Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor, and you're listening to episode 192 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're all doing well and that you're seeing progress with your English and, more specifically, I hope that these episodes have helped you with your listening skills and that you feel more confident now when you're listening and that you're able to understand more.
And in today's episode, I'm going to talk about the time when my son choked.
If you don't know the word choke, this refers to when someone has something stuck in their throat and they can't breathe.
Well, or maybe they can't breathe at all, right.
So why am I talking about this?
Well, I thought it would be interesting to, from time to time, talk about some interesting stories from my past.
I think that I tend to get a little more personal in my bonus episodes and my advanced episodes.
I'm not sure, but I would guess that I...
I'm a little bit more open and personal in those episodes, but I'd like to talk about some interesting stories from time to time in these normal episodes as well, because I think people like hearing more personal stories.
And this story was definitely something that I will never forget.
It was terrifying.
And I thought it would be something interesting to talk about in an episode.
So maybe I'll talk about some other stories in future episodes.
We'll see.
Hopefully you like this type of topic.
And I want to remind you again that, for those of you who want to take conversation classes with me, if you actually want to practice talking with me, just with conversation, nothing formal, then you can check out my teacher profile.
I'll put the link down below in the description.
This won't be for most of you, but for those of you that feel like this could be a big help for you.
You really want to talk to me personally and you have the financial ability to do so, to pay for classes, obviously.
You're welcome to check that out and schedule a class if you want.
So the link to that is down below.
And of course you have the link to my membership.
If you want my listening training, my pronunciation training, my advanced episodes, my sound training, all of that kind of stuff is available for different tiers of my membership.
So that link is down below as well.
And the link to my U.S.
Conversations podcast is also down below.
I recommend that you check that out, because in that podcast I talk to different people from around the country.
It's really interesting.
It's a lot of fun. and it's great practice for your listening.
It gives you practice listening to more than one person talking.
That's an essential skill.
So if you want to check that out, the link is down below.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let me talk about the time my son choked.
So to give a little bit of backstory, backstory refers to like, the information behind the story.
That kind of helps you with the context of the story.
So this happened in our last apartment in Guadalajara, Mexico.
I lived in several apartments throughout the years when I lived in Guadalajara.
This happened when we were living in our last apartment, and at the time, my son was about 10 months old.
And my son has something that's very particular about him, and that is that he has always loved eating.
Today, he still loves eating.
And when he was a baby and when he was discovering food for the first time, you could tell that he really liked eating.
And my son eats a lot.
He eats more than any other kid I know.
It's funny.
People will often tell you oh, when your kids get older, you'll see how much it costs to feed them, because they're going to eat a lot.
And I laugh because sometimes I already know this.
My son eats a lot and he's only three years old.
He sometimes eats as much as my wife, for example.
That's how much he eats.
So my son loves eating.
And back to the story.
We were in our last apartment in Guadalajara.
I remember that I had finished eating and my wife and my son were still eating and I was on the couch working and my wife was feeding my son watermelon, and my son was loving it.
And I was working quietly doing my thing.
And suddenly I hear my wife get up really quickly and take a close look at my son.
And she realized that his lips were purple.
They were not the normal color, the pink color or whatever that you would expect lips to be.
And she noticed that his breathing was labored more.
When you have labored breathing, that means that it's hard for you to breathe.
You're making an effort to breathe, to get air in and out.
And we both freaked out because we realized that there was a bunch of watermelon in his throat that was obstructing him.
It was obstructing his breathing.
And so we kind of freaked out.
I shot up from the couch.
When you shoot up from a certain position, it means that you immediately stand up really fast.
So I shot up and ran over there and we tried hitting his upper back to get the food out and it wasn't working and he was not breathing well, he was taking these big pauses and between his breaths it was really scary.
Uh, he was gasping.
The breaths that he was taking were not normal breaths.
He was like gasping for air, trying to get more air in.
And i remember seeing his face.
He was just in distress, like he was scared and uncertain about what was happening to him and he was in pain and just.
You could see all that on his face and it was terrible.
And We lived right across the street from our landlord at that time.
And we knew that our landlord had the personal phone number of some important policeman or something.
She had told us that when we moved in.
Like hey, if you ever need something, I have this.
So my wife, in that moment, remembered that and we both ran with my son across the street yelling for her, telling her what was happening, trying to figure out who to call.
And obviously I just ended up calling 911 right then.
We weren't going to search for some number or whatever.
And I called 911 while my wife and our landlord were trying to dislodge the food from his throat.
When you dislodge something, this means that you get it out of its stuck position so that it's no longer stuck.
It's no longer in that place.
So they tried to dislodge the food from his mouth while I called 911.
And calling 911 at that time in Mexico was a horrible experience.
I called once and it went to voicemail, meaning that it just kept ringing.
And then I got the machine that told me that they couldn't answer the phone.
And then I called again and the same thing happened.
No one answered.
And it went to voicemail.
I was so mad.
I couldn't believe that I was calling the emergency number.
And I called more than once.
And no one was answering me.
And like they wanted me to leave a message or something.
I was so mad.
I was yelling.
And while this was happening...
I looked over and saw them still trying to dislodge the food and help him breathe.
And my son was still in distress.
His breathing was still the same.
He was gasping for air and taking a long time between his breaths and they just couldn't get the food out.
And when I think back to that exact moment of when I was unable to get a hold of someone.
When you get a hold of someone, this means that you're able to contact them by phone.
You get them to answer the phone so you can talk to them.
So when I think back to that moment when I was unable to get a hold of someone, when I was calling 9-1-1 and I was looking over at my son, and When I think back to that now I get emotional.
It is really kind of hard for me to put myself back in that position again, because at that time I thought I was going to lose my son.
I really did.
I remember thinking, wow, I'm about to lose my son.
And it was the most awful feeling I could ever imagine because nothing was changing.
We couldn't get the food out.
His breathing wasn't getting better.
No one was coming.
No one was answering my 911 call.
And it was just awful.
Another neighbor was there with us and he was able to think quickly.
And I can't remember exactly because probably of all the emotion and everything.
Everything that was going on at the time.
But I think that that neighbor was able to get a hold of the Red Cross, which is like a humanitarian organization that offers services like hospital type services.
And so we were able to get the Red Cross to send an ambulance, if I'm not mistaken.
I think that's what happened.
But again, so much was happening.
It was so chaotic that I can't remember the details.
But, if I'm remembering correctly, the Red Cross sent an ambulance to come and and um, this was at least some progress.
Of course, i was still uh, trying to call 9-1-1, i think, when i called the third time uh, they answered finally, and it was so infuriating, infuriating.
Infuriating means that it causes you to be really angry.
So talking to the person when I was finally able to get a hold of someone was infuriating for me because I was yelling at him that my son was choking and he needed an ambulance And the person was like trying to interrupt me and stop me and ask me just the dumbest questions like oh hold on sir.
How old is your son?
Right.
Hold on, sir.
Can you tell me this information?
Just stuff that was irrelevant when you're dealing with a life or death situation. situation.
I was yelling at him that my son could barely breathe and needed an ambulance, and he didn't want to send one.
And he just wanted to go through his list of questions.
And I was screaming at him over the phone.
I don't remember what happened if I just the phone to that neighbor that was with me, or if I ended up hanging up because the neighbor had already got the Red Cross to send an ambulance.
I don't remember exactly, but I just remember thinking that it was unacceptable that I was calling the emergency services.
It took me like three times to get them to answer the phone.
I was telling them that my son could not breathe right and needed an ambulance.
And they just insisted on asking dumb questions and trying to slow me down and not wanting to send an ambulance.
I couldn't believe it.
And I'm thankful that the Red Cross sent an ambulance.
But by the time the ambulance got there it was like 30 minutes after we first got to the landlord's house.
So of course that was not good, but thank God that while we were still there and the ambulance hadn't come, my son's breathing started to get a little bit better.
We started to notice that he was able to breathe just a little bit more easily.
And we suspected that the watermelon was melting.
We weren't really dislodging the watermelon, but because it's watermelon, thankfully it melts right.
So I think that's what happened was that the watermelon was starting to melt.
There was a lot of watermelon in his throat, of course, because that's what caused him to choke.
So, when I think about it, it's a little strange that, out of all the different foods that he could have choked on, he choked on watermelon because it doesn't seem like that would be the most dangerous food.
But that's what it was.
I guess it just accumulated in his throat and he wasn't swallowing it well.
But like I said, thankfully, his breathing started getting better.
Things started to calm down and there was a certain point where, When I remember thinking we're in the clear, when you're in the clear, this means that, like you're safe now the danger, the risk is gone, or whatever.
So I remember that moment when I realized that he wasn't going to die, that his breathing was getting a little better.
And that was one of the biggest reliefs that I have ever experienced.
I can't remember a lot of instances in my life where I went from thinking that something was like the worst thing in the world as it was happening to me.
And then suddenly it went away.
That was really the textbook definition of relief, when I realized that my son was not going to choke and he was not going to die.
So he eventually was able to start to breathe somewhat normally.
And I held him in my arms while the ambulance came.
And I remember that he fell asleep like instantly in my arms while we were waiting, because he was so incredibly exhausted from all the effort he had had to make to In order to breathe and stay alive during that incident.
And he was so exhausted that he fell asleep in my arms.
But I could hear that there was like something while he was breathing.
Like it sounded like mucus or something.
It didn't sound like he was just breathing 100 normally, like there was still something that was causing him to breathe a little bit more heavily, or he wasn't able to breathe exactly right.
So of course, when the ambulance came we took him to the Red Cross And they ran their tests and x-ray, I think.
And they saw that he had an infection because of the incident.
And thankfully, he was all right.
He just had this infection.
He had had a pretty rough time with that incident.
But we were able to take him home after that.
And from that day until, let's say, a month later, I think he was not 100 percent normal in terms of his age, health.
He had this infection.
I don't know exactly how all of this works, but he had a fever like every day for weeks afterwards.
It wasn't like the fever was all day, not like that, but at a certain time of day i forget if it was at night or something we would feel that he had a light fever, Not a heavy fever, not like he was super hot, but we could see that his body was fighting off something like every day for like a few weeks afterwards.
And I can't remember exactly, but it wasn't until like a month after that that he was just like perfectly normal again.
And so the damage from that incident was lasted a while and thankfully, my son survived all of that.
Thankfully, I'm telling you this story now with relief and not with sadness, but there are some lessons that I learned from this incident.
Number one it's really important to know about the emergency services where you live.
If you live in your home country and you have already had experience with this, then you probably know exactly what to do if there's an emergency.
But I was living in a foreign country.
I didn't know about their 911 system.
I didn't know how different it was from ours here.
Here, if I'm not mistaken, I think if you call 911, they can locate you immediately.
They're very quick to send an ambulance if needed.
It's very different, let's say.
So that's something that I should have known more about uh, before that incident.
Another lesson i learned was that, for me at least um, if it's possible, i should have a car when i have young children especially.
Some of you uh, might say that this isn't necessary where you live, because you can get to the hospital really quickly on foot or whatever, but for me at least, I want to have a car that I can use to take my children to the hospital if necessary.
At that time, I did not have a car when that incident happened, and after that I ended up buying a car.
It was a terrible car that I had to sell afterwards, and I think I talked about that in an episode.
No one was sending an ambulance and I couldn't drive my son to the hospital.
I don't want to have that happen again.
So I think, if possible, when you have young kids, it's better to have a car to be able to take them quickly to a hospital if necessary.
That's just my opinion, but that's what I feel.
That's how I feel after this incident.
Another lesson is that it's essential to know how to properly dislodge food from a young child's throat right.
We had taken classes prior to that about how to get food out of someone's throat like a young child's throat.
I can't remember the name of the maneuver, the technique that you do, but I remember learning about how to do that with my baby, or whatever.
But after that incident I talked to someone in my family who is actually a police officer and he told me how to properly do it, like he showed uh, how he has done it in the past with kids, and it was different from what i had learned.
I'm not an expert on this, so i'm not going to tell you how to do it with your kids, but if you have young children, you should do this research to try to learn how to properly dislodge food.
So now I think I am probably a little better equipped to deal with that type of situation, if it happens again.
I hope, but I think I am.
And one last lesson this is one of the most important ones is to cherish your family, to love and appreciate and enjoy your family and not to take them for granted.
I felt like I almost lost my son and it was the most devastating, horrible feeling that I was feeling at the time.
Even afterwards I would just replay everything in my head and I just felt just so horrible, thinking that I could have lost my son.
And it really made me cherish my family more.
It made me love them and appreciate them and enjoy them more.
And even just talking about this right now in this episode makes me feel this way, right?
I know this was a really personal and somewhat emotional story.
I didn't know how emotional I would get while telling it.
Um, I don't know why I chose this story.
I think I just thought about it recently.
Um, maybe I'll tell other stories in the future that aren't so heavy like this one, but I think there were some good lessons in this story as well.
And maybe that's why I wanted to tell it.
But, uh, I'm sorry if this was a little too personal or emotional.
But hopefully you guys enjoyed it and it was good practice for your listening.
And I want to remind you that you can sign up for my membership if you want my listening training or my pronunciation training.
That's something that people tend to neglect.
If you want to learn how to pronounce things better, I recommend you become a Listening Time super member, family member or VIP so that you can get my pronunciation seminars in which I show you how to pronounce things more like a native speaker.
And of course, you can get my advanced episodes if you become a Listening Time family member.
And you can check out my U.S.
Conversations podcast if you want to practice with more than one person talking at the same time.
That podcast will be great practice for your listening.
So all those links are down below, along with the link to my teacher profile as well.
And thank you so much for listening to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
