Pain medication is
dangerous. I should know; I’ve had a
pill stuck in my throat for three hours now.
I have been sick for five
days with some kind of infection between my left ear and tonsil, but this
morning I awake to screaming pain in my jaw bone. This means one of two things: Either an infected tooth is causing all of my
problems, or I am suffering with some severe deferred pain since I slept on
that side all night.
No problem. I’ll just pop some OTC pain meds. Hmmmm, decisions, decisions. Gel cap acetaminophen or coated ibuprofen
tablet. Which one … which one …
I decide on the
ibuprofen. I mean, it’s coated,
right? No problem.
It hurts to swallow
(because of the whole swollen tonsil thing), so I chug down water first to wet
my throat and then chug more water with the pill. This is all fine and good until …
Uh-oh. Oh,
no. Shit. What do I do?
I’m all alone. Do I text a
friend? Dial 911? Stagger to a neighbor’s house?
Sonofabitch, the goddamn
little bastard of a pill is glued to the right side of my throat.
It doesn’t take long for
the gag reflex to kick in, but no matter how much bile comes up, that sucker is
not moving. I realize that if I am
hurling, that means I am breathing. The
pill is stuck in my throat, but I can still take in air and I can still
swallow, and everything up and down appears to be functioning as fluids are
going both directions between my stomach and my mouth.
For three hours the pill
and I fight with each other. I drink a
gallon of water, I drink hot tea, I eat applesauce. I even try the trick of drinking water while
lying flat, which makes me puke enough to get the pill to the back of my
throat, but there is nothing on this earth that will force that pill back up
into my mouth. Not gagging, not forceful
couching, not even the Heimlich Maneuver.
That sucker does not want to see daylight again.
I start looking up how
long it takes for ibuprofen to dissolve.
Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes? Are you fucking shitting me? It has already been hours. What the hell is this thing coated with? Steel?
I start thinking about the
prescription I need to take. Holy shit,
there is NO WAY I’m attempting to swallow another pill right now. I continue examining my dilemma while
searching the Internet for more suggestions.
I contact my daughter the nurse, and she runs through the list of things
I’ve tried. “Eat bread,” she
suggests. Sure, the bread goes down, but
the pill just keeps moving up and down my throat like a worm.
To make matters worse, now
that I’ve pounded down all that water, I keep having to run to the bathroom to
pee like a teenager drinking beer.
In my cyber search, I
start coming across tales of great success dislodging pills from throats. I mean, really, the thing should be dissolved
already, especially with all that acidy shit flying back up the pipes, and
since it’s a reasonably determined little pill, I have faith that it will
eventually go where it needs to go. But,
I also see stories of epic failure, like to woman who had a pill stuck in her
tonsil for three days. THREE DAYS?! She said she could SEE IT STUCK THERE but she
couldn’t dislodge it with her fingers.
This story in and of itself sets my head back into the bucket. Alas, the pill will not finish its upward
(nor downward) journey.
All of these fixes later,
I am starting to feel like possibly the pill has moved on. I’m not sure because now my entire throat is sore
like I’ve damaged my esophagus, and I still feel the dull need to puke, though
it’s probably more from anxiety than from actual physical need. I mean, seriously. It has been more than 210 minutes of
disaster. The stupid pill cannot
possibly still be alive, right?
Unbelievable. All the crazy-ass things I’ve done in my
life, all the unintelligent situations in which I have found myself, all the weird-ass
diseases and conditions I seem to get (Bell’s Palsy … anyone else?), all the
dangerous people I’ve managed to piss off, and it all comes down to this?
OTC ibuprofen?
What will my tombstone
say? She
was a pain to all until pain finally did her in. Thank God for store-brand pain
relievers. May she rest in pieces.
Oh, yeah. I’m going to be cremated. Never mind.
Just be careful sifting through the ashes. I’ll bet good money that fucking ibuprofen
will be still intact.
