2005-05-24 - 8:58 p.m.
I went to New York this weekend cause damnit I�m done and I deserve it. My friend who�s chef at Lot 401 here in Providence got invited to cook at the James Beard House, a foodie temple if ever there was. I was initially going to go with my sister, but we were having a tiff, so I took my friend Max who I�ve known since fifth grade.
Of course I missed the train I wanted to take. I forgot to take into account that Providence is a shuffling backwater where cabs never come remotely on time, so I got to the train station with only seconds to spare. I fell down splat walking through the station in my nervousness. Two cops were really nice about helping me over to a seat and getting a wheelchair to take me down to the platform, but my intended train had already left. I took the next one, but I got to the dinner late.
Her food is delicious. I mean, so good. The dinner was a series of small tasting plates, with accompanying wine from a local vineyard. I sat between Max and her brother, who was a really nice guy, and across from two other Rhode Islanders who thought it was pretty cool that I was graduating Brown at 31. The whole experience of being there felt so right.
One of her signature dishes is a very fancy version of steak and eggs. It was maybe the fourth or fifth plate we got. Okay. I guess I hacked off quite a hunk of it and it got stuck in my throat and I stopped breathing and almost died.
I guess I can wonder about why this happened endlessly. Things do go down the wrong pipe more these days with MS, but this is usually coffee and stuff and it just makes me cough. I�d had several glasses of the wine and maybe my judgment was off a bit. I sometimes worry about eating as fast as the people with me, cause I have to use a fork now with my slower non-dominant left hand, and maybe this subconsciously made me decide to take such a huge mouthful.
Ultimately though, it was just random bad luck. I tend to be less risk-averse these days, cause in the back of my mind I feel like I know what bullet has my name on it. But the thing is, MS or no, I can be run over by a truck the same as anyone else. Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota had MS, was a liberal political hero (and probably the model for The West Wing�s Pres. Josiah Bartlett), and died in a plane crash.
Shortly after I was first diagnosed, I remember being on a plane overnight to Budapest. In the middle of the flight, I was awakened by the cabin lights coming on and a droning in German over the PA, presumably about turbulence or something. Alithea started yapping about some damn thing. I was feeling physically miserable (I think it was a reaction to the Avonex I used to inject for treatment) and I just wanted to go back to sleep. I was not having a good time.
It occurred to me at that moment that life could still just suck. I don�t get a by for being sick. There were still going to be bad days, just like there had always been and just like there were for everyone else. I can still randomly choke to death on steak.
There�s a fine line between pride and safety, and I don�t always negotiate it right. When I realized I had swallowed wrong, I tried to cough things up discretely without causing a scene. People were staring at me turning blue and choking and I was trying to wave their concerns away, even after I could no longer breathe. I remember thinking how if only I could speak, I�d say �Don�t worry about me; I�m fine!�
Then I passed out. The tension I was creating by gesticulating that I wanted to keep things cool and the fact that I was obviously choking tipped easily over to the side of concern and horror. The Heimlich maneuver apparently isn�t always effective on people with MS. Because our nerves are fucked up, we may not have the reflex it tries to invoke.
Thank God for Max saving my life. He�s from the neighborhood and realized that calling 911 would mean EMS would have to navigate Greenwich Village�s one way streets and ambulance me to the hospiyal across the street where it would be too late to save me. So he threw my lightweight ass over his shoulder and carried me to the E.R. in time himself.
When I came to, I was in a hospital bed with no clothes on. They had cut off my new Brooks Brothers suit in such a mangled way that it couldn�t even be safety-pinned back together to make a cool punk outfit. Beats being dead, of course. They apparently had to go down my throat and physically fish out the steak. No miracles of modern medicine about it, just quick thinking. Another minute without oxygen and I would have been brain damaged. A few more and I would have been dead.
My first thought was how embarrassed I was that I�d made a scene at dinner. When the chef came by to see how I was, I just apologized and hoped I hadn�t upstaged her glory. I said that it occurred to me that if I was going to go out like that, I�d far rather it be choking on delicious food that she made than anything else. I know she�d probably rather no one die from anything she�d cooked, but I hope the sentiment came across.
They kept me in the hospital overnight for observation. They discharged me the next day and said I�d just have a sore throat for a bit. Max went home. I didn�t quite know how to express my gratitude to him for saving my life. Although as he put it, after twenty years of friendship, he�s seen me do a lot more embarrassing things.
So I�m afraid this isn�t even actually a very good story. I can�t really draw any broader lessons from it for you. �Huh. I almost died Saturday night. How about that? Well, anyway.� I don�t quite know what to say beyond that.
I�ll leave you with my hospital discharge instructions that my sister pointed out were hilarious (from Dr. Chow, no less): �Chew food slowly.�
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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