“A person’s destiny can’t be seen, you might die tomorrow.” Japanese proverb, roughly meaning “don’t postpone till tomorrow what you can do today”. (Which is a Norwegian proverb, I have no idea what you say in English.) Anyway, I did not die today either, just barely.
Today was my first day at work after my NaNoWriMo vacation. My boss called me and welcomed me back. (She has office in a different part of the country.) She also congratulated me on something I had forgotten: Today I have been employed by the Norwegian state for 30 years! Not necessarily a badge of honor for a conservative, but I am not an ambitious person in this world. My coworker was sent out (by my boss) to buy me a plant to commemorate the event. Also talked a bit with him after having talked with my boss. My second coworker was home with a fever, talked a little with him as well.
It may have been the talking, or a creeping cold, or the C vitamin tablet I was sucking, but just as I should go home, my vocal cords locked up. Just plain locked up! I could not breathe neither in nor out. Scary! It stopped fairly quickly, probably less than half a minute, but there was a period afterwards where I frantically tried to clear my throat and couldn’t. There wasn’t anything obvious there, it was the throat itself that somehow locked up, far as I could find out.
This has happened a couple times before, and it remains just as scary every time. I have survived every time, but since I don’t know what it is, I have no idea whether one always survives or I just have struck lucky so far.
I believe I was eating a C vitamin tablet when it happened one of the previous times as well, and at least once with a semi-medical throat lozenge. That does not mean eating these things triggers it. It could be because I eat these things when my throat is starting to get icky from an infection, and the infection may also be the reason for my throat locking up. The mechanism of this is unknown to me. But the expert who looked at my throat this spring / summer did not see anything peculiar about my vocal cords.
It is strange to think that literally we live only one breath from death. Or one heartbeat, for that matter. And yet most of us live for many decades, and not a few complain about boredom and wish for a more exiting, dangerous life. Some to the point of bringing about their own end. If only they could have given those years to me. I love this life, and I wish I could help y’all share that love somehow.