Lucky 13

Thirteen is my lucky number.

My car accident happened on June 13th. I faced death again (sigh) on November 13th when I choked on a pill. My swallowing has not been normal since the accident. It may be neurological, but my guess is that it's trauma based (more about that in another post). There are many other significant thirteens.

It was Saturday night, November 13, 2004. I had just come back from seeing a play Meghann was in at school. It was her senior year of high school. She was at the cast party. Shannon was living home again and was out with friends. I was alone. I’d been doing a dietary cleanse with some herbs someone suggested—I thought a detoxification might help with the chronic pain syndrome—I was in day ten of a fourteen day program. I swallowed eight pills twice a day and was having very few problems. I was being careful. As I took my nightly dosage, seven pills went down just fine and the eighth got stuck. I started coughing right away and I could feel the pill in my throat. I continued to cough hard and realized it was not coming up. I began to get alarmed. I coughed and coughed but, made no progress. The pill was stuck. I realized I needed help and reached for my cell phone to call a friend who lived down the street, but the phone was turned off and I was getting more and more frightened as I continued to cough and struggle to breathe. I phoned 911. The voice said, “What is your emergency?” I started to tell him, when I realized I couldn’t talk. I knew this was bad. The panic mounted. The 911 guy said, “Ma’me, what is your emergency?” I coughed out the word, “Choking.”

“Ma’me, is someone hurting you.”

“Choking.”

“Ma’me, is someone there with you.”

I was in a full blown panic attack by this time. A wild animal struggling to survive. I realized I was getting nowhere with the 911 guy and needed someone right then. So, I went to find a neighbor. It was 9:30 that cold Saturday night in November. I was in my pajamas, white terrycloth robe, wool socks, but no slippers. As I put my hand on the front doorknob I felt myself blacking out. “Oh no! We aren’t going to have ‘dead mother in the door way.’ My kids are not going to come home to that scene!”

I ran out in the street still gasping and coughing and looked to the left but, the neighbors lights were off. I looked across the street. The neighbors lights were on and I went there and pounded on the door.

Poor Allen! I scared him. He and his wife Pam are great people! We’ve since gotten to know them well through Bridge. Allen’s a master at it and taught some of us neighbors how to play. I thought Bridge would be good for my brain. It’s a great game.

Allen opens the door to me sputtering, coughing and hysterical in my PJs and robe holding my throat as I gasp for air. He yells, “Oh my God!” I indicate that I want him to do the Heimlich maneuver and he does it but, it doesn’t work. Pam comes over and I fall to the floor. I hear Allen on the phone, “My neighbor across the street is choking.” Pam rubs my back gently and I calm down. I was reading an article earlier in the day in Yoga Journal about relaxation and breathing. As Pam rubs my back in soft circular motions, my mind was instructing me, “In breath, out breath. In breath, out breath.”

The police were the first to arrive. “Ma’me has someone hurt you?” I’m brought back to the trauma of the moment. I try to answer him and can’t talk and feel the pill in my larynx and I panic all over again.

The fire guys come next-all ten of them, strong and young and gorgeous-and the Heimlich maneuver is tried and again it doesn’t work. They all stand around watching the coughing, struggling, slobbering mess I’ve become on the floor.

The paramedics come. A guy with horn-rimmed glasses pushes his way to the front of the crowd that has now gathered in Allen and Pam’s foyer. “Finally,” I think, “Someone is going to take charge of this situation and get me out of this mess.” He looks me straight in eyes. We are communicating telepathically. I knew if one more person tried to get me to talk, I’d lose it. He asks only yes-no questions. “Ma’me, would you like me to try the Heimlich maneuver?” I shake my head yes. When it didn’t work he said, “I’m going to hurt you if I keep trying this. Since you’re coughing, I’m going to just let this take its course. Is that all right?” I shake my head yes, drop to the floor coughing and gasping some more, but felt safe that I wasn’t alone in my struggle. In just a few more minutes I say, “Oh, I think it went down.” I can taste and I’m coughing up the power from the pill. I guess the gel coating finally dissolved.

I looked up to find two good friends from the neighborhood standing there. Pam must have called them. Sharon sees I’m breathing again and sitting calmly (somewhat) on the floor and offers, “Kathe, this is a hell of a way to get a date.” We all laugh.

The crowd begins to dissipate and the lead paramedic guy says, "Well I guess you’re OK," and begins to move toward the door when my good friends Paul and Sharon simultaneously yell, “No, she’s not.” They take me to the ER in Boulder. I’m still not breathing right. My chest is tight. I’m so hoarse I can barely talk. They give me a couple of nebulizer treatments which help tremendously and send me home with an Albuterol inhaler.

I’m traumatized. I can’t sleep. I can’t stop playing the scene over and over. I can’t eat. I’ll never swallow another pill.

I had a planned business trip to North Carolina for that week. As I’m flying home that Sunday, replaying the scene in my mind (it took some work to get that to stop), a thought occurs to me. It was sudden and definite. “Huh, I’m not dead.” Once again, death came knocking and I didn’t answer the door. I smiled. I was swept away by the thought. “Huh, I’m not dead.”

The most natural next thought came. What do you do when you’re not dead? When you could have been dead a couple times over and you’re not, what do you do? I asked all my friends. Finally, it was Melinda who says, “Well, you haven’t had a date in about ten years, why don’t you start there!” Great idea!

I got busy. She made me get online. Oh no! I’m not going to do this. “Where the hell else are you going to meet someone?” she barked. So, I did. I posted my photo and profile. I got three thousand hits. I had three dates in one day one Friday.

Kevin was the gem that shone brightest. As you already know, we met on January 13, 2005. I called him ‘beautiful Kevin’ (he’s going to hate that I’m writing this), because he is! He is the calm blue water to my hot red fire. He is the introvert to my extrovert. He is the Felix to my Oscar—we really are an odd couple in so many ways.

At first it was every June thirteenth that I celebrated life. Now, every thirteenth of the month we celebrate life, love, health and happiness.

Today is our anniversary—four years and eight months. Aw!