All Choked Up
Our dinner guest was visiting Canada from Wales. This was before my husband and I had children. We were newlyweds and new home owners. Entertaining guests at our own place was still an exciting novelty, and we’d welcomed the chance to treat this friend of my brother and sister-in-law to an afternoon of Canadiana.
The menu was simple: salad, French fries (or “chips,” as our guest would have called them), homemade dipping sauce, and pickerel fillets battered and fried. We’d wanted to serve something local, something from the place where we’d grown up and chosen to stay. With the ample fishing opportunities offered by Lake Ontario, the Bay of Quinte, and the Moira River, fresh walleye (caught by my husband) had seemed the perfect choice. And, it was the perfect choice — right up until I reached for my glass of water to sooth a sudden, violent urge to cough on my last forkful.
I’d learned in first aid training that many restaurant choking victims die in the restroom. They leave the table so as not to make a scene, and they go to the washroom intending to cough and hack in privacy. This first responder fun fact has made me wary of purple-faced dinner companions who abruptly push back from the table and stumble toward the facilities. Now, as I continued to smile and nod, wading through the dinner conversation at a modified speed, I could feel both the prickle of the fish spine lodged in my throat and the panicked urge to sneak off to the bathroom where I could choke, perhaps fatally, in private.
“Thank you for the delicious meal and lovely afternoon,” our guest said to me at last.
My husband reached for the car keys to drive our Welsh guest back to my brother’s house. As I could no longer speak without coughing, I waved a hand through the air, feigning a gracious modesty, and smiled magnanimously. Our guest turned and followed my husband through our front door. The door clicked shut behind them, and I dove for the refrigerator, raking my fingers across the top until I grasped the familiar shape of a flashlight.
I slammed the bathroom door open and gaped as wide as I could at the mirror while shining the flashlight into my mouth. I could feel the fishbone, an irritating barb at the top of my throat, but it was just out of sight and reach. My next thought was, “Toothbrush!”
I ran upstairs to my en suite. If I could nudge the fishbone loose, perhaps I could spit out the wretched thing. On the other hand, there was a possibility I would swallow the needle-sharp devil. Hmmm. I raised my toothbrush and gingerly prodded the back of my throat. With a gag and a stab of pain, I felt the bone dig in deeper as the toothbrush pushed against it. As they say in Wales, “Shite!”
Maybe I should have thought about this more thoroughly. I took a moment to do so and realized swallowing had become increasingly difficult. Huh. Definitely a bad sign. I picked up the phone.
“Mom?” I croaked. “Fishbone in throat. Can’t swallow now. Throat tight. Can you come? Use tweezers maybe?”
Only, it sounded like, “Fissbon in thoat. Can sallow now. Thoat tigh. Cannew come? Ooze teezers abee?”
“Okay. We’re on our way.” My mom was speaking in her nurse’s voice. I felt a surge of hope.
“Huh-wee pease,” I said before hanging up the phone and sitting down in a chair to wait.
I decided that the less I moved, the better. My eyes were watering from the struggle to swallow, the pain that was getting worse, and the prospect of an obituary that read, “…passed away peacefully at home after choking on a fishbone.”
Not long after my cryptic phone call, my mom, dad, and teenaged sister crowded around me in my living room as I leaned back dentist-style in an armchair. My mom wielded a pair of surgical pliers. My dad held a flashlight. My sister observed and commented. I say “surgical pliers” because they certainly weren’t tweezers. Beneath their metallic glint, I estimated them to be seven or more inches long, and though they were not sharp, I would still describe them as needle-nose, with teeth for a better grip. Like scissors, they had circular finger holds — but, with an added locking mechanism for exceedingly stubborn retrievals.
“It’s really stuck in there,” my mom said. I thought of the toothbrush.
I squeezed the armrests and tried not to drool down my neck as my mother reached into my throat again with the pliers. My sister’s hand on my shoulder held me steady, and I tried not to panic at the (probably?) unintended restraint. Amidst the shadowy lamplight of the living room, the cone of flashlight brilliance reddened the hollows of my face, and our silhouettes were an illustration from a catalogue of medieval medicine. Figure VII: Fishbone Removal. (This entry would be located somewhere between “Amputation of Gangrenous Digits” and “Fitting an Iron Hand Prosthesis.”)
“Here we go now,” my mom said with unabashed pleasure. She adjusted the position of the pliers. I shifted my gaze downwards to see if she had braced a foot against the chair to boost her pull. Instead, she removed her arm — okay, hand — from my mouth and triumphantly held aloft a tiny, near transparent fishbone.
Medieval madness over with, Mom packed up her bag of instruments with the efficiency of a 15th century apothecary and instructed me to gargle with saltwater immediately and then again before bed. I took my trophy and zipped it into a plastic sandwich bag for bragging rights and later re-enactments.
Today, as I write this, it is -14° Celsius outside. Ice fishing season has officially begun. Soon, there will be fillets of fresh walleye in our fridge. My sons will ask why I’m eating a grilled cheese sandwich for supper instead of Dad’s “fresh fried fish special,” and I will feel the ghost prickle of a fishbone in my throat. I will think of the flashlight, the toothbrush, the needle-nose pliers, and the fishbone obituary. Then, as I did so many years ago in reply to our departing dinner guest, I will brush away their question with a gracious wave and a magnanimous smile. “You know, guys, I was just really craving a grilled cheese sandwich tonight.”
