It all began with a fish. As evolution has shown, that’s where we originated as well. So it is only fitting for the beginning of this story as well. Some solid differences though, the guilty fish in question was not one that we originated from. By that I mean, Hilsa (or the bengali Ilish) is not the same as the tiktaalik (one of the original fish that decided to forgo their watery lifestyle for a more grounded one). Oh god, I’m already off topic here, aren’t I? Right, this story does, indeed, start with a fish, one of my favorites (read: Formerly favorite) to consume. If you aren’t a Bengali, and you’ve never eaten fried Ilish, or Ilish with the myriad of spices that make up the Bengali jhol, you are 100% missing out. I might be quite biased, but even so, find out somewhere to consume it, and do consume it. Okay, back to the point.
The Hilsa fish has an enormous amount of bones, in a crap load of assorted sizes, seriously, if they were to ever go extinct and an futuristic archeologist was tasked with rebuilding one, they would have their work cut out for them. The parts of the Hilsa fish that are avidly consumed are the section around the egg, the tail, the head, and the upper middle (the infamous “gadha” piece). It is infamous, not for its taste, but for the insane amount of small needle-like bones that make it up. It is quite difficult to remove the tiny bones from the meat of the fish, and that’s, of course, where our story leads. A dark and seldom traveled path filled with strife and surprise, oh wait, no, sorry, it was more of a small lack of attention leading to a violently large (and unintelligent) endeavor.
To quote my introduction, it all began with a fish. ETA 14:35, I was within the process of consuming my lunch. Completely unaware of the enormous struggle that would take place shortly. It’s actually quite interesting, I look back and see that that person was a different one, so innocent, completely ignorant of the cruel nature of fate and the terrible twist of irony’s knife. It was not more than 15 minutes later, when I started trying to consume the fish on my plate, ironically the movie that was on was also about fish (“What the fish”, for those wondering, it was funny, unlike the situation to unfold). So after I took the first bite of my favorite fish, I suddenly noticed that something was off, usually when you sense the bone quick enough, it’s easy enough to just pull it out or spit it out, but as fate had decided to focus all its energy on ruining the rest of my day, the bone was too far down my gullet.
As soon as I realized this, the panic set in. I believe the best description would be a lanky, awkward 17 year old floundering around, screaming “It’s stuck in my throat! MY THROAT!” and using some choice words in Bengali. Obviously, my parents, being as perceptive as possible, tried to calm me down by telling me to spit it out. As expected, I handled that with all the dignity of a fish out of water as I attempted to remove the sharp, protruding object from the inside of my throat. The rest of the fish went down without a struggle and I no longer found it too difficult to breathe, but of course, the bone had decided to be more of a thorn in my ass (or rather a needle in my throat for that matter) and decided to stick it out (so to speak) within my throat. The panic subsided, but only slightly, now that I was no longer struggling to breathe, I was rather focused on the fact that there was a fish bone in my throat. At this point in the story, you, as the reader, are either laughing at me, or not at all, but don’t worry, this is only the beginning of the hilarity that will now forever be used as an icebreaker.
“So what’s your most embarrassing moment?”
“What”
“What’s your most em-”
“Yeah no i heard you the first time”
“Would you like to-”
“Well, it all started with a fish”
“What”
Oh shoot, sorry, I’m off topic again, aren’t I? Back into the fray, the battlefield of my misery and the dexterity of what can only be described as being demonstrated by a toddler trying desperately to walk. Obviously, the feeling of a small, needle-like bone inside of my throat couldn’t have been very pleasant, so the urgency to remove it and allow the insides of my stomach to dispose of it for me was very high. I was quite literally in hysterics, searching ways to remove a piece of the fish’s anatomy from myself, when my parents brought out the Bengali Big guns. A small ball of cooked rice, when swallowed whole, should dislodge the bone from its non rightful place and allow its safe passage towards the innards. Great, I thought, finally something to remove this bone.
But, I hadn’t realized, at ETA 15:12, that whatever divine creature had decided to completely screw with me, wasn’t done with me. Somewhere between swallowing the 5th and 6th ball of rice, I had realized that this was hopeless. I was going to die with this bone stuck in my throat, when they did my autopsy, they would find the cause of death to be a fish bone in the goddamn throat. I wasn’t dead yet, though, and as I slowly started to calm down, I realized that this absolutely blindingly violent minor inconvenience should not have lasted as long as it did. I started to search up ways to violently dislodge this goddamn nuisance and allow my stomach acids to destroy this (insert row of expletive text here) fish bone. I came across the swallowing of large amounts of coke at one time, but after the second whole bottle of coke, the existential dread seeped in again and the image of the medical professional opening up my lifeless body, only to find a stomach full of coke and a fish bone stuck in my throat, clouded my vision again. I put down the (soft) drink I was using to drown my sorrows and decided to grow a backbone. Obviously, the losing fight with this fishbone was strong enough to disrupt that process as I made the worst mistake of anyone with any minor affliction could make. I searched up my problem on WebMd. Fear gripped me as the phrases “puncturing major aorta” and “neck abscesses” danced at the edge of my vision. I then decided the best course of action would be to call an urgent care center and see what they said. Once we called, we got the expected response.
“I have a fishbone lodged in my throat”
“You can’t remove it?”
“No, it’s really lodged in there”
“Oh, okay then, go to the ER”
F*ck. I mean, what did I expect. “Oh, just use your telekinesis and remove it,” and other lies you can tell yourself. We’re in the middle of a pandemic and I have to go to the ER for a goddamn FISHBONE? Yeah, I know you’re laughing at me, don’t worry, I am too. At this moment, I seriously considered forgoing my atheist philosophy and accepting God with open arms, maybe then, he wouldn’t basically slit my throat with the knife of irony. It is only fitting for a descendant of a fish to be choked by the consumption of a fish. It was as if the goddamn fish I was consuming was using it’s bones to tell me that in the afterlife it knows who was eating it. “Yeah, you want to eat me? You want to cut up my body and cook it (rather wonderfully) and eat me? Well, take THIS!” Yeah, yeah, I’m getting distracted again, sorry. After the nurse told us to go to the ER, we had to take a second opinion, obviously. My parents called up a Bengali doctor that we know, (Subhasis Uncle, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry) and he told my parents, and an inconsolable me that bread and peanut butter usually works.
Another try, another failed attempt, after literally consuming almost a week’s supply of bread and peanut butter (although pretty delicious), we figured that it was a lost cause and started on my (very embarrassed) trip to the ER. For anyone who’s still reading the story, this is the last leg of my fishbone journey, this is also where the title will start to make sense (I know fish don’t have hamstrings, although that’s probably as far as my knowledge of the anatomy of fish will carry). We started on our journey to the ER at approximately ETA 18:20. An enormous car ride awaited. It was so long. It was like waiting for a school class to end. It was like waiting for a turtle to cross the road, or a sloth to move across a forest. It was the longest 15 minutes of my life.
Once we got there, obviously the standard “do you have COVID” questions were asked, our temperature was taken, and we were unceremoniously moved into the waiting room. My nervousness started to peak, now, I was in a hospital, how exactly would they remove this obtrusive object from my gullet? They would have to scope it out first, that scared me even more. It wasn’t until ETA 21:30 that I was called in to the hospital room. It was a pediatrician first, she was really happy, I was not, I basically just laughed at myself and explained that I had a fish bone stuck in my throat. The course of action, as recommended by her, was going to be a CT scan and then a way to check inside and remove it.
She didn’t elaborate on how they were going to check on it inside, and I didn’t ask. I should’ve asked. If I had asked, I would have run out of there screaming. The CT scan took like 2 minutes and I was back in my room. I was slightly confused when the nurse walked up and gave me something to clear congestion. Of all things, a fish bone in my throat wouldn’t be checked through any other orifices. Right? RIGHT? As my frantic nature got a little bit more fuel added to its fire, I asked my dad. “Why do you think they gave me this nose clearer?”
“Ha, maybe they’ll stick the camera up your nose”
My heart dropped.
“What”
“Oh don’t worry, I have no idea”
“THEN WHY DID YOU SAY IT!”
“Calm down, I was only joking”
It wasn’t a very funny joke. So you can only imagine my horror when the doctor came in with a large cabinet and opened up a small box like machine, with a tiny camera. One, as I noted, to my blatant and undisguised horror, would fit snugly within one of my own nostrils.
“Don’t worry, it’s not going to hurt”
“Uh huh” I sarcastically replied to the doctor.
“No seriously, this actually shouldn’t hurt”
As he started to put the camera down my nose, I realized that anyone who had ever told someone that something isn’t supposed to hurt has never really experienced any pain. I immediately stopped the doctor, telling him that it hurt.
“See, it only hurts a little. If you let 30 more seconds pass, you would’ve been done”
Internally, I could only think that he told me it wouldn’t hurt at all. I nodded for him to start again. As the small camera went down my nostril again, suddenly I realized that I was no longer sitting there with a camera in my nose, I was laying down on the bed with a somewhat frantic doctor asking me if I remembered where I was and what I was doing there.
“Are you okay”
“What”
“Do you know where you are?”
“What?” I was pretty confused, I obviously knew where I was and what I was doing, but the questions were slightly disorienting.
“Do you know where you are?”
With as much sarcasm as I could muster, I responded “The hospital”
“He’s alright,” I think it was either my blatant sarcasm, or the fact that I was suddenly annoyed, that the doctor realized that I was okay. I, though, still couldn’t figure out what exactly happened between the camera in my nostril and being prone on the bed. At least, until I heard the phrase “he just fainted” followed by the laughing of all the doctors outside. Any person in my place would be feeling shame at getting laughed at by numerous doctors, but the only coherent thought in my head was GODDAMN, I really just hamstrung myself over a camera up my nose, didn’t I? And that right there, was absolutely goddamn hilarious. I couldn’t even stop laughing, every doctor that came in, I laughed and said “that’s definitely never happened before.” I almost forgot about the fishbone still stuck in my throat. Oh crap, the fishbone was still stuck in my throat. The camera didn’t even get far enough up my nose to see anything before I was down and out.
Basically, the end of this journey isn’t very climactic, the doctor basically gave me some antibiotics to prevent any infection and told me that it’ll probably just find its way out. As I woke up the next morning, I realized that fate was absolutely goddamn evil. It hadn’t even been 12 hours afterwards, and the bone was gone. The bone was gone. And all I have to say is that it all began with a fish. Oh, and of course, I have the story.