Last night I was eating popcorn when I inhaled a piece down my trachea. I started coughing and hacking, but it got worse instead of better. Suddenly, I couldn't take a deep breath to cough effectively. I was really gasping for breath. It felt like I was trying to breathe through a pinhole. I could actually feel the popcorn blocking my trachea.

Stupidly, I thought, "I should get in the car and go to the Emergency Room." Fortunately, after about two minutes of this, I got it dislodged, but it was the longest two minutes of my life. And almost my last. I have been short of breath before with my lung and heart problems, but never like this. I was really scared. Thank goodness I was able to get it out finally. I would never have made it 15 minutes to the ER.

Today my throat hurts and feels so scratchy. I'm still having trouble breathing, but that's because I pulled some muscles around my rib cage and in my back. It hurts like heck to take a deep breath. It also hurts like heck to lay on my right side. Sleeping is difficult. Crap, this sucks.