When my Mom was still alive, she and Dad were watching their favorite soap opera, As The Stomach Turns, or some such nonsense. She had made my father a nice chicken sandwich, and he was sitting there simultaneously eating his food and complaining about how stupid the characters were on the soap opera.
"Don't talk while you're eating," my mother told him, mainly, because she had served him poultry, not seafood. (See food, get it?)
"I'm not talking while I'm..."
All of a sudden, he starts to choke on a piece of chicken.
"I warned you not to talk while you're eating," my Mom scolded him, thinking it wasn't as serious as it was.
My Dad made no reply. Mainly because a chunk of chicken had wedged in his windpipe, and air was neither going in or out. He couldn't make any sounds, much less any words.
He grabbed his throat with both hands in the international sign of choking, although I'm sure he did it more by accident, than by rational thought. Who can be rational when they're in the middle of choking to death?
My Mom started to panic, and, in her panic, she grabbed the TV remote, and was going to turn it off, the noise from the TV was too distracting. That's when my Dad angrily made the international sign of You'd Better Not Turn Off The TV! with his hands.
He finally coughed out whatever had gotten stuck, took a few breaths of oxygen... and then started eating his chicken again.
When my Mom told me this story, I turned to my Dad and asked him why he got so angry with her for trying to turn off the TV set.
"If I was gonna die," he explained, "I wanted to die watching my favorite TV show."
Well, he had his reasons. I guess.
Anyway...
I was having dinner. Dad was at his favorite chair at the head of the table (MY chair, or, at least, it used to be.), and, as usual, I'm eating at the kitchen island. The older my Dad gets, the more noises he seems to make when he's eating, and it kind of grosses me out. Smack! Slurp! Ack! I try to ignore it. Smack! Sometimes I can. Sluuurp! Sometimes I can't. Ack!
I look over at my Dad. He's eating with great enthusiasm. He usually does. He's really putting his food away. I can't blame him. My wife's a good cook. In fact, she's a great cook. I'd tell her that myself, but she served us, and then had to leave. She and a few of her friends are doing a Zumba exercise class. She doesn't invite me, because she knows I would girl-watch more than I would Zumba.
I don't know why she think she needs to take that class, however.
"You look fine," I tell her.
"I'm fat," she tells me.
"You're not fat."
"I need to lose weight."
"You don't need to lose weight."
"Yes, I do."
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do."
And on it goes. Truthfully, she doesn't need to lose weight. She's done a fine job of keeping it off all these years. But, even if she did lose weight, what good does that do me? It would be like me owning a Ferrari, and only being allowed to drive it on the weekends, if you get my drift.
So I'm in the house alone with my Dad. And he starts coughing...
"Are you okay, Dad?"
Cough!
"Yeah, I'm fine."
...and coughing...
"Are you sure?"
He waves me off.
...and then he really starts coughing. He's having trouble catching his breath, his red face turning redder.
As he coughs some more, he's still waving me off, and I'm busy trying to remember: Is it two compressions and fifteen breaths, or is it two breaths and fifteen compressions? Should I get help? Call 911? The Pope?
Meanwhile, he continues to cough very hard and very loud.
Cough, cough, cough!
"I'm okay, I'm okay," he sort of says.
Cough, cough, cough!
It sounds like something's stuck in his throat, and he's having a hard time getting it down, along with everything else that might be hanging around in there due to his illness, all that green stuff, and who knows what else.
After several minutes, I ask him, "Dad, do you want some water?" Maybe the Heimlich?
No sooner do I get up, get him a glass of water, and set it down in front of him, than he starts to settle down.
"Are you sure you're okay, Dad?"
And he continues to eat!
My Mom wasn't exaggerating for the sake of making a good story better.
He shovels another spoonful of food into his mouth, and whispers, between tiny coughs, "Ahh... ohh... hmm..."
"What?" I ask, and immediately kick myself, because I'm aware that I might just set him off on another choking spree.
He's trying to swallow down some food and suck down a breath of air at the same time.
"I told you I was fine," he chastises me, between bites.
So much for my inheritance.
Raising My Father
JimDuchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
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