevent scratches to CD cases.

“Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.”

-Henry Vandyke

Every year for Thanksgiving, I enjoy cooking the big dinner. It is the one time of the year where I go all out and make just about everything from scratch. I was excited to be cooking Thanksgiving dinner again. Earl and my youngest son ran to the corner market to get some sugar for me. My oldest son had had just returned from walking the dog and sat at the dining room table in the dining room to look at the newspaper sale ads.

I was in the kitchen getting ready to mash the potatoes. I hadn’t eaten that morning, and wanted to verify that the potatoes were cooked all the way through so I picked a small chunk of boiled potato from the pot on a fork and blew on it as I turned to get the colander from the shelf.  I popped the potato in my mouth and placed the colander in the sink. The potato in my mouth was still pretty hot, so I took a breathe in to cool the potato.

All of a sudden I couldn’t breathe.

I’ve choked on food a time or two before, and knew that I had to stay calm. But this choking was unlike the other times I’d choked before. Previously, the food was fairly solid and I could easily dislodge it: a momentary discomfort and soon forgotten. This time I could feel the starchy coating on the potato turning to glue as the potato disintegrated at glacial speed. The more that potato disintegrated, the more glue seemed to accumulate in my throat.  I’d struggled to catch my breath for about thirty seconds before my oldest son realized I was in trouble.

“Mom, are you alright?” my son asked me. He stood up. I motioned to my throat and tried to say, “I can’t breathe!”

“Do you need the Heimlich maneuver?” he asked again. I nodded then turned to the sink again where my hands were gripping the sink.. My 6’2” son rushed around the table, across the dining room, into the kitchen and got behind me. He reached around me, brought his hands together just below my ribcage, and pulled them in and up.

Nothing happened. I still couldn’t breathe. The starchy gluey mass in my throat and windpipe refused to budge. My son waited to see if there was a result, saw there wasn’t and tried again. And he tried a third time.

I tried to stay calm, but after the third maneuver with no result, I was starting to feel that things were looking pretty grim.

My son started yanking harder and faster each time he tried the maneuver.  I lost track of the number of times he tried. I began getting weaker and weaker from having no air. I flopped around like a rag doll as my son lifted me with force off my feet in his efforts to dislodge the mass in my throat. At some point I lost my bladder control and I didn’t even care because I was battling the loss of consciousness.

I thought, “So this is the way I’m going to die?” It wasn’t quite how I thought I’d go.

Then desperation flared. “Please God,” I begged angrily, “Not on Thanksgiving Day! It [my death] would ruin Thanksgiving Day for my family forever. Today is a terrible day to die!”

And then, it suddenly seemed as if I could feel a strong blanket of love, as if my guardian angel was helping my son to help me. My throat cleared enough that I could get a little bit of air. As I greedily sucked in whatever air I could get, I could feel the gluey starch ease a bit and begin to move with my air movement. My son stopped bruising me, stepped to the side and looked at me.

“Coke!” I managed to rasp out. My son seemed quizzical for a moment, and then realized I wanted a drink of carbonated soda. He hastily poured a fizzy glass and handed it to me. I took a small sip. I had an uncertain moment as I realized I wasn’t sure I could take a drink while I was still gasping for air. But I managed to swallow it, and the carbonation helped to cut through some of the starchiness blocking my air passages in the back of my throat.

When it became obvious that I was going to live, I fiercely hugged my shaking son.  Then I realized I was badly shaking, too. After we’d both calmed down, I cleaned myself up and changed clothes. My husband and youngest son arrived home soon after;  happily chatting. It sounded like music to me.

My family and I have much to be thankful for this year.