In Praise of Water

I like to ponder the simple things that remind me how wonderful life can be. 

This morning, I closed my eyes in the shower, enjoying the hot water beating on the back of my head. I could feel my breath deepen and my muscles relax. Oh, how I love a long, hot shower! It’s like a little piece of heaven.

Water is certainly one of my favorite things. There is no form of water that I don’t appreciate, whether it is hot water in a shower, sudsy water in a bath, or bubbly water in a Jacuzzi. I crave crystal clear water in a glass and love looking out over sparkling blue water on any of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes. I am comforted when I hear heavy rain in a thunderstorm and feel peaceful seeing ice crystals form on a window. 

I find it soothing to watch snow fall silently in winter, or to see how smooth mounds of it have formed over what were sharp edges only hours before. I am often in awe looking out our living room window to see snow so deep that deck chairs are reduced to puffy odd-shaped pillows or how the patio table looks like a white coconut cream pie.

My favorite experience with water might be scuba diving in the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean and watching the elegant spotted drum dance near the opening of a coral cave. 

But somewhere in the midst of this reverie – my praise of water – I am reminded of an incident a few weeks ago – one where water had not been my friend.

I was buzzing about the house, "picking up" as they say, cleaning this and that, trying to make order of things after months of living in disarray during a kitchen remodel. A water bottle sat on our kitchen table, now parked in our living room. The bottle held little more than a swallow or two. 

Or, so I thought. 

I uncapped the bottle, tipped it back to drink the last swig. Surprise! There was more remaining than I expected and suddenly I inhaled when I should have swallowed. The result? I could not breathe. No air could come into my lungs. I spit the water out, tried to cough, but found that I had no air remaining in my lungs to expel the water. I crouched close to the floor and proceeded to inhale as if through a straw that had a lemon seed plugging the bottom. If air could be measured by grains, my rate of inhale was one grain at a time.

My husband rushed over, ready to give me the Heimlich, but I raised my hands or somehow signaled an “I can do this” sort of gesture. A half breath gave me a single cough and then back to the death rattle, air molecule by molecule slowly filling my lungs, until again I had another thimble-sized breath to manage a second cough.

I have since read that under normal conditions one typically cannot die from inhaling water. Alas, I even discovered this has a name: pulmonary aspiration. Or, as we might more commonly call it something “going down the wrong pipe.”  

But how is this even possible? A little anatomy lesson might be useful. The windpipe, or trachea, is in front of the esophagus. Normally, we don’t inhale at the same time as we swallow. To swallow, the voice box lifts to close off the trachea and the gateway to the esophagus is opened. It works much like a railroad switch. But, sometimes, things go wrong. A person laughs, or is distracted and busy with multi-tasking. Wires get crossed. Trains head down the wrong track. Water goes down the wrong pipe.

Food particles inhaled – yes, that can be lethal. Water? Not so much - at least that was the consensus of the articles I read on the Internet. (Everything on the Internet is true, I am told.) Anyway, that moment - the moment when you know something has gone wrong – that is certainly among the worst feelings I've ever had. Things go into “shut-down or violation mode” - the voice box closes to prevent more of what it perceives as a violation. It is part of our natural defenses. 

One article said that even if the worst case happens and you pass out, eventually, your throat will relax and you will begin breathing again. But since I have no intention of discovering whether this is true or not, I guess I’ll never know. 

What is the remedy, or rather, the means of prevention?

Simple: Quit multitasking. Be alert every time you drink. Truly appreciate every sip and swallow.

Or, as Caribou Coffee instructs on their coffee cup sleeves: 

“Life is short. Stay awake for it.”