I nearly died…

… Yesterday.  It was terrifying.

But I didn’t, so, there is that.  So sit back, Reader-land, and I’ll tell you my tale of “whoa!”

It all started innocently enough.  I was born… (All good stories should start that way…)  No, really it started with me being hungry.  Mel was kind enough to bring me bacon and cheese egg bites.  They were delicious.  Later on though, as I was trying to drink my coffee…  I couldn’t swallow.  I was the king of backwash, every time I tried to swallow it just shot out my mouth.

I know what you are thinking, it was the egg bites.  Well, that is a smart idea, but see I had pushed all of them over and there weren’t any stuck on my tongue, as happened in the past.

All day I had this problem, to the point of my neck being physically in pain because of it.  I had to adapt my drinking style even more than before, and it was getting uncomfortable to try.  When the time came for evening pills, I was choking.

I already have trouble swallowing, this isn’t new.  But normally I am able to get liquid down fairly consistently.   This was new and sudden.  I believed that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy coffee or beer anymore, and started wondering how Mel would be able to work with my work to continue the insurance and retirement benefits she’s supposed to get.  I need to still check on that, but last night I didn’t think I would wake up.

Mel conferred with our speech pathologist, who had some recommendations, and reached out to family, who began saying rosaries.  Mel said one too.  (I didn’t say one because I was feeling sorry for myself and didn’t think to, shows you how lukewarm I am!)  I got upstairs, courtesy of the elevator, and got Luke to bed.  It was about 830 and I went in to brush my teeth.

Toothbrushing is an adventure.  I can’t hold my arms up and my head up at the same time, so I usually drool all over myself.  But last night was different, I tried not to drool but when I was brushing my tongue…

“What the hell?!”, I exclaimed.

I felt this huge thing on the top of my mouth, you know the dome part of the palate.  “That wasn’t there earlier.”

After three or four tries I got it out, and what was it?  A giant piece of egg bites, with a giant, like an inch squared at least, piece of bacon.  Wedged up on my palate where I don’t have the tongue strength to get to it, causing a malfunctioning of my normal swallowing capability and causing all the trouble.   Mel heard my struggling and came in to see.  She thought I threw up or it came out my nose, like my steak story.  We were both laughing too hard though.

Again, I know what you are thinking, but I am telling you it’s a minor miracle.  You tell me if you wouldn’t taste bacon!  Bacon is delicious!  I eat that stuff for breakfast!  I definitely would have known if I had a giant piece of bacon in my mouth!  I am confident that the prayers of my family helped to make that show itself.

I want to joke about how other religions got it right about pork, but then I know how delicious bacon is and I know they don’t have the fullness of the truth.  How can bacon be evil?

Now I can swallow back to my old standards again.  For now, I will be avoiding egg bites though.  The whole scenario really makes me need to put my affairs in order.  But more so, brings home the point that miracles happen.  Prayers work.  They don’t have to be huge like curing cancer, they can be small things like your angel helping you find egg bites in your mouth.

The Starbucks miracle?