Fish Bone Story
Of all possible scenarios of me being in emergency room, never in a million years would I picture myself to be in this bizarre situation.
I always have this superstitious believe that every person in this planet will somehow end up in emergency room at least once in their lifetime. It can be car accident, heart attack, food poisoning, or simply just fever.
It’s almost midnight when I walk hesitatingly toward the nurse station. For someone seeking help in emergency room, I look… fine. I’m not talking about my face or my appearance, though. I mean, hey, I come here all by myself, fully conscious, not having even a single scratch.
“Hello, I’m Sarah. Can I help you Miss?” Ask a young woman sitting in front of me. She gives me her warm smile, but I can still see her tired eyes concealed behind it. I look at her nametag, registered nurse.
Okay, how do I even begin? “Well, I have this thing stuck on my tonsil,” This is so embarrassing. I believe it is one of the lamest reasons for 22 years old like me to be in emergency room. I know this situation supposes to be funny I can laugh until I pee myself, but I feel my heart pounding fast and my hands get clammy instead.
“What’s your name Miss?”
I’m glad Sarah keeps her smile undisturbed, or maybe she’s actually dying to contain her laughter inside her. I feel bad.
“I’m Lana.”
“Okay Lana, I’m going to ask more about your condition. Can you specifically tell me what the thing is, and when did it happen?”
Just when I’m going to answer those questions, I feel that damn thing scratches my throat and induces my gag reflex. It hurts and I have to force my entire body to stop my stomach launching all its contents up. I try to swallow and slowly exhale. Unfortunately, that thing won’t stop mocking me and making it difficult to just say a single word without puking my guts out. This is turning into a total nightmare.
I look at Sarah helplessly. How do I tell her? She doesn’t deserve my vomit and all.
My brain finally gains its thinking ability. I take my phone and starts typing.
I’m sorry. I think it has moved closer to my throat and keeps scratching. I can’t open my mouth without puking myself. I don’t even know what it is. I was eating fried chicken 3 hours ago. Is it chicken bone? I’m not sure, though, because it’s small. Does chicken have a small bone? Anyway, I had tried to drink a literal gallon and eat million bowl of rice, but nothing helped. I tried to locate it with my mirror, but I couldn’t see it.
“Oh dear, it must feel so uncomfortable. You come here all by yourself?”
It is just a simple question, yet something hollow grows inside me and everything begins to feel unsettling. I grip my phone tighter and nod.
Sarah looks at me warily. “I’m going to get the doctor for you. I’m afraid you have to go to the registration desk first to fill some forms by yourself, Lana. Is that okay?”
I nod again and walk toward the registration desk. I look at my phone contact and stare at one specific name. My brain starts spinning. Should I call him?
I can feel the hole transforms into enormous quicksand trying to suck me in.
That’s when I decide to put my phone back to my bag.
***
I always thought the first time I have to go to emergency room would be caused by something more… normal. Most often I imagined myself falling from a bike, or stair — or anything else, considering how clumsy I am. In my head, it always involved falling.
Especially, after what happened yesterday.
I’m sitting on what looks exactly like a dental chair, with an LCD screen on my top right. On my left, I can see a table full of stainless steel instruments on it. It makes me think about my father’s toolbox in the garage. My panic begins rising, what the hell will be done to me? Should I just go home? But how do I live with this thing constantly threatening to make me puke? Does it mean I can’t talk anymore?
I try to shut my racing thought before it fuels my head to explode. I count to ten and steady my breath. When the hurricane starts fading, I avert my gaze to an old woman with blood dripping from her forehead lying on the bed about three meters in front of me. A skinny old man with glasses sits on a chair beside her. He gently wipes the blood from her forehead with his Kleenex. A male doctor wearing white coat is standing beside them. The doctor talks to them about something, and then begins to cleanse the blood and stitch the wound. I notice how the old man holds the old woman’s hand tightly. He whispers something to her ear, and I can see her smiling.
“Hi, Lana. I’m Dr. Diaz. I’m an ENT resident here,” A soft voice breaks down my bubble. I focus my gaze to a woman wearing white coat standing beside me. “Sarah said that you have foreign body stuck on your tonsil?”
I nod and take my phone again. I type, sorry I can’t talk. It will induce my gag reflex.
“It’s okay. I’m going to help you,” Dr. Diaz taps my hand gently. She gives me some questions about my condition and I answer them with my phone. Then she asks me to open my mouth.
“I have to use nasal endoscopy so I can have a better view of your throat,” Dr. Diaz takes a thin tube from the table. It has a cable that connects to the LCD. “This flexible tube has a camera on it, and I’m going to insert this tube from your nose until it reaches your throat. It connects to the LCD, so we can see the magnified images project onto the screen. You will experience a mild discomfort, though. But I promise I’ll do it gently. When I can locate the foreign body, I’m going to give you anesthetic spray so you won’t feel pain during the extraction. Is that okay?”
I begin to hesitate. It sounds like an extreme procedure. I curse my overreacting body because I can feel my hands getting clammy. I hate this situation because people will think that I’m scared shitless, and they will try to comfort me and of course they will just end up feeling bad because they won’t be really helpful.
Dr. Diaz notices my trembling hands. She holds it reassuringly. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Do I really have any other options? So I just nod, again.
When Dr. Diaz starts to do whatever procedure she explained before, I decide to stare at the ceiling and think about the old couple. Until this very second, I never think about myself getting old. It just seems so far away, and somehow feels unreal. But something in their eyes makes me wonder, would there be someone holding my hand if my whole world starts crumbling down? Or wiping my blood if I fall from my bike? Would I be that happy if I’m about their age? Would… I live that long?
A glimpse of what happened yesterday strikes me. I remember the dark sky, the night wind, the deafening silence, and the road below me. Amid my crumpled thoughts, I was thinking about how I’d been falling through an infinite loop with no endpoint all my life.
It was sickening. I looked at the ground and just wanted everything to stop. At that very moment, I didn’t even think about getting old.
“I got it!”
I startle on my chair. I blink my eyes rapidly and pull myself back to the reality. Dr. Diaz smiles happily and taps my shoulder. “It’s done. How do you feel?”
I’m still collecting myself and taking in my surrounding. I can’t feel my mouth, but I try to make words. “It’s… weird,” And miraculously the gag reflex was gone.
“The local anesthesia hasn’t worn off yet and your mouth will feel numb until about an hour from now,” Dr. Diaz showed me a layer of gauze with what looks like a little transparent sword on it. “This is the foreign body that stuck on your tonsil. It pierced your right tonsil deep enough it caused a minor bleeding. But don’t worry, the bleeding has stopped and I’m going to prescribe you antibiotic to minimize risk of infection. It looks like a fish bone, doesn’t it?”
I concentrate on that foreign body. It does look like a fish bone. “But I didn’t eat fish. It was fried chicken.”
“Are you sure?”
“A hundred percent,” I’m slightly offended because do I look like someone who wasn’t aware of what she ate? It doesn’t sound like a decent human being.
“Uh, maybe the chicken had fish bone?”
I frown. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know, honestly,” Dr. Diaz smiles confusedly. “The thing is, I’m glad you came here immediately before the fish bone — or whatever it is — falls deeper to your airways or digestive tract and causes serious complications, such as infection, laceration, even lungs or heart penetration.”
I’m stunned when I heard her words. Fall. I force my smile. “Funny, because I honestly thought this was just false emergency and what I most worried about was just puking every time I talk.”
Dr. Diaz laughs. “Well, that too is a serious complication.”
I look at that fish bone again and delve into my thoughts. Am I relieved, though? What if I actually prefer for it to just fall? What will happen, then? Does it mean I will finally hit the ground I’m searching for?
I sigh. I still don’t even know what it actually is.
***
I’m sitting on waiting chair in front of hospital pharmacy. It’s 2 in the morning, and I see no one but me. I already got my medicines and I supposedly go home right away, but I don’t feel like it. I stare at the white wall blankly and the deafening silence is coming back.
Just then, a memory of what happened yesterday hits me again.
It was midnight. I could still feel the night wind tickling my cold skin, the flashing lights blinding my eyes, and the cars rushing below the overpass I was standing. How could I be here? I closed my eyes and tried to recollect what happened before this very moment, but all I had was this vague shadow whirling and collating a giant turmoil inside me. Maybe my body was so fed up with my chaotic yet sluggish mind it decided to gain control over my entire function. But standing alone on the edge of the overpass in the middle of the night? My body was literally out of my mind.
Suddenly, the cars and the wind and everything were gone. There was total silence, but it was not the kind of silence I longed for. It was deadly deafening. It only reminded me of my eternal obsessive thought about falling.
Every day, I trapped in this perpetual vortex where I was just falling endlessly, its enormous force suck me down until the water crashed every molecule in my body and left me breathless. I didn’t know where the vortex came from. I was thinking it could be black hole emerging from the darkest part of my core, but it was not the void I met. Everything was full of noise, even the deepest corner of my mind. And all I wanted was for it to just stop so I could finally sink into oblivion that I craved so much. I just didn’t know how.
When I looked at the road below me, I got this unforeseen realization.
Maybe, I just needed to hit the ground.
“What brought you here, young lady?”
The voice is so sudden I nearly fall off the chair. I let out a breath and staring at the old man I saw before sitting beside me. Apparently I was so lost in my own thoughts I didn’t realize he was there.
“Sorry, did I startle you?” He looks at me warily.
I laugh nervously. “No.”
He seems unconvinced, but he just nods. “Call me Dan. Well, what brought you here, young lady?” He repeats his question.
I tell him my name and my fish bone story. “I don’t know. It’s not even really fish bone,” I finish my story shamefully.
“Oh, dear. Glad the doctor could take it. I can’t imagine how many times you puke every time you talk,” He laughs loudly.
“It would be so embarrassing,” I shiver at that thought. “What about you, sir?”
“My wife, Ellie, fell from the bed and her head hit the drawer. It was rather hilarious because I already gave her eighty percent of the bed and she still fell. Ellie said only a baby falls from the bed and we laughed, until I realized there was a cut on Ellie’s forehead and the blood wouldn’t stop dripping. I had to drag her here because she wouldn’t stop laughing and told me she was fine. She ended up getting five stitches. And also I had to sneak here to get her painkillers because she told me she didn’t need it and just wanted to go home. Always stubborn, my Ellie,” His smile grows wide. “You saw her, didn’t you? We saw you in ER.”
I can feel my face heats up. I remember how during the extraction I opened my mouth widely for almost half an hour — I can’t even imagine what my face would look like. They definitely saw me at one of the most humiliating moments in my life. “Yeah, I remember how you two looked so romantic.”
“We are together for 40 years. And I tell you, it was not always rainbows and butterflies. Not when my arthritis flared and I couldn’t stop cursing, or when we argued because we both kept forgetting where we put our things, or when she threw away my favorite coffee because she thought it would give me heart attack,” His beaming face radiates pure warmth. “Oddly enough, we always choose each other, no matter how hard things are.”
“It must be wonderful to have someone who won’t give up on you,” I smile sadly.
“You will find that one, eventually, honey.”
“I doubt it,” I shrug my shoulder. “I’m too problematic, even for myself.”
Dan stares deeply into my eyes. “Listen to me. There will be someone who can bear all your worst, because it’s worth the happiness of just being with you. It’s not the one who know all your best part, but the one who acknowledges your darkest pieces and willingly give every lights in this world for you.”
I lost my words. “Well…it seems like nearly impossible for me.”
Dan frowns. “Why do you come here all by yourself?”
“What?” I’m taken aback by the sudden change in topic. Dan hasn’t broken his stare, so I start to arrange my reason. “Well, I think because it’s not a big deal. It was just a stupid thing stuck on my tonsil, I’m not dying. It’s midnight and I don’t want to bother anyone.”
“Even though this situation makes you scared?”
I growl in frustration. Am I that easy to read? I curse my overreacting body again. “But I could handle it by myself.”
Dan sighs and shakes his head. “Take out your cellphone.”
“Why?”
“Just do it,” He says firmly.
My suspicion arises, but I do what he told me anyway. “What now?”
“Are there any missed calls?”
I want to laugh. My phone vibrated repeatedly when Dr. Diaz was doing the extraction. I didn’t have to see who called me because I know damn well who it was. “What if I say yes?”
Dan looks at me flatly, but I swear I can see him trying to hide his smile. “Be honest with me. Do you actually want to call whoever it is back?”
Of course he knows my answer. I begin to think this old man is actually a magician. But my big fat ego doesn’t want to satisfy him further so I choose to lie. “No.”
“You suck at lying,” Dan shakes his head. “Call whoever it is now.”
“No,” I say stubbornly.
“Well, I’m going to sit here until you make a call. You know, Ellie doesn’t like waiting so if it takes you long enough, she definitely will kill us both.”
“Ugh,” This old man is so unbelievable. “You do everything to get what you want, huh?”
“That’s what Ellie loves and hates the most about me,” Dan says proudly.
I roll my eyes and look at my phone. My eyes are transfixed on one name displayed on my phone screen. The same name I was thinking about the first time I got here. Should I really call him?
As if he can sense my hesitation, Dan gives me his stern look. “Now.”
I tap call and close my eyes. I’m sure he won’t pick up because it’s early in the morning and he definitely is still sleeping. I just have to show Dan and finish his ridiculous request.
Just when I’m about to end the call, I hear a voice from my phone. “Lana?”
It takes a long five seconds of silence before I can gather my consciousness to answer, “Um, hey, Leon,” It just comes out as a whisper. I can hear Dan screams happily beside me. “I woke you up, didn’t I?”
“Hey, no problem. Are you okay?” He sounds… worry?
I remind myself to exhale. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Wait, no. Actually I’m at the hospital now.”
“What? What happened?” Leon squeals and I hear his bed creaking. This must really surprises him he totally wakes up now.
“It was just stupid incident. I got fish bone — not quite sure it was really fish bone, though — stuck on my tonsil. Luckily the doctor pulled it out and I’m okay now,” I laugh weakly because it was really lame.
“Why didn’t you call me before? You didn’t have to go there all alone,” Leon grumbles. “Wait for me, okay? I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“What? No, you don’t need to…”
“Just wait there. I’m going now,” And then Leon hangs up the phone.
I’m still staring at my phone when I feel Dan smiles widely at me. “It was easy, wasn’t it?”
“It was really unnecessary. I really woke him up at 2 in the morning and he had to waste his time just to be here!” I shriek in disbelief.
“From what I heard before, you didn’t even ask him. He voluntarily wants to be here, it’s his own choice.”
“Yeah, but it was totally because I called him!”
“He did call you first but you didn’t pick up, remember?”
I lean my back to the chair and swallow my defeat. I hate Dan so much because I don’t want to admit that maybe he is right.
“Listen to me, young lady,” Dan says softly.
I put my annoyance aside and look at him flatly. “Well, I’m ready for the pep talk.”
“I don’t really know if it was really the fish bone you worried about or you actually had other big things, but I know you could really use some company,”
His words utterly astounded me. I want to refute his whole statement, but I can’t seem to find the right words because my inner voice is now screaming just admit that he is right, you looser!
“I think you’ve been too hard on yourself. You know, there’s nothing wrong with asking someone to be there, holding your hand, and telling you everything will be okay. Nothing wrong with admitting that you need help, even if it’s just some stupid things. Nothing wrong with being vulnerable. The problem is, I think you just forget to be kind to yourself,” Dan explains to me eagerly.
My eyes start blurry and a big lump formed inside my lungs begins to steal my breath. We’ve only been talking for like 15 minutes, but Dan has delved to a secret place buried in the deepest trough of my mind.
“Wait for him, okay? I’m going back to Ellie now.”
Dan stands up slowly. He smiles at me, taps my shoulder, and begins to walk away. I can only stare at him blankly.
I can’t even say thank you.
***
I’m still taking in all Dan’s words when I see Leon walking fast towards me. His hair is a mess, so is his shirt. I notice a plastic bag on his left hand. His eyes look relieved when he sees me.
He sits beside me. “Hey, you scared the hell out of me. Are you okay?”
“I told you, it was just stupid incident,” I force a smile. “I’m so sorry for waking you up.”
“You could’ve told me. I called you many times. You know… you went out at midnight too, yesterday. I just want to make sure you don’t involve with something criminal,” Leon teases me, but I can still sense his worries. “How did it feel?”
“Well, it was really weird. I had this thin tube put into my nose through my throat, and my mouth felt numb for about an hour. The doctor pulled it out, and it looked exactly like fish bone.”
“But you didn’t eat fish.”
“I know! I thought maybe there is a part of chicken that resembles fish bone,” Until now, it still feels weird.
He laughs. “I didn’t expect this. I really thought you were here because you fell off the bike, just like what you always believed. And because you have terrible balance.”
I feel a sudden pang in my chest. “It surprised me, too.”
“I’m glad you’re okay now,” He squeezes my shoulder. “Oh, I bought you ice cream and chocolate milkshake. I know you’ll need this after everything you’ve been through tonight.”
Leon gives me the plastic bag, and I just stare at it. I don’t know how to decipher my feelings, but I start to cry and laugh at the same time.
“Hey, why are you crying? Did the doctor forbid you to drink these?” Leon looks confused and worried.
It takes me a minute to finally stop laughing, but my tears keep rolling down. When I look at him, I see how his eyes are so clear and pure. Then I realize, I have to tell him.
“Yesterday, I was standing on the edge of the overpass. I was thinking about falling. I felt like my whole life is only a giant vortex which sucks me in and leaves me breathless. The worst part is I’m not even drowning, I just keep falling and stuck in this infinite loop. And I was thinking, maybe I just had to fall for the last time and hit the ground so this would end,” I look directly into his eyes. “Yesterday, I nearly killed myself, Leon. Yesterday, I thought my first time being in hospital would be alone, already dead from falling. I didn’t even dare to dream of me being here, alive, having you beside me, asking if I’m okay, and giving me my favorite ice cream and milkshake.”
Leon looks totally petrified. I can see the blood drains out from his face. He falls silent for what feels like an eternity, before he whispers, “Why did you never tell me any of this before?”
I sigh. “I don’t want to burden you. You don’t deserve this to be on your shoulder too.”
Leon smiles sadly and holds my hand. “You don’t have to go through this alone. You have me. I’m here and I’ll help you. Just promise you’ll tell me everything.”
“Okay,” I wrapped my fingers around his tightly. I feel like some heavy burdens are lifted from my chest.
“What stopped you that night?” Leon asked carefully.
It’s still hard to recollect the details happened that damn night, it was all moving fast and hazy. But I can remember how my phone was vibrating just when I was about to jump.
And I remember seeing Leon’s name on my phone screen.
“It was you,” I stare at him in disbelief. “I remember you called me. You saved me.”
He is dumbfounded by my words. “Really?”
“Yes,” I caress his cheek gently. “And now I’m so glad you’re here, with ice cream and milkshake.”
“Now I’m glad it was just fish bone,” Leon sighs and kisses my forehead, “Although it’s not really fish bone.”
I burst out laughing. The tears are coming back, but now it’s happy tears. “Funny thing is I even had to be forced by a random old guy just to call you.”
“Random old guy? What does that even mean?”
“I haven’t told you the weirdest part.”
I start drinking my chocolate milkshake and telling Leon about Dan.
***
