It began when Karen leaned forward and tried to cough, but couldn’t. We were at dinner on a Thursday evening in the Eagle’s Roost café where she was enjoying her fillet mignon. The bite she had taken was too large to swallow; she began choking but with no result. She stood up and tried to dislodge the meat but could not. She collapsed onto her chair, bent over the table and became silent. I have never been so scared in all of my life than when I sat across from her, and could do nothing. She was choking to death. I yelled for someone to call the front desk for the community’s first responders. There was a lot of commotion by surrounding residents and staff but it seemed that no one was doing anything to call for professional help. One of the dining-room residents said he was a physician and tried to perform a Heimlich maneuver but failed to bring anything up, since he could not get her to stand. She was lying on the floor when first responder Dustin and his partner arrived and began to perform CPR on her unmoving form. All I could do was stand there and pray.
My prayer, even then, seemed strange to me. I prayed that she recover, yet I simultaneously prayed for God’s will to be done. If she died, I knew she would be with Him in heaven. And yet I, selfishly, did not want to let her go, even though I believed she would not really depart from me. As Dustin administered CPR, she coughed up the bolus of fillet mignon and moved her legs. It was not yet time for us to be separated by dimensions of time and space. Responders from the local fire station appeared with their stretcher. As Karen awakened, she was placed on the gurney and moved down the hall to the waiting ambulance. I rushed along with my walker until we reached the elevator. She and the team went on while I anxiously waited for the elevator car to return.
She was examined in the ambulance; her vital signs appeared to be back to normal. Dustin and the other responders urged she be taken immediately to the local ER. However, she was adamant in not wanting to go to the hospital. Having been married for sixty-five years, I knew there was really no way for me to convince her to agree to the transfer. The two of us returned to our apartment; she in a wheelchair and I with my walker. She entered her recliner and I sat in mine. She rested comfortably for the remainder of the night; I did not.
The next morning, after meeting with Dr. Patel in the ET medical center, Karen reluctantly agreed for me to take her to the ER at Methodist West Hospital, fifteen minutes away from Eagle’s Trace. She remained there for the weekend. She slowly recovered from the inhalation pneumonia that resulted from her choking episode. Arrangements were made, with a lot of ongoing hassles, for oxygen tanks and an oxygen concentrator to be delivered to our apartment. (For some unknown reason, the oxygen company agents could not readily find Eagle’s Trace, even after explicit instructions were repeatedly given to the local office. Fortunately, Karen did not need a tank for her visit to a pulmonologist who agreed she did not require additional oxygen.)
A month later Karen has completely recovered, physically. She recalls almost nothing about the episode, itself. Shortly afterwards, she did ask about my standing in front of her with a pink box in my hands. That is an event which I maintain never occurred.
On the other hand, I continue to have my own emotional problems regarding this incident which, while terrifying during the time it occurred, ended with positive results. I fear that she may choke again. Any small cough while she is eating, brings about a terrible dread within me. I know she will take only small bites, that it is unlikely anything will go down the wrong way. But the fear persists. I fear losing her; this time with no return. I realize how much I depend upon her presence, her being there. It’s not a matter of doing without the actions she performs, of her not taking care of the housework in our daily lives. I know that I can do all that might be required for my own physical existence. It is my emotional and spiritual existence that would change.
I truly understand, now, that love is being present to the other. Our communication does not require us to speak. We can sit quietly together in the same room or do our own things in different parts of our home. Although love is being together as one soul, I prefer … for now … that the body is somewhere nearby. I realize that, in some year to come, this physical presence will be broken. I know that the spiritual bond will exist forever, but during my waking hours I prefer to dwell elsewhere. I need to see her whenever I look for her smiling face.