The Grape's Wrath

It started out like a normal late snack around 7 pm. Healthier than usual, actually, because it wasn’t cookies or ice cream. I was waiting for my buddy “Fat Kid,” because he was coming by. (The word “Fat” and anything synonymous with it is simply a term of endearment when used in this context, as the fat kid in question is one of my best friends, and he used to be a heavier fellow because he was an offensive lineman on our football team. The sophomoric and abusive way in which I refer to him in the myriad of “fat” type names is simply an homage to bullies everywhere, male bonding, and because of the fact that since I was a year older than him, I was required to pick on him in the earlier years of high school. He’s a very fit police officer now, plus he calls me the same thing.) As I walked out of my roommate’s room, I shoved one last handful of grapes in my mouth before I put the whole bag away. Of course, one grape made it to the back of my throat untouched by teeth, so I had to suck it down whole. No big deal. Well, not a big deal for normal people. I actually get kind of nervous with situations like that. I tend to have this problem while eating, and I guess if you want to mark down phobias, mine is choking.

I’ve done it twice, so to speak. Choking. Once when I was at my house in front of my parents, in which my Dad gave me the Heimlich maneuver in about three seconds and helped the chicken down into my stomach. The other time was in the middle of a restaurant in front of my whole college football team and about 200 other people. But that’s another story altogether.

Anywho, I was getting flashbacks of those moments from this grape because it reached the halfway point to my stomach and decided to stop there. I thought it could go down quick, but now it was giving me trouble. Lots of trouble. The phobia started kicking in and my heart was officially at twice its normal rate.

I wanted to throw it up. The problem with that solution, of course, was that I had nothing in my stomach. These grapes were my dinner until Fat Ass showed up and we could get something to eat and meet up with our friend Korey and her girlfriends. Oh yeah – it’s Valentine’s Day, by the way. On a Friday night. Young, single women come out in droves with either one of two agendas -- "screw guys, we're having fun!' or "screw guys, my life sucks" -- both of which could be spun towards the benefit of young, single men. (Also known as "let's screw guys.") 

So in other words this is going to be a fun-filled night. That is, as soon as this foreign object is removed from my esophagus. I ran to the back door while pulling off my fleece pullover (hence the name), and dropped it on the floor between two people who were having a conversation in my kitchen. My roommate Brian, who’s a chef, was talking to his girlfriend while preparing her a dinner, and she was talking back to him, anticipating dinner. Me speed-walking between them and dropping my coat is not normal behavior so they sort of froze and watched me. So, as I’m sticking my finger down my throat, Brian pokes his head out the door and asks very politely, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Oh, I just swallowed a grape whole. I’m trying to throw it up because it’s stuck in my throat.” This happened with a piece of chicken before, so I explained to him that puking did the trick that time. (That was another incident like this, but I could still breathe the whole time, so I didn’t classify it under the earlier choking references.) Again, though, there was nothing in my stomach this time around, so I had no ammo to blow the grape back out. At this point I was still trying to be cool, so I walked back inside. “Coughing,” I said, “is the solution to this problem. If I cough, it shall loosen the throat, or esophagus, and I shall then escort our grape friend on his way to my belly, where he will be dealt with in kind.” And like I said, I coughed and coughed. And coughed. And coughed some more. And then it occurred to me.

Coughing doesn’t do shit.

I walked upstairs and coughed for a bit more, in more privacy, and I kept receiving internal encouragement. Every 30 seconds or so, I’d feel pressure build up inside me a little, and this odd, gargling, grape-laughing-at-me noise would come up through my throat. Kind of like a drain’s deep gurgling after water is no longer pouring into it. That was this noise, only it was in my throat. I figured this sound was from the water helping the grape slowly slide down, so obviously I needed to keep doing it.

Fat Boy finally showed up when I had resigned myself to the computer chair next to our upstairs bathroom. I figured I was cool at this point, but still a little shaken up. I was still not too hot about swallowing anything, including my own saliva, so I paced back and forth and spat into the tub while we watched funny things downloaded from the Internet. Eventually, we headed downstairs to watch tv until it was time to go out …provided I didn’t have a foreign grape lodged in my throat.

At one point, it felt like the grape had slid all the way to the end, and I was getting sick of having my heart beating at super speed, so I figured it needed a final push. I was going for broke. I grabbed my large “Patriots Won The Superbowl” McDonald’s cup full of water and pounded two or three gulps. About 1.3 seconds later, I had the terrifying realization of what a mistake I just made. As I ran to the bathroom I was picturing my throat filling up like a test tube. Now the only place the water could go was my windpipe. Real freakin’ slick. I started purposely coughing, of course, which is the equivalent of using the “snow plow” when skiing at 120 miles an hour -– it’s useless.

I ran out the door and coughed outside in the balmy –5 degree weather until the water slowly drained out of my clogged up gullet. Brian and my juicy little fat friend were standing outside with me; no clue what to do or what the hell was going on. They were only there because I summoned them as I ran out the door. I was starting to get fed up, and decided to try throwing up – successfully this time. It only worked because I used my uvula as a punching bag and gagged like champ. So upon throwing up, all I got out of it was a grape lodged into the top part of my throat rather than its former position at the bottom. Kind of like going for a crucial lay up and missing because you hit the bottom of the rim. The grape slid back down, fortunately, and the water was sliding past it into my stomach, and I still kept hearing the weird noise coming from out of my throat. But in the end, the grape kept reaching a low point that it could not pass. I had no idea what was blocking it.

Everyone wanted to go out pretty soon, something I did not want, so their sympathy was quickly fading away. This was because both the novelty of the situation was wearing off and I could speak to them clearly, so I obviously wasn’t choking. I told everyone to just go, but they wouldn’t, so I almost convinced myself to go just because I wanted to. “Maybe if I ignore it, it’ll just slide down. It’s like a bully. Don’t give it any attention and it won’t bother you.” I think here I should note that while some themes are universal, others are not. This grape was staying right there whether I acknowledged it or not.

So we stayed in. I wasn’t even drinking beer. Eventually, I was getting very tired, as Jiggles and I watched the first (and best) Austin Powers movie. He went home after it was over, obviously disappointed with the outcome of the night, and I lay there in bed, wondering if, after I fell asleep, I would ever wake up. My rationalization eventually came up with the conclusion that the grape would either stay right there and I’d sleep fine, or it would some how work its way up to my windpipe and I would wake up coughing from a grape in my lung. By 4 am, I had worn out my allotted decision making time and crashed. My phone woke me up at 9. I walked upstairs, feeling good, and in front of my roommate Chris’ bed (within his sight, that is), I took a sip of water.

FUCK.

It was still there. And my throat was making all these weird sounds again. “Drink some honey,” Chris said. “It’ll slide right down.” I told him to screw. The only problem was that he wasn’t kidding. I couldn’t even drink water, was actually having trouble holding onto my own saliva, and this kid ran downstairs to grab the jar of honey he had in the kitchen.

Considering A) he was dead serious, B) I could already imagine tomorrow’s headline “Man Suffocates On Honey,” and C) that that was bar none the worst advice I had ever received in my entire 26 years on Earth, I responded, “I’m going to the Emergency Room.”

So I went. When I got to the desk, I stood there for 10 minutes while two women chatted in another room. I could both hear them and see their moving images reflected off the stained door that was half open. I didn’t want to be That Guy and pound on the desk or walk through into their area, but I was starting to get a little upset considering this was the Emergency Room and not the We’re Trying To Work Our Respective Thumbs Up Our Asses Room.

When I was actually spoken to, the first nurse was actually very cool and sympathetic. When waiting, all I could think of was how doctors, nurses, etc., are mean and deal with people in a cold manner so as to not get emotionally attached to patients. That’s how it is on TV, anyway, which I’m sure is based on real life. (That’s how everything is compared to TV, right?) Not to mention that the last time I was there the guy looked at me as more of someone he could experiment on for his own curiosity rather than someone who needed to be helped. Anyway, I was anticipating a battle, and this woman put me at ease. I was taken to a room, told my story a third time to a new nurse, and was told I would have somewhat of a wait. I asked if there was anything to read, and this nurse went to the Waiting Room and brought me back two magazines! I was very appreciative and pleasantly surprised. It’s the little things in life.

Sometime later, after an hour of reading a December dated magazine full of sports predictions for things that already happened, a doctor stopped by. He was very cool, and only a few years older than I. He wasn’t wearing the lab coat, so to speak, but his ID read “M.D.” That’s a doctor. (I’m smart.) He asked me to sip some water, and I was obviously hesitant. He then mentioned that the Emergency Room is a pretty controlled environment, so I stopped being a wuss and drank the water. He was intrigued by the aforementioned sounds that my grape friend played for him, and listened to my heart, etc. He said he’d fill in the attending Doctor and he or she would be with me shortly.

The attending doctor was another young woman who was pretty cool as well, and had a good sense of humor. Not that she was funny; she just thought I was a riot. It’s funny how your favorite people are not the ones who make you laugh, but the ones whom you can make laugh. Anyway, sitting in a room for 45 minutes and staring at the wall will help you come up with a rich amount of material, so fortunately she was a good audience. I told her my story, and she absorbed it and left. I felt like a checkpoint. It was like I was one of ten stops on some sort of medical marathon. The only problem was that not many people were running it, so I was alone again.

With all this waiting, I had gotten to the point where I was stretching, which is always good for meditative purposes. That sounds weird, but there was nothing else to do, and all the stretching releases a good amount of energy. I also listened to a conversation outside the hallway as a nurse was asking an older woman if she knew where she was. The woman did not, and the nurse responded and explained the situation in a very sympathetic, caring tone. The selfless tone your mom gave you when you had just cried hysterically and all you wanted was sympathy. It made me think, as I have thought many times before, of how women are so much better at care-giving than men. I guess they’re made for it.

A new nurse showed up later on and announced I was headed to the X-ray room. She was new. Not that she was bad, but she wasn’t aware of where everything was and wasn’t supremely confident in her ability to find it. She said that I might want to bring my glasses, but a second later said “Or don’t. Whatever you want.” It was good to have someone with the same general experience as me in this place. We could find the x-ray room together. (I took my glasses because chances were they’d never be seen again if I didn’t.)

She asked what I was getting x-rayed for, then stopped herself to explain that it wasn’t because she was nosey, but because she wanted to know the correct area to bring me. I laughed and told her the story of the grape. At this point it was almost an epic poem of Homer and I was wondering at one point I would add a ninja action sequence to the story. We reached some double doors, and stood there for a few seconds because she wasn’t too sure of where to go. A taller guy, also friendly and aware of deer-in-the-headlights looks when he saw them, asked what she was looking for. This sounds gay, but for some reason the first thing I noticed were his eyes.  I made the observation that this guy’s eyes were the kind that women probably go nuts over. I know this because they were a freaky kind of blue, as in you can’t not notice them. You see these types of eyes and either don’t trust the person or just make the assumption they’re very friendly.  Life is unfair like that for attractive vs. unattractive people. If I met a girl with eyes like that, I’d lose all sense of reason in her presence.

Like some sort of relay baton in a hospital gown, I got passed halfway through the hall to another nurse. This one was most likely my age, 26, but she was experienced and knew what was going on. I told my story for the 8^th time. The long version was getting boring so it was abridged to “There’s a grape in my esophagus waiting to be chewed.”

“Is it still there for sure?” she countered. Huh? Of course it was. It had to be. I thought, What’s wrong with her? I mean, it’s still there, right? It suddenly dawned on me that I might simply be crazy. Maybe hypnosis was the true solution to this choking thing.

But I pushed that doubt out of my thoughts. There was a fucking grape in my throat that needed to get out, end of story. I’ll drink this glass of water right now and prove it. She brought me to a room and instructed me to sit and wait for a “very talkative woman.” She was pretty talkative herself, so I thought that was a funny distinction.  The room I was now sitting in, “X-Ray Room 4,” was something to behold. This was no dentist’s little wussy x-ray. This was the type of thing that could also be used to make Terminators. A large monitor floated in the air, suspended from the ceiling with a metallic arm that allowed it to be placed anywhere. Like a gigantic, upside-down desk lamp.

The “talkative woman” walked in. She was older, had three kids in college, and was a 14-year veteran. I must have reminded her of her son or something, because I was treated like gold, even called “Handsome.” She explained the process to me by which they would determine what’s going on inside my body, suddenly breaking off to order lunch with the former talkative girl who brought me to the room. She went on about how great lunch was at this place that was down the street, her new diet, this “Dominican” she’s worked with for 12 years who always gets lunch with her, and how the lunch place doesn’t open until 12 each day so if she misses breakfast at 7 am she’s going to suffer until noon. All I could think of is how I hadn’t eaten in 26 hours since last night those grapes were the start of my dinner. Those evil, evil grapes … Anyway, she asked if I had a history of anything like this happening, and I explained the few incidents in the past. She said it sounded like my esophagus was smaller than usual. Then a nice, albeit dorky doctor in a bow tie walked in. He was a gastroenterologist by the name of Gardner. He knew his shit. He said it sounded as if the trouble maker might not be the esophagus per se, but the esophageal ring, which is pretty much the doorway at the end of the esophagus that leads to the stomach. That is, mine was too small for the grape to fit through without any help.

A third doctor in scrubs walked in. She was unbelievable. I’ve never thought of how a doctor would look in a bikini before, but I did now. I even pictured myself with her at my annual family Christmas Party, and how impressed my family would be that not only do I have this attractive woman I’m going out with, but she’s a doctor to boot!

Back to reality, they were going to make me take a sip of iodine while strapped to the x-ray machine so they could see it go down my throat and, if the grape was there, watch the iodine go around it. I was standing, with most of the machine at my back, while the x-ray thing was to the front of me. I had this huge lead apron around my waste. That kind of protection in that area makes you raise an eyebrow, but what are you to do? I took a minute sip of the iodine when commanded. They noted how poorly it would taste, but c’mon, after the drinks I’ve had shots of in that week alone, it tasted like nothing. They couldn’t see much, so I took another sip -- bigger this time. I have to say I was relieved when I heard “There it is.” This proved I wasn’t an asshole with a crazy imagination … in this respect, anyway. I looked around in vain for the Original Talkative Girl so as to prove my mental health.

The solution to fix this mess was simple. I was going to be injected with a muscle relaxant, then be given this ginger ale tasting stuff, which would produce a lot of carbonation once ingested. This was to be immediately chased with two large cups of water, and would hopefully push the grape through. I was somewhat skeptical of this approach’s legitimacy, as I was having trouble sipping even a large teaspoon of water. However, the iodine didn’t go down too bad, and again, the controlled environment thing. Not to mention this was undisputed advice from two doctors and a nurse of 14 years. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and carry on as I was ordered.

Now for a vulgar question: Have you ever gone to the bathroom where you know there’s one more piece for you to get rid of in order to feel the complete I-just-took-a-shit satisfaction? It’s the kind where all you need is a little gas to shoot out the final portion. That’s what happened here. I swallowed the fizzy stuff, pounded the water, and there was no turning back. I locked my neck and jaw like a bowel movement (as instructed), grimacing with one eye open and one closed. That grape was toast. I can’t tell you how satisfying it was to drink water with no obstructions stopping it. You know -- drinking water without risking your life. Don’t you love that? Even more satisfying: I got to watch the replay on video. There was this huge grape sitting above my stomach like the Cat’s Meow, when the water cavalry came in and kicked some ass. The intruder, once escorted off-screen, was no doubt dealt with appropriately by stomach acids.  Justice served, I was instructed on how this will keep happening in the future unless I have something done about it. It can be solved with a procedure called an endoscopy and dilation. A tube with a catheter is pushed down my throat and a balloon would be expanded in my esophageal ring, thereby tearing it, making it larger. I’d go on meds to ensure that it wouldn’t go back to its original size, drink liquids for a day, and voila! All set.

Most people would be horrified by the very idea of such an operation. I was overjoyed. First, I now knew that I wasn’t simply retarded whenever I needed a drink to swallow food in my throat. Second, I now knew I wasn’t actually in danger of choking in those situations, because I knew what was going on in my throat when food got caught (I had always pictured the food near my airway and thought I could choke.) And third, I now knew there was a relatively simple way to solve the problem. Again, this is my phobia. I always think of how I would kick ass on Fear Factor, even by eating the gross stuff, but my Achilles’ heel would be that I couldn’t eat quick. Even when eating lunch everyday I’m a notoriously slow eater, but this new knowledge was putting everything into place.

Driving home, having received the proper business cards to make the proper arrangements (mostly in part to my new favorite person, the talkative woman, who I think is named Carol, who did everything short of holding my hand as I walked through the hallway), I called my roommates and Fat Kid and left 5 minute messages on each phone. They clearly did not share my joy, as all they knew is that I needed a grape removed. They had no idea of my daily struggle while eating. It was cathartic to express how happy I was that there was a solution to not only this grape incident, but the daily problem and potential choking emergency which I tightrope walked over each day. At least once a month, a real incident occurs in which I have trouble choking down food, and become insanely alarmed if it’s slow to wash down. This is good to know there’s an answer to that problem. Another good thing is that it was a perfect excuse to buy a half-gallon of ice cream on my way home, which I don’t need to tell you was gone within two hours.

So there is my story. I hope you learned something, person who will never read this but me. The moral is to bring something up if it bothers you, because surprisingly enough, a lot of times there are people who might know more about it than you.

Now if you don’t mind, I am going to the refrigerator to finish some grapes. Chewed. No water.