On the inconvenience of a near death experience and the meltdown before Christmas.
Heimlichs and Hark the Herald Angels
I nearly died last week.
This is fact and not some hyperbolic statement beloved of us all. It was an innocuous setting: dinner time with the kids. A chicken traybake. Meltingly tender thighs with silky roasted shallots, peas, tangy lemon and garlic and gently crushed new potatoes. The usual badinage and lighthearted insults hurled with love around the table. A guffaw from me, a rush of air in, a catching of something and a sudden inability to expel that air.
Ah, a quick cough to clear an apparent obstruction will do the job. Except it doesn’t. And this is where the brain powers down and the body kicks into emergency mode. Breathing - that thing you do throughout your life without giving it a second thought becomes the only thing you can focus on with extreme tunnel vision. I feel like I am sucking on a paper straw in one of those thick gloopy milkshakes, where nothing is getting through. I can’t speak. I can only rasp, wheeze and flail my hands around, suddenly aware that we’ve entered a time-critical zone. Panic starts to seep into every cell. This is where absurdity creeps in.
As it starts to dawn that I am stuck in a life-threatening situation I can’t seem to extricate myself from, no deep life-defining epiphanies emerge. Instead, a flitting of increasingly oxygen-starved thoughts:
Well, this is bloody inconvenient so close to Christmas; I’ve got so much to do;
This is a really poor show in front of the kids;
Just typical of me to be felled by a sodding pea;
Who’s going to feed the Christmas cake?
I can hear the slight escalation in my son’s voice as a questioning ‘Mum?’ is repeated followed by some slaps on the back as I bend over, willing my organs to turn themselves inside out to rid me of whatever pernicious pea or object it is. Everything is going a bit Matrix and each second feels like forever, accompanied by the sensation of pressure in my eyeballs and a burning hot face. Not a good look.
Next thing I know, my son is trying the Heimlich and, through the most hideous sounds I’m making which is a mash-up of a wheeze/screech/retch, I feel something happening which finally enables me to cough. I definitely see a pea, but the dog moves in at speed and hoovers up what’s emerged, because somebody else's regurge is fine dining for him.
The relief is immense as I’m able to breath again albeit my throat is raspy and scraped and my head feels weird, which will be a lack of oxygen. I envelop my son in a massive hug and repeatedly thank him for saving my life, which feels so ridiculously over-dramatic, except that it’s simply true. My daughter has a rabbit in the headlights aura and tortures herself with guilt for freezing and not knowing what to do. It must have been terrifying for her, and I provide as much reassurance as I can. The last thing I want is sibling rivalry over life-saving ability!
We sit back down at the table after a rather Shakespearian interlude and look at our half-eaten food, appetites numbed, and do that typically British, ‘Well that was all a bit dramatic wasn’t it..?’ I also apologise repeatedly. I mean, talk about spoiling someone’s dinner. I stare at my plate eyeing up the murderous edible suspects. Pak choi. That’s a slippery devil. ‘She choked on pak choi.’ Could you get any more ‘Overheard in Waitrose’ than that. Strangely, my fingers feel numb and I imagine the oxygenated blood is trying to make its way back to my extremities.
Once the kids know it’s safe to leave me unsupervised, I collapse (not in the sense I almost did earlier) into a chair and enjoy the sensation of breathing even if it is interspersed with coughing to clear my sore throat. I make a pact with myself to go on a first aid course. I start to feel shaky and then, unbidden, the tears come. Clearly shock, the body kicking in again. I also realise that the distress arises not only from my own experience, but from knowing that the heart attack that killed my Dad a couple of years ago manifested itself as a cough and then an inability to breathe. I wasn’t there, but my Mum was. I can’t bear to think about what they both went through in those moments, yet I frequently do.
Thanks to being given a reprieve - the gods perhaps deeming that Christmas would not otherwise be delivered and the Christmas cake would suffer extreme neglect - I resolve that, yes, everything can change in an instant and I shall no longer be sucked into the Christmas stressathon. Life’s too short yada yada. I think that resolve lasts all of about twelve hours, during eight of which, I am asleep.
Stressmas
Ah yes, the time when there’s a frenzied crackle in the air and people take on a haunted look. It’s a time of extremes: people are either in a really great mood or a gloweringly bad one. I do love this time of year on my ‘random chats with strangers-ometer.’ It can score highly. Today I stood at the checkout at the supermarket clutching a bottle or red wine and two steaks and told the woman next to me that that was my intake sorted for the day. Luckily she saw the joke. Yesterday, I was clutching boxes of chocolates and a can of Snowball in a nostalgic pang to taste my childhood Christmas where a Snowball and Indiana Jones are forever entwined.
Recently, the main hazard is avoiding being mown down by an SUV. I don’t know whether drivers not wearing huge face-hugging sunglasses in conditions that are basically dark from morning til night would alleviate the problem. I suspect not.
I currently have two speeds: whizzing around like I’m in some Christmas challenge game or staring into the middle distance in the kitchen reciting lists in my head like some meditative mantra, mainly involving a refrain of, ‘Shit I’ve forgotten to ….’ The shelves reserved for the Christmas edibles looks like they’re auditioning for a walk-on part in Wonka: Ferrero Rocher, After Eights, chocolate brazils, chocolate orange (don’t even whisper the mint version to me). God forbid if there’s a chocolate deficiency at Christmas because they have each been invested with Christmas meaning over the years. Surely someone is going to come up with Ferrero Turkey on Tik Tok.
Reed’s Reccos
Film
If you want to do the extremes of cinema, I highly recommend you see both Wonka and Saltburn. Wonka is joyous and I urge you to look up Hugh Grant saying Oompa Loompa in a French accent when interviewed by Antoine de Caunes. Saltburn is refreshing in its edgy ability to take you to dark places. Rosamund Pike delivers some of the best lines and, in my obsession with dinner scenes, has one to rival The Bear. I’m still thinking about the young boys I clocked in the cinema with their parents who probably thought they were going to inspire them with a tale of a young man going to Oxford. Mmmmm.
TV
The repeat of last year’s Christmas episode of Motherland which made me stop fighting with the sellotape and contorting myself wrapping and become transfixed again alternately laughing and sobbing.
Book
Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford is a seasonal treat.
Thanks for reading this and please share if you’ve enjoyed or share some Christmas cheer in the comments. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and above all, please chew carefully. See you here in 2024!
Oh Lord, Emma, my entirely selfish response after thanking the bon dieu (as Poirot would say) that you were saved was utter relief that our new and lovely friendship wasn't nipped so swiftly in the bud! I am so, so glad you're alive and clearly despite the oxygen loss the words still tumbling so freely, marvellously, poignantly and hilariously onto the page. Love ❤️