I Got a Fish Bone in my Throat

The fish bone came from an aholehole and it got stuck in my throat during dinner and it felt like I had swallowed an ice pick. I gagged and tried to cough it up as soon as I felt it lodge itself, but it was no use. I then stuck my fingers, and some of my knuckles, as far down my throat as I could but couldn’t feel it. I swallowed again and it was still there and felt like it was going to puncture through my throat and come out the left side of my neck.
I immediately grabbed a large glob of rice, stuffed it in my mouth and swallowed hard. It felt like I was swallowing a cannon ball and tears came to my eyes, but it didn’t work. The bone was still there.


Next I grabbed a slice of bread, rolled it up and swallowed it with the hopes that it was force the spike of bone down. Again no success. By now my wife; Kathleen was alerted and knew what the problem was cause I kept on gagging and pointing at my throat and going, “bone, bone!” My next choice was to take a chunk of banana and swallow that but I never had the chance cause we were out the door and heading for the hospital and the emergency room. All the way to the hospital I could feel the bone and it seemed to be getting worst, so I tried not to swallow as much as possible.


While waiting in the emergency ward I remembered all the wives tales about what to do when a fish bone is stuck in the throat. A Marshallese woman had told me to swallow “ulu”, or breadfruit, and that it always worked for her. Unfortunately we don’t have cooked ulu in our kitchen and waiting to be swallowed, so that remedy was out.


Another woman told me that when eating small reef fish you should hold a single chopstick (facing the ceiling) on the top of your head, and that will insure that a bone will not get stuck in your throat while eating. You can bet that I’ll do that the next time.


The third remedy was to put the first small bone you find in the fish on the top of your head. For some Oriental reason, this was supposed to keep the bone was lodging in your throat. Okay, sounds reasonable to me as we continued to rush to the hospital.


An old Japanese man also told me that once the bone is lodged in your throat, you should immediately get a cup of tea, put the two chopsticks cross-wise on the cup, and drink from the first of the four openings. This is supposed to clear the bone in my throat. If the first opening and swallow didn’t work....then I was supposed to drink from the next opening and continue through all the openings until the bone is forced down.


A crazy friend of mine told me that he’d thought about swallowing a small bit of clothe connected to a string. Once it was swallowed...the string was pulled up and out of your throat in the hopes of dislodging the bone. That remedy I was not going to do.


The emergency room doctor finally got to me and started looking down my throat but couldn’t see the bone. He then sent for a scope, got it...sprayed some numbing agent into my mouth and throat that tasted like somebody’s old sock, and shoved the long, tube-like scope down my throat.
“Ahhhhh, I see it!” he said with glee. “Yeah, it’s a big one...what were you eating...whale?” All I could do was grunt, cough and gag and try to answer him. “Boy, its stuck”, he said.


Next he sent for a looooong set of forceps and shoved that down my throat too. My mouth was getting really crowded with surgical instruments. By now everyone was in the emergency room and participating. Some were taking my blood pressure (which must have been sky-high), holding my hand cause they thought I was going to tear up their sheet and mattress. Some paramedics were also observing (and taking notes ) while others were patting the sweat from my forehead and the tears from my eyes. I was also drooling like you wouldn’t believe. The doctor was really getting into removing this bone and, when he started climbing up on the examining table to get a better angle, I thought he was going to climb into my mouth too. After repeated attempts and my gagging, spit pouring down all over the front of my shirt, the doctor threw up his hands and gave up.
“I just can’t get a grip on it.” he said while conferring with all the other doctor people, nurses, clerks, janitors and casual observers. Then he got an idea.


“Mike, I’m going to shove this scope down your nose! This will give me more room to manuever around your throat and get to the bone,” he said with a smile that only comes when someone got what he wants for Christmas.


I stared at him with my hair standing on end, and drool dripping from the right side of my mouth. “You’re kidding....right?”


“Nope!” Suddenly, all the nurses and interns grabbed me and kept me from running out the door. One nurse said with a quivering voice, “it’ll be okay,”....while another said...”I gotta see this!”. The two paramedics were still taking notes like crazy, and I could hear someone giggling in the background. As soon as someone held my head from shaking the doc began stuffing that scope tube into my nostril. It felt like a garden hose and he kept telling me to...”swallow....swallow...” I did as he said and I could feel the scope working its way down the back of my throat. Now the doc and I were face to face and he was happily looking at the tiny screen connected to the base of the scope. He was working the two knobs on the scope with both his hands and I was wondering if he wasn’t just playing a video game.


“Now, open the mouth,” came the order. My jaws creaked open like a rusty door and then they sprayed my throat again with a solution that tasted like compost. Down when the forceps. Seconds felt like hours. I was gagging and drooling and then he yelled...”I got it”. The forcep came out and the bone was in its clutches. Everyone clapped like he’d found the holy grail. Boy was I relieved. A nurse showed up with a tiny plastic bottle and the doc gingerly placed the bone on the bottom of the container. Then he yanked out the scope tube like he was starting up his lawnmower and I was released from the examining table. I felt wrung out with sweat, but was delighted that the bone was out.


I sat up. The room went silent as a tomb. I swallowed and everyone quietly watched me. Yeah, the bone was gone, but my throat felt like a herd of mustangs and the chuck wagon had trampled by. Everyone clapped and cheered.


Then the doc went on to tell me that removing the bone was the best solution. Forcing it down into my stomach using rice, bread, ulu, or banana was not a good idea cause a big bone could puncture my stomach and that would be bad. He


recommended that I be more careful when eating small fish, and that eating with my fingers (which helps in finding the bone before you stuff the fish into your mouth) is a good idea. He then triumphantly left the examination room, turned me over to the clerk who told me she was happy that the bone was out,....and that she’d mail the bill to me in a few days.
Later I found out that the bone cost me $1,000.00 to remove. So the moral of the story is that, the next time I eat fish I’ll eat with my fingers and put that single chopstick on the top of my head with the tip pointing to the ceiling. And when I find the first fish bone, I’ll put that on the top of my head too.

So far....its worked.

LAWAI‘A