Last night, I was at the DMSFS annual New Years' party. I'd been recovering from a case of bronchitis for a while, but I felt well enough to go, and my best buddy's widow really, really wanted to go but does not drive.
I was sitting around in the dining room of the house, nibbling Ritz crackers and joshing with one of my friends, when I managed to get a bit of Ritz cracker down the wrong tube, and began a spasm of violent coughing to get it out.
Next thing I remember, I was lying on the floor with my friends over me, telling me not to get up. I'd apparently fainted and fallen out of the chair. This scared a lot of people; we've lost several people in 2011, and for a few minutes they were afraid that I'd be yet another.
If this had to happen, I couldn't have had it happen at a better place; there were two RNs and a MD right there in attendance, and they were in charge the second I fell. They checked me over and got me to Broadlawns Medical Center down there in Des Moines for a more thorough examination.
The docs at Broadlawns couldn't find much of anything really wrong with me; my heart's apparently in great shape, I'm not diabetic at all, the CT scan (I'd hit my head against the wall when I went down) showed nothing wrong, my blood work was good, and about the only thing that pointed to what had happened was that coughing fit. Apparently I managed to cough so hard as to cut off oxygen to my brain for a few seconds, just enough to knock me out.
They kept me at the hospital overnight, and let me go the next day after a last brief going-over. My friends from DMSFS got me back up home and my car, too. I'm very grateful to them.
All in all, it was a cruddy way for me to end the old year, but I hope I've left a lot of the old year's bad luck behind, too.