I've got the Oat Lung

So, yesterday started off as a normal day preparing for one of my Therapeutics exams. I decided I was hungry for some cereal. Unfortunately, all we had were some shavings from Ben's Frosted Mini Wheats and the full box of Cheerios Crunch that I don't really care for. I decided to go for the Cheerios Crunch... after all, no one else was going to eat it and I can't stand wasting perfectly fine food. So that decision sealed my fate for the next two days (at least). As I was eating (at a normal pace mind you) I started coughing and as I took a breath for air an oat cluster was caught up in the current. I actually felt it going down into my lung.

Of course, this oat cluster is way to large to be able to just cough it up (even when upside down). So I had to go to my exam with a foreign object lodged in my lung.  Before I begin to describe this weird feeling, let me advise you now....Do NOT try this at home!... or anywhere for that matter. 

During my exam, I kept coughing like something should be coming up... but it didn't of course. I could feel where the oat cluster was in my lung (weird sensation) and the pain radiated out from there across my chest.

So when I got home later that night, I made Ben call the Poison Control Center (1 800 222-1222) to see if I needed to go to the ER or something. They said (if it wasn't effecting my breathing) it would likely dissolve eventually and then just work its way out in the mucus. So, that was a relief.

I went to bed last night and in the middle of the night I would wake up, gasping for air and coughing harder than I have in my life. This morning also was not a pretty sight. I am okay indoors but when I had to walk from my car to the school...I thought I was going to die and my lungs were going to explode.  The frostbite air was constricting my lungs and I was hardly able to breath without feeling like I was getting stabbed in the chest. As I was walking back to my car when school ended, the same thing happened except worse... my throat felt like it was starting to close off.  So I am home now, raw throat from coughing, stabbing pain when I swallow and trying to sip on chicken broth to sooth the inflammation. I am not a happy puppy.

Suffice it to say...I am alive.