Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Have a bone to pick?

 

Sunday, 03-05-09 -  Are we all having a fish-bone-stuck-in-the-throat galore?

I had one to pick this morning. Rather, wife had the bone. It was somewhere to the left side of the entrance to her throat where the tonsils are. She figured it was somewhere further down but it wasn't. The nerves gave the impression that it was. I flashed a torch light in her mouth and told her to say "Aaah". She tried, but the sound came out gurgled. The tongue kept getting in the way, but I caught a glimpse of the 1.5 mm part of the needle-like bone buried in the flesh. Couldn't tell how deep it went but I said maybe I could use a pair of tweezers to remove it. But I still doubted that's the culprit. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's really further down.

She wanted to try the traditional stuff first, like swallowing lumps of rice. Nothing happened. She swallowed half a dozen bananas. It didn't budge. She poured some water into a cup, took it outside under the sky, stirred it round, wrote the Chinese word for 'well' in it and drank the water in one gulp. It's supposed to sink into the well. Nichts.

That was yesterday, I mean, last night. Heard there's a guy at a local sundry shop who charges RM15 for that mumbo-jumbo stuff. They say it works. I never tried it. Can't write in Chinese unless I practice it but I never bothered.

A few hours after breakfast today, she was still struggling with it. Finally, she said, 'Can't take it anymore. Let's try the tweezers'. She was scared she could throw up if I tickled her throat. We can't do it standing up then. So she tried lying down on the bed. I got a spoon with a long handle. I washed the tweezers thoroughly and wiped them clean and dry. Can't afford to let them slip out of my hands while performing the 'operation'.

I asked her to hold the torchlight. I pressed her tongue down with the spoon and with the tweezers in my right hand, picked out the pesky thing in one go. Phew! That thing was about 6 mm long.  Years of picking beard stubs from my chin gave me all that practice for this one moment of glory.

Her neighborhood friend asked her about the fishbone later. She told her, hubby got it out. 'Waaah!, she exclaimed. 'That would cost RM25 at Dr. Khoo's'. Heck, I didn't know. People rush off to the doctor's for a little thing like that? I imagined putting a sign outside my window: "Have a bone to pick? RM10 only".  That should give them doctors a run for their money.  But then, that would make me a quack.  Oh well, just blame it on the economy...

 

13 comments:

  1. oh, so everything is fine now?

    haha, picking bone service~

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  2. put it this way: her sigh of relief was more beautiful than music to my ears... (sort of like pulling out an aching tooth, I think)

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  3. Maybe this is why the white man invented boneless fish to go with their chips. They don't know that half the fun is deboning the fish. And getting the stray bone out of one's throat. ^_^

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  4. Which makes me extra careful... I don't have the skill to pick it out of my own throat if I get one... unless I use an electronic eye mounted on a probe and display it on a monitor. Then I have a tweezer controlled by a robotic hand and I use a mouse to pick on the bone. Ah... forget it. The doctor's so much cheaper...

    The fact is the meat around the bones always tastes better.

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  5. That first time of yours was what I did many, many times. Congratulation you learned well and it takes a smart man to even dare to venture.

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  6. Eating squid is much safer then bony fish but have to watch out for high cholesterol.

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  7. heheh...thanks. I wasn't even thinking about being smart but just wanted to end her discomfort without making it worse...

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  8. hahaha!! super hero!! it happened to me recently - we were at a jap buffet and i got a bone stuck on the starter course! the meal was so ruined for me. i had to bear with it for a day too before it finally went away by itself. urgh. horrible.

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  9. it's supposed to go down by itself in a day or two, but sometimes it get stuck too deep, like this one. luckily there was still a protrusion big enough to grip. ok, maybe without the bit sticking out she won't even feel the discomfort during swallowing. just maybe...

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  10. Ha,ha. Often I told my families and friends never, never, eat fish together with rice. By eating fish without any other other food you will be able to notice even small bone. Check with your tongue and swell around your mouth for final examination before swallow. Remember and good luck.

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  11. oh....you're just lucky this time......

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  12. ya, I think so too. that thing could turn septic...

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