This is not about choking and it probably doesn't give proper advice. If you want proper advice on choking, look somewhere else, or ask this blogger, who's a proper First Aider. My own First Aid training has lapsed. In fact there's supposed to be new advice on what to do if a child chokes, which is covered here.
Got that? This is not about choking or First Aid. It's not likely to be good or up to date advice. It's an example from an anecdote.
Having got that out of the way, I have in fact done First Aid courses, mainly because I'm self-employed so I am supposed to be the First Aider for this business, which the City Council have just claimed isn't "genuine and effective" so they can make us homeless. Anyway, on one such course the tutor went through a series of things to do when someone was choking. Right at the end of that list, and this is a last resort, is to blow into the trachea to force the foreign body into the right lung. Incidentally, it'll go into the right lung because the bronchus leading into it is straighter - the left one points more laterally because of the heart being on the left side. You're not supposed to do this unless you have to, apparently - you pursue all other avenues first. In order to get it out, the patient will then need an operation, probably involving some kind of forceps although maybe not. If you left it in there, the result would of course be pneumonia.
So this is a last resort. It isn't actually desirable in itself because it means someone will have to fish around inside your right lung trying to remove a lego brick or something. However, you will be alive, which is a plus.
So this is what I'm doing - exploring and trying every other avenue before I choose to regard the choice everyone thinks is the obvious one as viable and something I'll have to take. It would literally unleash mayhem because I've made stupid decisions which trap me in situations and drag other people down with me if I go back on them. I made those choices precisely so that they would have this effect if I went back on them, so I'm now confronted with the mess my former self has made here. But, it's not a fait accompli - it's what I'll do if and only if the problems don't resolve any other way, unless something specific and terrible happens which I'm not going to talk about.
Anyway, something odd happened yesterday. I got another plastic card in the post. Here it is:
The reason this is odd is that my GP recently said I'd have to take my deed poll over there to get my name changed on my NHS records, but this has just happened without any direct interaction between me and the NHS which makes me wonder how. Is it via HMRC? The City Council? I don't know. I do know that they haven't officially heard from me so I need to check this with them. I also need to check that I'm still on the waiting list for psych assessment, so at some point I'll go over there.
The reason this interests me is that I've heard that Real-Life Experience is counted from the date of the name change, which was 14th January 2014, and clearly as of a couple of days ago the NHS seems to have registered that I have in fact changed my name, so this is potentially quite significant for me because if I really do pursue this, in under a year I might begin to have certain options which make me feel like I'm being really selfish and hateful to a certain person for even considering.
I wanted to say something else, and this is addressed to a specific person. I'm not saying this isn't exhibitionistic or a narcissistic exercise, but that's part of who I am too and it needn't be a bad thing. I think you've seen it before in me and I know you feel uncomfortable about it, and I'm truly sorry about that. I also want to point out that whereas the shelf-stacking option would absolutely be a viable one if I could find such a job, and it may look easy from the outside to do that, or at least possible with persistence, it really isn't. We've both explored that at great length and we don't know why it doesn't work or happen but we do know that it doesn't, and it would be a wasted effort to go there. So instead of that, we do this. I'm suspicious of panaceas, but also feel quite strongly that it's this problem which has blocked me. Obviously I will now be confronted with other blocks, but my life was broken and it needed fixing, so this is what I'm trying to do. My experience isn't telling me that I have any other options, and if you think about the way I live my life I'm not being more flamboyant online than I am in real life. However, I don't think you're going to read this.
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