Health

Sit up straight and chew your food ~or~ How a simple dinner turned into my 2021 emergency room visit

Last night I was eating dinner:

  • Jasmine rice
  • Brie chicken (baked)
  • Veggies (carrots, peas, brocolli)

This is entirely unremarkable.

I was eating on our old couch, which is terrible and tends to turn your body into a spaghetti noodle when you sit on it. Your body just naturally tends to slouch. I sit up as straight as I can when eating, but slouching can occur.

Last night I ate and slouched simultaneously, and the consequences of doing this were rendered quickly and severely.

I began to feel a pain in my chest that said, “The food is not going down the way it should per digestion/gravity/etc.” I got up, went to the bathroom and attempted to clear my throat. This has happened a few times before and usually in about ten minutes or less, the food is sufficiently dislodged to allow me to resume eating.

Not this time.

I spent an hour with that increasingly searing chest pain, constantly trying to swallow and failing, having my gag reflex kick in, with resultant attendance to the sink to allow for any food that decided to journey through my system in reverse. It was exhausting. A few sips of water seemed to go down, but when I tried more, it did not and the pain intensified. The water eventually made its way back out.

I decided it was time to get a second opinion or replacement organs at the hospital conveniently next door.

We arrived between 7:30 and 8 p.m. I left just after midnight. It wasn’t even my longest ER visit. But it felt very long.

After checking in, I was issued a K95 mask to replace my own, then moved to a waiting area that is really just the entrance to the emergency room. The hospital has utterly run out of space, which is why I’m not objecting to the construction now happening across the lane from us, as the new hospital building looks like it’s five times bigger.

There was a woman with a baby sitting across from me and the baby was a bit fussy. I tried to not let it stress me out, because relaxing seemed very important in not making the pain worse. Jeff gave me a couple of small white towels. I excused myself, stepped outside and basically barfed into one, though at this point nothing was coming up but liquid. I threw the towel away and returned. I told Jeff to go home. He did.

I later went to the washroom and gagged over the sink. Initially I felt better. I later went back and accidentally swallowed some of my saliva, causing me to choke and cough on it. This went as well as you might expect. The pain at this point seemed unbearable. I tried to think of other things to distract me, like kittens or skateboards.

Eventually I and several others were moved to the next waiting area, to a row of seats with Plexiglas partitions between them. This was also not a real waiting area, it was a hallway, so people and people with equipment were regularly walking past me. Then they parked an XPS right in front of me, which remained there until I got moved to an exam room. An XPS is an eXpandable Patient Surface, not a sleek Dell laptop:

Not pictured: Two women sleeping in beds to the left, also in the hallway

I didn’t realize until later that the two guys with him were not paramedics, but corrections officers. I couldn’t ascertain why he was in, but when a doctor came by and talked to him, I heard something about seizures. I hoped he would not have a seizure in front of me. He did not. When the doctor left, he curled back up to sleep again.

The guy sitting to my right did not have anything obviously wrong with him (spike stuck in head, missing fingers gushing blood, etc.) but as we waited and waited he seemed to become more anxious. He would pull his mask down, take a long breath, exhale slowly, then put the mask back on. He repeated this several times. I almost asked Anxious guy if he was OK. By this point the lodged food had finally started moving down my throat as nature intended, so I was feeling better and my instinct to help kicked in. I ultimately refrained, and he got called in before I did.

I eventually also got called and was taken to an exam room around 10 p.m. By 10:23 I was thinking it would be spiffy if someone came in to see me by 10:30.

Ho ho. How naive I was!

As I slouched on the exam bed, I caught a glimpse of Anxious Guy walking down the hall, this time with his cap removed. His hair looked different than I expected. You can make your hair very mysterious by wearing a cap. I got the impression he might have been giving a urine sample. Conveniently, I could see a collection of such samples across the hall from the exam room, sitting on a counter. One of them looked almost orange. Ew. I reminded myself that I did not have to look at everything while in a hospital.

As time continued to tick by, I began fighting the urge to sleep. With the pain now gone, I was very tired. I thought about finding a nurse and saying I was splitting, that I was totes OK now. I set a deadline of midnight. If a doctor didn’t appear before then, I was getting the heck out of there.

The doctor arrived a few minutes before midnight, so my trick worked! She was very nice and immediately apologized for being so late. After some prodding and poking, she determined that:

  • The condition was not cardiac-related
  • Was unlikely due to aspirating (food going down the windpipe)
  • Was likely food lodging in the esophagus
  • Did not require urgent treatment

She recommended I follow up with my doctor and perhaps arrange to have a camera shoved down my throat to see what’s going on in there. I do tend to be a bit phlegmy, which no doubt makes these things worse.

I also promised to sit up straight when eating. She frowned on watching TV while eating. I’m like, “But we don’t even have a table to eat at in the dining room! Also, we have no dining room.” But I didn’t say this to her.

To allay my anxiousness over ever putting food into my mouth again, she suggested I eat a couple of small cookies and drink some juice before leaving, to see if anything horrible might happen. I did so without any notable issue, other than my throat feeling raw from the evening’s shenanigans. I managed to find my way to the exit and walked home under mostly clear skies. I got in at 12:09 a.m., with six minutes already on my exercise ring,. Woo!

Since i’d only had half my dinner before Throat Catastrophe 2021 hit, I decided to eat, but wanted something that would be very difficult to get lodged in my throat. I had a small bowl of ice cream. It did not get lodged.

This morning I felt some trepidation eating breakfast, but it was fine. I’m not sure how I’ll handle meals at the couch. Do they make sit/stand tables for dining?

Anyway, let this be a lesson to all those who would oppose mom’s advice to sit up straight and chew your food. Mom is right!

And no more ER visits for 2021. Or preferably ever, please.

October 2021 weight loss report: Up 0.1 pounds

The month started with me at 177.8 pounds and ended with me at 177.9 pounds, which is the very definition of a rounding error. While it looks like my weight stayed virtually unchanged, what happened on the other 29 days tells a different story, because the 1st and 31st are the only days I was below 178 pounds. I was up to 181 at one point and hovered around 179 a lot of the month.

This was due to making brownies and then eating them. I also didn’t run much in the first half of the month, and have started running more frequently and generally being more active in the second half of October.

I can’t say I’m thrilled with the weight gain, but am relieved that I managed to work it all off to at least end up neutral for the month.

I promise not to buy any cheap Halloween candy tomorrow.

Stats:

October 1: 177.8 pounds
October 31: 177.9 pounds (up 0.1 pounds)

Year to date: From 174.2 to 177.9 pounds (up 3.7 pounds--unchanged from September)

Body fat (year to date):

January 1: 22.4% (39.1 pounds of fat)
October 31: 23.3% (41.4 pounds of fat) (up 3.3 pounds--unchanged from September)

September 2021 weight loss report: Down 0.5 pounds

The good news is I am down slightly for the month, even if it is “margin of error” down. It’s still better than up.

More good news is that my body fat, despite still being up for the year, is trending downward as I exercise more.

The not-as-good news is while down for the month, I’m still up from where I was at the beginning of August, so I am still not yet back to where I was before the re-ballooning began.

Most of the month, my weight bounced right around where it ended, around 177 pounds. I mean, it’s better than 187, my all-time high, but I’d really like to break the 170 mark before collecting a pension.

I remain donut-free, though.

I will make a modest prediction for October: I will be down a little again.

Stats:

September 1: 178.4 pounds
September 30: 177.9 pounds (down 0.5 pounds)

Year to date: From 174.2 to 177.9 pounds (up 3.7 pounds)

Body fat (year to date):

January 1: 22.4% (39.1 pounds of fat)
September 30: 23.3% (41.4 pounds of fat) (up 3.3 pounds)

August 2021 was not so hot

I say this for two reasons:

  1. The weather simply wasn’t as perpetually scorching as it was in July, and today it barely climbed to 17C, which is below average for this time of year. We’ve had some actual precipitation. The bit of rain has been enough to revive lawns and take everything from tinder dry to just dry. Fittingly, the weekend promises more showers, so the FIRE DANGER signs may at last come down.
  2. In other not-so-hot news, COVID-19 numbers have been way up. The only good part here is that almost all infections are unvaccinated people (meaning the vaccines are working), and the numbers may have already plateaued. It’s still a bummer because we have clearly regressed when many thought the pandemic was finally beginning to wane when we moved to Step 3 on July 1st. Eventually we’ll be able to go back to something similar to how things were without requiring vaccines, vaccine cards, masks or deep sea diving helmets.

August 2021 weight loss report: Up 1.9 pounds

Whoops!

Now let me explain how I almost but not quite completely wiped out my gains from July.

Basically two things:

  • Two weeks of vacation where I did not overly pay attention to my calorie count
  • Various and random indulgences to celebrate breaking free of a job that I had come to no longer enjoy after many years

I feel bad, but not really bad.

September should be better, though, as I now have lots of time to exercise, I am already running again, and will be paying more attention to what goes in my gullet.

I remain donut-free.

The stats:

August 1: 176.2 pounds
August 31: 178.1 pounds (up 1.9 pounds)

Year to date: From 174.2 to 178.1 pounds (up 3.9 pounds)

Body fat (year to date):

January 1: 22.4% (39.1 pounds of fat)
August 31: 24.1% (42.9 pounds of fat) (up 3.8 pounds)

July 2021 weight loss report: Down 2.2 pounds

More good news for the second month in a row, woo. Actual weight loss that is just outside what I consider a rounding error: Down 2.2 pounds. Most of the weight loss came in the last week of the month, with a handy dip of 0.8 pounds just this morning.

Body fat is still going down, but slowly–but it is at least going down.

Sadly, I am still up for the year, but if I behave in August I may see actual weight loss for the year, which would be nice. I am trying to keep active despite the heat and possible wildfire smoke (they say it may arrive today, in fact).

Still, I am at a point now where I can see myself tracking toward 170 instead of away from it, then onward to that eventual, mythical goal of 150 pounds. I’ve done it before, so I can’t deny it isn’t possible.

I was also good and resisted buying cookies on sale this week. I was tempted, but the temptation waned quickly. Yay for me.

Stats:

July 1: 178.7 pounds
July 31: 176.5 pounds (down 2.2 pounds)

Year to date: From 174.2 to 176.5 pounds (up 2.3 pounds)

Body fat (year to date):

January 1: 22.4% (39.1 pounds of fat)
July 31: 23.9% (42.1 pounds of fat) (up 3.0 pounds)

A note on getting blood taken

If they fail to find a vein, repeatedly, on the same arm, the arm in question will end up being rather sore afterward.

I may know this from experience. Experience from today, let’s say. I won’t name the place because I am in a good mood, despite my arm-as-pincushion.

But yeah, the right arm, from which blood was successfully drawn, feels pretty much normal. The left arm feels like it’s been stabbed multiple times. Which it was.

Do not recommend.

The state of wearing masks and the pandemic, late July 2021

Sometimes I’ll read an article that nearly perfectly matches what I’m thinking, and this Atlantic article on wearing masks is one of them. It’s free to read, as is all of their COVID-19 coverage, so the link below should keep working. And yes, I did feel a bit weird reading at the end that the free coverage is in part due to sponsorship from the Chan Zuckerberg (re: Facebook) Initiative.

Case numbers in BC have doubled over the last two weeks, and are back into daily triple-digit territory. For me, it’s really simple, with Reason #1 being dominant–I don’t want to catch COVID-19. We simply don’t know enough about long term effects for me to be comfortable lowering my risk for the (admittedly welcome, but ultimately minor) benefit of going mask-free in public indoor spaces, especially transit.

4 Reasons I’m Wearing a Mask Again by Katherine Wu, The Atlantic

Max stats: Pandemic version

As of today, it’s been two weeks since I had my second Pfizer vaccination for COVID-19. This means I’ve reached about the maximum immunity granted by the vaccine, which is nice. I am free to drop wearing a mask in public indoor spaces, and in doing so would present only a minimal risk to myself or others. This is good.

But this is bad. The much more contagious delta variant is spreading at the same time that vaccinations are starting to stall out. A minority of the population who are hesitant to get vaccinated (for whatever reason) may undo a lot of what we have achieved in getting around 80% of the population covered. The thought is we may now need 90% or more–which seems unlikely.

There are few people who would not be tired of the pandemic at this point. I really hope that come fall I’m not reporting high case loads again and a renewed mask mandate.

As always, we will see.

(And for now I’m going to keep wearing a mask at least when using public transit. I’m pretty sure something like 90% of every cold, flu and other ailment I’ve gotten came from a fellow SkyTrain or bus passenger, so it’s totally worth the minor inconvenience.)

It’s BC “Masks are recommended but not mandatory” Day!

It’s also Canada Day, though celebrations have been tempered (to put it mildly) by the ever-growing discovery of mass graves of children at former residential schools, which were Canada’s answer to “Yes, we as a nation can be as racist and horrible as any other!”

But that is quite another discussion. This one is still political, in a way, but not as straight-up horrible.

It is about masks.

Today, the BC government is lifting the provincial state of emergency that has been in place since March 2020, and is also moving to Step 3 of its re-opening plan. This lifts a lot of restrictions, though for a lot of people, it will come down to one big change:

Masks in indoor public spaces are going from mandatory to recommended.

Today when I was out and aboot, I still saw people in my condo complex and out in the park and on sidewalks wearing masks, so I suspect a lot of people will still wear them even if they don’t actually need to. My own plan is to wear a mask where it seems sensible (I think you don’t need them outdoors unless you’re in the middle of a mosh pit or something) until a couple of weeks after my second vaccine shot. I get the shot on July 4, so that would mean wearing a mask until about mid-July. I also suspect that once we enter flu season in the fall and assuming masks are still by choice, I will don one when riding the petri dish of germs and maladies known as public transit, because I am pretty sure that’s where most of my bouts of flu and colds have come from. I’ll also keep washing my hands a lot (washing when I come from outside is now as automatic as locking the door behind me).

All this is assuming our recovery stays on track. There are fears the very contagious delta variant will derail things. If I could, I’d squeeze another train metaphor in here. On the plus side, we are nearing 80% vaccinated in BC, so we should be close or possibly even ta herd immunity now.

Time will tell.

Sunblock is gross, but handy

During our now legendary “heat dome” event that unofficially ended yesterday (today’s high was a relatively bone-chilling 27C) I opted to do something I almost never do–wear sunblock. And it worked really well. Even as I strolled about in 42C heat and sweated like a very sweaty person, I remained burn-free and am as shimmeringly pale as ever. You’d never know I’d been out of my ice cave!

Anyway, I feel like I am somehow getting more sensible as I get older. Will sunblock leave my exposed skin feeling vaguely sticky and gross? Will dust, grit and small animals adhere to it as I spend time outdoors? The answer is yes, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s better and healthier to avoid a nasty sunburn. Sensible!

I’m also thinking about getting new socks and underwear. I won’t say the prospect of this excites me, exactly, but it is perhaps a little enticing.

Don’t worry, though, I still don’t see bingo as an entertaining recreational activity. Yet.

June 2021 weight loss report: Down 0.3 pounds

The good news is I was down, even if it was only what amounts to a rounding error.

The better news is my body fat, although still up for the year, has started coming down more noticeably over the past month, so even though I am largely in a holding pattern, I’m at least starting to trend in the right direction.

I also stayed cookie and donut-free this month. I did have some snacks, though. I’ll beat myself with a wet noodle later. Then try not to eat the noodle.

For July, I plan on applying a firmer hand to food intake and get some daily exercise, whether it’s walking, running, flapping my arms or something else.

Stats:

June 1: 179.8 pounds
June 30: 179.5 pounds (down 0.3 pounds)

Year to date: From 174.2 to 179.5 pounds (up 5.3 pounds)

Body fat (year to date):

January 1: 22.4% (39.1 pounds of fat)
June 30: 23.6% (42.4 pounds of fat) (up 3.3 pounds)