Number 6's Blog

This past weekend Gwen choked on a piece of sausage and thus an Interesting weekend began!

Friday evening May 1, 2025 we had just sat down to eat at 6PM. I gave Gwen a piece of Italian Sausage to eat. She chewed on it for awhile and then suddenly she started choking. It was clear she could not breathe. I tried the Heimlich maneuver which helped but she was still wheezing and hyperventilating. Now, I’m in a panic and I call 911. The EMT arrives quickly. Their prognosis was she had something stuck in her throat but she was not in an immediate danger –> she could breath okay because her oxygen level was close to 100. Therefore, they took her to the BSW Grapevine Emergency Room.

When they let me see her they had x-rayed her(I think but may have been something else). She had a partial blockage near her vocal cords and because of her tremors complicated by the fact that they could not convince her to open her mouth they called in a ENT specialist.

The ENT’s diagnosis was to perform the procedure to remove the blockage in the operating room while she was under anesthesia. The procedure took five minutes. She was in the recovery room two hours.

Because the procedure required anesthesia they admitted her to the hospital overnight. Then the fun started. The hospital’s doctor ordered every possible test know to “doctorkind”. Gwen arrived in her hospital room at 11Pm. The staff finally finished preparing her and giving her tests at 2AM. Then someone came in at least once an hour to either give her a new test of check her vitals. Between that and Gwen’s throat hurt because of the procedure we did not sleep Friday night.

They because of the procedure they put her on a “no food or liquids” regime until a speech therapist could evaluate her.

Other than the speech therapist the staff ignored us most of Saturday. The speech therapist did come late morning and performed a series of test. Gwen passed and the therapist took her off the no food or liquid regime. The speech therapist stopped by again the afternoon and educated me on foods she could and cold not eat as well as how to prepare them, the modified barium swallow test we needed to schedule, and online resources to help me in the process of changing her diet. Because of Gwen’s PSP her swallowing problem will worsen as time marches on.

Now Gwen had a slight case of pneumonia because solids/liquids passed into her lungs while the food was stuck in her throat. The hospital gave her antibiotics via an IV while she was in the hospital. They spent most of the day waiting on the communicable disease doctor, apparently the expert in antibiotics, to decide whether to keep her in the hospital and on antibiotics there or send her home with a prescription. At 5PM he decided to send her home with a prescription for two antibiotics.

We arrived home at 6 around 24 hours after that dammed sausage lodged in her throat.

I’m writing this on Monday, May 5. Gwen is doing okay. She still coughs from time to time and has a “rattle” occasionally when she breaths.