Bless the Girl Scouts

They have great cookies, but I'm not grateful for the Thin Mints today. I'm grateful for the training I got as a Girl Scout.

Yes, I was a Girl Scout. From second grade until I was a sophomore in high school. I even earned the highest honor you could at the time, the First Class award (equivalent to an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts.) I learned many things in scouting and I will never, ever go camping again (unless "camping" involves a large, luxurious fully equipped motor home with satellite TV.)

One of the things I learned in scouting was first aid. I can bandage wounds, make a stretcher from campsite materials and diagnose heatstroke. And I kept up on my first aid training even after my scouting years were through, keeping up my CPR certification (I never want to do it, but I could if I had to.) So all of that training kicked in last night when The Graminator started choking.

Now you have to understand that The Graminator coughs a lot. She has allergies that cause her to cough until she sneezes. Plus she and I have a tendency to have things "go down the wrong tube" and you just have to "cough it out" which has led me to major embarrassment many times (somehow this almost always happens to me when I'm in public, rarely when I'm alone.)It isn't really choking, even though it sounds terrible.

So I night not have noticed right away when she started making a strange sound when I gave her dinner last night. Except that it wasn't a cough, it was a weird noise like someone trying to suck in air but being unable to. It only took me a couple of seconds to react and I got her up to a standing position. When a few whacks on the back failed to dislodge the food (I was concerned with hitting her too hard, she is 88 after all) I performed the Heimlich maneuver. I had to do it twice but got the food out and she was able to breathe normally again. My mother was grateful, since she doesn't know the Heimlich and since she is too small to have gotten The Graminator up and her arms around her. I was just glad I didn't have to sit there helplessly watching my grandmother choke.

My mom says I saved her life. I don't know about that, she might have been able to dislodge it herself, or maybe there was enough air going around the food that she wasn't in any real danger. But I do know that I really appreciate the first aid training I got so many years ago. And I never want to do it again. So please, people, chew your food!