Choke Hold : A Surreal Night in the Emergency Room

“Just get these pills out of my throat and let me go home,” I scribbled on the note pad. The young emergency-room doctor pocketed the thin silver flashlight he had been gazing down my throat with and told me, “We’ll have to call in a specialist to do that.”

I sat back on the gurney, slightly dazed. Just a couple of hours before, I’d been standing in my kitchen, doling out a double dose of my “alphabet of good health”--the A-to-Z vitamins I thought would assuage my guilt after eating an entire box of chocolate-chip cookies in one sitting. I gulped down the vitamins with a glass of mineral water. Suddenly, I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. There was a logjam in my throat.

I tried my grandmother’s old trick of eating a piece of bread to dislodge the pills. The bread stuck. Then I tried drinking a glass of hot water, but the time-release pills made the water spurt out of my mouth.

According to my hazy recollection of human anatomy, if the pills moved, they might end up in my trachea. I wasn’t sure this was pure scientific fact, since I’d shown more interest in other parts of the human body in health classes, but the possibility of choking to death scared me into action.

I tried to administer the Heimlich Hug to myself but found out it would never work unless one of my parents had been an orangutan. Next, I searched my house for a chair back to throw myself across--not an easy task when you are under 5 foot 3 and prefer Shaker-style chairs. I dragged out a step stool and used it as a diving board. No success--only a bruised midriff.

Vetoing the paramedics because of the time factor, I drove myself to the hospital, a few blocks away. I ran in, and managed to gasp to the nearest nurse: “Stuck, stuck, stuck.” She did not seem impressed--I was still flesh-colored--and led me to an examination area where, she informed me, I would be evaluated by a member of the hospital staff.

After my preliminary examination, my cubicle curtains weren’t parted till a handsomely dressed young man entered. “I’m the specialist. Ear, nose and throat. What have we done?” he announced. He’d been called from a dinner party. He smelled like pesto and garlic. I was relieved. I have always trusted men who liked garlic. The specialist said I had something wedged across my esophagus and that he’d have to admit me to the hospital. If the pills didn’t go down or dissolve, he continued, “I’ll have to do a ‘little procedure’ in the operating room.”

“Admitted? For a vitamin pill? Aren’t we getting a bit carried away now that we are sure I won’t choke?” I quickly wrote. But he explained that my electrolytes might go haywire from not swallowing, and so, reluctantly, I agreed to be admitted.

A nurse came into the cubicle to start an i.v. She was interrupted when a huge muscular arm opened the curtains and a large, lumbering man shouted, “Are these your keys?” I jumped off the table and thrust my note pad in the man’s face, telling him, “Yes. What’s the matter?” The man read my message slowly and answered: “You got to move that car out of the emergency area.” I gave the man permission to move the car. “No, lady, either you move that car or it gets towed away. I don’t drive stick shift.”

In desperation, I started making phone calls, trying to find a friend who could help. I left whispered, rasping, unintelligible messages on seven answering machines. One now-ex-friend told me he never ventured west of La Cienega unless his final destination was Maui. I left word with the maid of another friend who eventually did show up but couldn’t drive a stick shift either.

Eventually I was taken upstairs and settled in for the night. I lay awake doing deep yoga breathing, meditations, positive thinking, incantations, and even attempting the laugh cure. But the pills didn’t move.

Orderlies appeared to “prep” me for surgery. My fear mounted and, involuntarily, I swallowed. A grinding pain ripped through my throat. “The pills are gone!” I shouted. The orderlies applauded. Nurses streamed into my room. The specialist came in; I thought he looked a little disappointed. He took it stoically, though, and told me to wait for a nurse with a wheelchair to take me to check out. I dressed and walked out of that hospital without waiting, found my car in the same place I’d left it, and rushed to a business meeting.

As we ordered, my breakfast date took out a small case, opened it and methodically put out a line of vitamin pills next to his plate. Politely, he offered me one, remarking, “Do have a Vitamin C. You look a bit pale today.”

I declined, explaining simply, “Vitamin pills are dangerous to my health.”