Prognosis: Sew Mouth Shut My weekend was terrible.

It seemed like it was going to be a pretty good one, but it just never happened. On Friday evening Kelly and I got dressed to the nines for a Valentines Banquet for formal dinner and dancing. For whatever reason I felt very awkward that night, for no reason, but I was nervous and agitated. Anyway, I ordered the roast beef au jus, which was taking a long time for many people to get. That's not my complaint, my complaint is that our table of 10 had nine people basically finished eating their food, and I was the only person to not have any food yet. I'm not a fat guy, but perhaps they didn't understand how important food is to me. I was quietly getting pissed at my lack of food, so I finally had to approach a waitress who condescendingly and rudely backed down and decided to deliver my food against her wishes.

I was honestly not hungry anymore. I was fed up with this whole thing and was about to go home. It's one of those moments where it feels like the walls are folding in and the world is about to crash on top of you. Don't ask me why, I just get like this once in a while.

Anyway, I decided to play "catch up" and commenced with wolfing down my food. Mid-swallow of a piece of roast beef Kelly advised me to "make sure you chew your food!". Ooooh, 2 seconds too late. It was lodged. Bo, the guy sitting next to Kelly said "He's choking, isn't he? He can breath, but it's stuck in his esophagus, right? I have the same exact thing". After meeting up with Brian in the bathroom (who was enduring esophagus related problems of his own) I tried every which way to either force it down or throw it back up -- to no avail. Anyway, thanks to the many, many people that tried to lend a hand. I ran into 7 men that had the exact same problem as I had. I received prayer for healing from another group. I had a few nurses see if they could figure out the situation. Nate Rafiani ran to the store to get me some milk (one guy suggested it would help get the roast beef out).

Anyway, off to the emergency room. Hours of waiting later and many room changes later we had some idiot ER doctor take my case. Let's try giving you a tiny dose of this muscle relaxer to see if you are allergic. An hour later... Okay, we'll give you a single dose to see if it will work. Another hour later... Okay, we'll give you a double dose to see if that will work. Meanwhile we told him that this stuff is very lodged and a GI guy should just scope it out while it's not too late too call them. Also, I have to run to the bathroom periodically to yak up all of the saliva that is gathering in my esophagus (NOTHING - and I mean NOTHING - is getting down my throat).

Finally the idiot British doctor decides to refer me to a GI doctor. Thanks, it's been 10 hours. The GI doctor (Pola) decided to immediately endoscope me to get this out. He said, "Too bad I didn't get called in earlier, it would have been easier if this wasn't sitting in your esophagus for so long". Yeah, I would have loved to have you called in earlier, too.

The sedative medication was given at a dose to make me semi-conscious. This sounded like a good idea, except I was so tired that I fell asleep right after the operation was getting underway. Anyway, because I was not completely knocked out my body (beyond my control) was lurching all over and swatting doctor hands away from my face. The effect of that was to bruise and cut me up (from the inside) pretty badly.

This is getting pretty long, so I'll finish the story (I'm almost done) later. Just know that I didn't get out of the hospital until Sunday, and I may not be done with everything yet.  ¶ 10:41 AM