I want to send out a thank you to EMTs everywhere. I am alive this morning because of quick thinking friends and trained people at a birthday party. A slug of meat went down wrong, and I am told I turned blue. I woke to a cop putting O2 on me and the beautiful sight of dirt as I breathed. Followed quickly by two lovely uniforms and a strange trip in an ambulance. I love oxygen, I love breathing, I am more grateful than you can imagine that I didn't ruin a party or leave my spouse bereft. Oh, and my shoulders hurt. I'm guessing referred pain from the diaphragmatic beating. A wonderful misery, as it beats the alternative. I'd never heard it described as a side effect from the Heimlich maneuver, but it has to be that, right?