Revenge of the Fish

Last weekend, in temperatures in excess of 104F, Nikolai and I caught 61 white perch and spot fish on Chesapeake Bay. As my son commented later, the fish probably preferred death by hook rather than the slow boil in that water. He was right. When we went swimming, it was like getting into a hot bathtub.

We cleaned and gutted all the fish and Nikolai undertook to cook and smoke the fish for dinner the next evening. He cooked them over apple and cherry wood and they were moist, delicately flavored and absolutely delicious. We took a large batch home with us.

On Monday evening we could not resist trying the smoked fish again. Of course, you have to de-bone it as you go along and I thought I had done that carefully. Half way through the fish, I felt a bone in my mouth but could not actually locate it. What the hell. I swallowed. Nothing happened. I kept chomping on the other fish.

On Wednesday morning I woke up with a really bad pain in my throat--just to the right of my Adam's apple. It got worse during the morning and I went to the Immediate Care facility nearby. I explained the pain to a young Thai woman doctor whom I had seen before. I said that it felt like an abscess or something. Then she asked me if I had eaten any fish. Holy mackerel. I suddenly remembered all that boney fish. Yes, I admitted sheepishly, just last night.

She told me that a fishbone was probably lodged in my throat and that I should go get a CAT scan--preferably at a hospital. She also said that "it could be dangerous" if I did not act immediately. Infection. "You could die" she said rather sternly. That captured my attention. She wrote me a referral for the ER room but I think it was in Thai--indecipherable to say the least.

I went to our local Arlington hospital that I had visited a little while ago when a friend of ours was having twins. It seemed very new and shiny and had lots of private rooms and, yes, a Starbucks right there in the entrance foyer. That's my sort of hospital.

With Regee to give me support in my debilitated state, I checked in at the ER room. I was greeted by a very charming lady who asked what my problem was.

"I think I have a fish bone stuck in my throat, " I said as nonchalantly as possible. I didn't like to say that I could die. She might think I was trying to jump the line.

"Oh my," she said with a lovely Southern drawl, "you really don't want to be eating fish with bones in them". I immediately felt better. "Just fill in this form and the sit over there and wait to be called."

The form was relatively simple. Last name. First name. Date of Birth. Nature of Problem. Name of Primary Health Care Provider. Apart from not knowing the name of the young Thai doctor, I was able to complete the form in under ten minutes. I had no sooner finished than my name was called. Could they know I was dying? I went up to a window where a nurse in a dark blue uniform was sitting at a computer. I handed her the form I had just filled in.

"Are you Mr. Newport?"

"Yes," I said.

"Ian Newport?"

"Yes". This was pretty simple stuff.

"Is your date of birth 06/11/46?"

"Yes". Wow. I was going to have a perfect score.

"Why do you think you have a fishbone stuck in your throat?"

This was a more difficult question than the last three and admitted of more than one answer. I decided to counter any accusations of self-diagnosis and replied: "My doctor said that she thought that that was what was causing the pain in my throat".

"Do you smoke?" Ohmigod. She thinks it is throat cancer.

"No," I responded with some indignity, although I do puff away now and again. Dear God, if I live, I will never smoke again.

"Did you eat any fish recently?"

This was another devious attempt to check out my story.

"Yes, the other evening". She seemed unimpressed by the correlation between my eating fish and thinking I had a fishbone in my throat.

"You had better come around".

I went along the corridor and entered the inner sanctum where she was sitting. She took my temperature (above normal, thank God), my blood pressure (not my normal good blood pressure--what a relief) and took my pulse which seemed to be pounding  out of control against her finger.

"You're fine," she said dismissively.

I was told to go back and wait in the waiting room which was abnormally quiet. Was this where they put the hypochondriacs? The fakes? The Medicare patients? I felt pale and distinctly mortal. But my dear wife was with me and I knew that she would say something if she thought I was going to die.

We waited for about another 45 minutes. Then a lady in a red nurse's uniform came out and called two names. One of them was Newport so I stood up and walked over. Another very large lady also walked over. "Are you Ian Newport?" the red nurse asked me. "Yes", I said and pointed to the band that the blue nurse had put around my wrist.

"Can you tell me your date of birth?" I read my D.O.B. from the band on my wrist. "That's right," she said. That was a relief.

The large lady and I followed the red nurse into the nerve-center of the ER. There were people lying on gurneys, there were people sitting in small rooms looking sad and dejected and there were lots of nurses gathered around a central desk chatting away and laughing. 

The red nurse pointed the large lady towards an empty room. I waited for direction. "Where should I go?". She pointed with her clipboard to the same room where the large lady had now sat down.

"In there with her?" I asked as politely as possible. "Yes. Just sit on the stool or lie on the bed."

I entered the small room with some hesitation. The large lady glared at me. "The nurse told me to come in here," I explained defensively. She said nothing but looked down at her hands. There was an uncomfortable silence.

"So what are you in for?" she asked suddenly as though we were in some holding cell on Rikers.

"I think I have a fishbone stuck in my throat." She raised her eyebrows a little disdainfully as though that wasn't necessarily an ER condition. I felt like saying I could die but refrained.

"I got a fishbone in my throat once when I was water-skiing in Mexico" she said a little bit later. "It had passed right through by the time I got to see a doctor sixteen hours later". 

 "Oh," I said trying to imagine this particular lady on water skis. "That must have been a relief".

"Hurt like hell all the way down," she indicated in a reassuring manner.

The conversation was interrupted by a well-scrubbed and shiny young man in green scrubs.

"Mr. Newport?" he asked not looking up from his clipboard.

"We are actually separate" I said nodding towards the large lady, not wanting her to have to sit through my sad tale--nor me to sit through hers. He ignored me.

"Can you tell me your first name?" he said looking at me directly and looking a little annoyed.

"Ian."

"And can you tell me your date of birth?" I told him. He looked at the tag on my wrist and then smiled. "That's right. We always check we have got the right person". I had visions of recent wrongful amputations and a nursing staff who was determined to stop these awful mistakes.

"It says here that you think you have got a fishbone lodged in your throat." Here we go again.

"Actually, my doctor thought that might be the problem".

"What's the name of your doctor?"

"I..umm..I'm not sure. She is Thai and her name is there on the referral slip. He peered at the slip. "So you don't know her name?"

"No, I can't really read it".

He contemplated me like I was a total failure as a patient. "You should know your doctor's name. It helps us".

Now I felt ashamed. "Sorry". The large lady was looking at me strangely too. I was not popular.

"Did you eat any fish recently?" Sherlock Holmes again. "Yes, the other evening". I was sticking to my story in case he compared notes with the ER nurse. You can't be too careful in hospital.

He put his clip board down and proceeded to squeeze my throat. "It hurts right there," I said pulling back. "What about the other side?" he asked, continuing to press on the exact spot where all the pain was coming from. "It hurts exactly where your thumb is."

He gave the sore spot one last squeeze and picked up his clipboard. "I'm going to put you down for a CAT scan at 4PM. We'll have to see if there is anything there". I noted that it was only 1.30PM. "I have to wait until 4PM?".

"No, its just that we have to take samples of your blood and culture it first. Are you allergic to iodine?"

"I don't think so".

"Well, we are going to inject iodine into you and it should show us any problems you may have in your throat. I was horrified. Fill me with iodine? I only came here because of the Starbucks. Well, maybe they could use espresso instead?

He then looked at the large lady. "Are you going to stay with him?"

She looked alarmed. "I'm not with him," she said rather too forcefully.

He looked at me in a rather strange way. "Why are you in here together then?"

"The nurse put us in here. I thought there was just no other room."

This was not the right answer. This is how amputations occurred.

"Nurse," he called to the red nurse. "Why are there two separate patients in this room?"

"I thought she was with him."  She stared at me like I was some sort of pervert.

"How can two separate patients get in the same room?" he asked her again.

"I only called Newport but they both came up together."

"You called two names. You called my name too," the large lady suddenly piped up and began to look distinctly hostile.

"I called Newport--twice" the red nurse retorted.  I honestly couldn't remember her calling my name twice but decided to keep my mouth shut.  I didn't have a dog in this fight.

"What's your name" the green man asked looking at the large lady in a quizzical manner." She mentioned a name that sounded absolutely nothing like Newport--especially as it began with an "L" and ended with an"O".

"I didn't call your name," the red nurse charged again, looking a little combative now. "You just came up together".

"Well, I thought you called my name." Aha, I was thinking, not quite so sure now are you?  I looked down and avoided eye contact with any of them.  I had a fishbone in my throat and I didn't want  to be treated for a broken arm as well if these two got into a scrap.

'You should not be in here with him" the green man stated with some finality. "Nurse, find her another room."

Both the red nurse and the green man walked out leaving the large lady and me staring at each other in mutual reproach. She looked down at her hands again. We sat in silence for at least ten minutes. I got out my iPad and pretended to be reading something even though I could not get any connection.

A male red nurse appeared. He addressed himself to the large lady. "We are going to take you to the other side of the hospital. You should not have been brought to this area. I am really sorry". He was obviously very sincere and the large lady decided not to hit him.

"Well, what's the difference?" she inquired. He looked a little taken aback.

"Actually, ma'am, that's where the more serious cases are taken." He looked over at me in a knowing fashion. I knew what he was saying. I was a self-diagnosed fake, probably on Medicare, and they were going to fill me full of iodine to punish me.

The large lady heaved herself up and waddled to the door. She stopped and looked back at me.

"Good luck with the bone," she said ambiguously, as though she also thought I was a fraud.

My Lord, how could I get into so much trouble? I looked down, wondering what awaited her on the "more serious" side of the hospital. If they pumped you with iodine over here they would probably use gasoline on the other side. I never saw her again.

Some ten minutes later my lovely wife came into the room. She had been asking where I was and had been allowed to come sit with me. At last I had the right woman with me. But not the right nurse.

The red nurse was upset. I had somehow emarrassed her. Now some of those earlier amputations would come back to haunt her. She made a big fuss about my having small veins and the blood wasn't coming out fast enough. She jabbed another needle in my hand and then attached it to two large bottles which looked like the size of a normal Poland Spring water bottle. "You need all that blood?" I asked going quite pale. "Yeah, for the culture."

I sat there quietly dripping blood into the bottle and thought that at least two armfuls of blood were going to disappear. I would be functioning solely on iodine very soon.

At 4PM a young, smiling nurse in blue came for me. "Are you Mr. Newport?" she asked brightly. "Yes," I said but knew I was really no longer the Mr. Newport who had entered four hours earlier. By this time I was lying on a gurney, hooked up to a saline solution and probably going through the first stages of traumatic shock after a massive loss of blood. 

"And can you tell me your date of birth?" I told her my D.O.B. "That's right Mr. Newport. Now can I see your wrist band. Newport. Ian. D.O.B. That's all correct, Mr. Newport". I was going to get something  amputated for sure.

I was wheeled out, waving goodbye to Regee.  I said rather brashly that I felt a bit of a fake (Freudian slip) and could walk if she wanted. I was desperate to curry favor with at least one of the hospital staff in case I needed to escape. "No, Mr. Newport, you are a guest and we are going to push you in your bed."

We now entered a different part of the hospital. There were other gurneys in the corridor with people lying on them with eyes closed. Were they dead? Had they been forgotten? Was I going to the "more serious" side of the hospital?

I was left in the corridor while my young nurse disappeared behind closed doors. I could hear a loud metallic whirring noise coming from the room she had entered. It was like a very, very quiet chain saw ticking over. Iodine was beginning to sound better. This really sounded like the amputation section. The whirring stopped. Five minutes later a lady was wheeled out. She was covered in blankets and looked pale. I couldn't seen her arms or legs under the blankets. Hell, this was awful.

I can't tell you too much about the CAT scan because it was not exactly action-packed.  Suffice it to say that when it was done, I was wheeled out and left in the corridor again.  I don't know how long I was there because I had the awful feeling that I was probably going to die--not because of the fish bone but because nobody would be able to find me.  I think I must have dozed off because there was a sudden lurching and I was on the move again.

"Where are we going now" I asked someone whom I could not see because they were pushing me from behind.  A sweet female voice indicated that I was going to pre-Surgery.  Surgery?  Damn it, we were back to amputation or worse.

"But I only have a bone stuck in my throat" I wailed.

"Well, it says "Surgery" on my clipboard.  You can talk to the surgeon if you have a problem."
A surgeon?  I don't need a surgeon I thought, I just need someone to get in there with some pincers and remove the bone.  I would do it at home if I could find some small pincers, I thought.

Sure enough, I was wheeled into an area which said "Surgery" and parked against a wall.  The nice lady behind me disappeared without my ever seeing her.  Good grief, if there was some terrible mix up I could never identify her in a police line up.  And a police artist would be no good if I could not describe her.  

I seem to remember that Regee was also there now--I was in a bit of a fog and I am not sure what she was thinking about the whole process we had just gone through.  I guess she was happy reading all the magazines and following world news on her iPad.

After about 10 minutes or so, a green man leaned over me.  "Are you here for surgery?"

"No, I just want a bone removed from my throat."

"Well, that's surgery.  It says so here on your chart.  Dr. Venkatarayanamanam (or something like that) will be here soon."

With that I was wheeled into a small room where there were other people lying on gurneys and a curtain was drawn around me.  I distinctly remember Regee holding my hand at this point.  Did she think I wasn't going to make it?  Was she secretly searching her phone for the number of a local priest? I was thinking extreme unction sounded rather painful too.  It sounded too much like extreme suction A La The Princess Bride.

My God, they were going to do surgery on me in a more or less public place?  Didn't they have operating rooms any more like on TV? I mean, I had not had surgery since I was 13 so maybe they don't do it that way any more. It is just TV stuff.

I was still thinking about the ramifications of public surgery when a very small man in a white coat pranced in.  His head only just made it over the top of the gurney.  I was about ask why he was kneeling or crouching but he suddenly grew another foot when he stepped onto some stool or step that had been given to him.

"Mr. Newport, what seems to be the matter?"  I have got a fish bone stuck in my throat.

"How do you know it is a fish bone?"

This was what the Spanish Inquisition must have been like.  The same question asked over and over again and another turn of the rack administered. "Because I was eating fish the other evening and a bone got stuck in my throat."  There, I had thrown caution to the wind.  No diplomatic reference to my Thai doctor or anything.  Just the fact that I damn well knew that there was a bone stuck in my damn throat.  Take that, I thought.

Silence.  Then: "Open your mouth wide."  He poked around with a very thin metal spatula-like thing and I gagged.  "Please keep still," he said. He proceeded to poke around again and I gagged two or three times.  Then, after a few minutes, he brings out what looked like a metallic snake--like that thing that Roto-Rooter uses to ram down your sewage pipes.  

He reassured me that this would not hurt--it was just a small camera and he would be looking to see where this bone might be located. With that he rammed the damn thing down my throat with more gusto than the Roto-Rooter guy.  Talk about gagging.  I was levitating above the bed.

What, I thought.  I have been here for almost 7 hours and I have been pumped full of iodine, prodded, had my blood pressure taken, had a CAT scan etc., etc., and here he is saying that I now need a Nikon camera rammed down my throat?  Good God.  Why didn't they think of actually looking into my throat earlier rather than doing all this other nonsense?  It then occurred to me that in those seven hours nobody had looked into my mouth or at my throat! I might need a lawyer after all this.  I felt suddenly weak and even thought of asking Regee to call both a lawyer and  a priest.  Who knows, the Hospital might have them waiting in the wings somewhere.

I was brought out of my reverie by the doctor saying: "We are going to give you anesthetic and I will remove the bone."  Things were now moving very rapidly.  This sounded like we might be onto something.  There was a bone in my throat and they we going to remove it.  Phew!  The wonders of modern medicine.

Before I had time to open my mouth and say thank you or scream for help or start on my confession, some sort of mask was placed over my face and I was still mumbling about something when I passed out.

I awoke a little later and was a bit blurry and discombobulated.  But the one thing I could say with absolute conviction was that the damn bone was still in my throat.  Seriously. I could feel it when I swallowed.

I told Regee this and I told to the nurse who had come in to finish the whole proceeding and gave me some alarming green goo drink to "soothe" my throat.

"No, the bone has been removed but it will still sting a little bit." "Was it a big bone?" I asked
"You would have to ask the doctor that."  She just smiled, probably thinking they had given me a bit too much anesthetic. 

I didn't want to ask the doctor anything.  I just wanted to get out of there.
And two hours later after signing many forms, telling them my name again and signing papers about insurance and payments and liability which all should have been done beforehand according to the very flustered Admin. lady who was my final port of call.

Back home and after a good night's sleep, I could still feel the bone in exactly the same place that I had been feeling it the day before.  To hell with it being a "sting".  This was a goddam bone.

Look, I could carry on with this story for at least another three pages but I am going to finish right now.  I swear what follows is true. Ask Regee.  She will vouch for this.

My brother in law, Rick, in the Philippines, once told me that he had once got a bone stuck in his throat.  He said the best way to get it out was to cut quite a good chunk of banana and  to swallow it whole .  Not with water or anything but just straight down. He said to make sure it was peeled first.  Ha ha, I thought at the time, he's joking.  Of course I would peel it first. But what he really meant was to slightly cut the outside layer off the peeled banana because it helped it slip down easily.

I did as instructed.  At first, I didn't think the "chunk" was going to go down but it went down without any trouble. One gulp and it had gone.  And with that one gulp, the "sting" AND the bone went too!!  I am not joking or exaggerating. I was cured by swallowing a piece of banana.  What had the Hospital in Arlington and Dr. Gupta with nine years of medical training never heard of the Banana Cure?

When the Hospital bill came it was over $4000.  I looked at the four pages of itemization and just sat there in wonder that they had been able to charge me for so many things in the space of nine hours.  Every time I had moved or coughed or spoken or given my name or date of birth meant some additional charge was typed in.  How else could they have got to four pages?

Amazingly, my insurance paid most of it and I felt bad that it might only have cost a few cents if I had asked for a banana at the Starbucks in the hospital.

Yes, those fish had certainly got their revenge. From then on, I determined to become an all-American beef eater.  The Marlboro man would never get a fish bone stuck in his throat.  Hell, he wouldn't even be able to feel his throat after 30 years of rounding up beef and smoking non-stop.  

No more sissy fish for me.  I had learned my lesson.