lily of the valley: May 18, 2001

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(age: 23 years, 5 months, 23 days, 22 hours, 15 minutes)
[history: 2007... 2006... 2004... ]

Friday May 18, 2001

18/V/01 - the potato incident

amancay * cam: thursday, may 17, 2001 - 5:29:51 pm

Okay, so after work this afternoon I stopped by McDonald's for my Friday Special $2.99 Filet-O-Fish Extra Value Meal (yum!) As usual, I was eating (or perhaps scarfing) my fries on the way home... Well, lo and behold, just as I'm about to pull onto Riordan, I've somehow lodged one of my last frylings in my throat.

You know how you can get those stupid popcorn kernel shells stuck back there? Back on the side of your throat/tonsil area? Well, that's where this alleged fry decided to park. I kid you not! Once I pulled around the coner I stopped, open up and say 'ah!'

opened up wide, and could actually see the sucker sticking out back there! Talk about disgustamundo, this was putrid. Now, you must remember that I have the worst gag reflex known to man... So you can imagine where this is going.

there's more where that came from...

[Young children, the weak stomached, and those who are pregnant may need to consult with their physician before preceeding with this entry! You have been officially warned, proceed at your own risk!]

I opened up wide... and dove in with my fingers! I got a quick grab of the intrusion, I could feel and see it as it pulled out of it's nook (it was definitely more than a small speck or chunk,) and well... gagged like there was no tomorrow. Still being in my running car, I threw the door open, struggled to bend over as far as I could with the seatbelt still doing it's job, and hurled a glob of french fries out my door and along the edge of the car. (Don't tell me I didn't warn you!)

This sudden jerk of movement and the muscles spasming all along my neck, throat, and mouth created an unimaginable pain in my neck and tongue. My eyes were watering, I could barely see and yet, the fry was clearly still there. I finally had to put my hazard lights on as a semi came around me. I tried gargling soda... drinking... any and all strange rolling movements and could conjure up with my tongue. Nothing was working. So I went home, and called my mommy!

Mom's first inclination was to have the dentist try to get it out with some tooly thing he might have, but Colin insisted I just go straight to La Cl�nica. I called the office up, and explained my situation and the somewhat direness of it to the receptionist who answered. She got ahold of the triage nurse whose first concern was if I was breathing. Now mind you, when I first glanced at this thing in my throat I thought, 'maybe it went down the wrong hole... but, I'm breathing just fine... darn, no that's not it!' I assured the woman I was breathing fine (duh, I was calling wasn't I, did she hear any huffing or weazing? I don't think so!

In the end I just went in the have the nurse take a look at it and pull it out. The whole way driving there I was choking myself just thinking about, tasting, seeing, and feeling it back there... Lucky for me, she was ready an elated health professional

and waiting (and especially willing, who wouldn't want to see such an odd sight as a medical professional!) to take me back to the triage room. Now, she was convinced (upon simply looking) that it were merely a small piece/speck of potato that was on the side there. If it was that simple, I would have been able to get it myself, I promise you! No matter what I said, I couldn't convince her otherwise, so she went in with a cotton swab, rather than prongs, probes, or anything of that sort that would've grabbed and pulled it out.

She swabbed and somewhat scooped and actually came up with quite a bit of product.. I felt better, she couldn't see anything else, and thought she'd gotten it all... so that was it. Since I only saw the triage nurse, there was no charge (yea for me!) I went back home, and took my long awaited nap after actually finishing the rest of my lunch kitties loves Filet-O-Fish!

(up until then, my Filet-O-Fish had just been sitting at home being smelled by the kitties.)

About an hour after I'd fallen asleep, Alicia called me, as scheduled, to go pick her up. I got up, got ready... and got in the car to go get her. Meanwhile my throat and tongue hurt almost as much as they had before. figuring they were just sore from the extraction and intrusional trauma, I decided to check them out to see how swollen or red they had become. To may complete and utter dismay... my throat looked the same as when I had first noticed the incident. little fry bugger sticking out of the side of the back of my throaty tonsil area. Growl! I reached in this time more determined than ever to rid my body of this burden. With a simple push and sweep of the tip of one finger... I pulled out at least the size of a pencil eraser of more potato. Talk about gross... once I was purely convinced that that was truely it, you could (and still can) see an obvious hole/crevice where this fry had lodged itself...

So what two lessons have I learned from all of this?

Always chew, with great attention to puree-ing, McDonalds' fries, and any other questionable edible!
My mouth is weirdly cavernous, with wrinkles and other hiding places I'm not too comfortable with!