Birvidik

We were invited to some friends, who will remain anonymous, for dinner. (You know who you are, R&K). As we had come to expect, the food, wine and conversation were all excellent and flowed freely. We ate and drank well, but not wisely.

Bob, especially, ate and drank very well and not at all wisely. When we finally got back he collapsed into bed and fell immediately asleep, laying on his back and filling the room with stentorian snores. Windows rattled and screws worked loose from furniture. Liz resorted to earplugs and eventually managed to fall into a fitful sleep.

Just as she was falling into a deeper and more restful sleep she was suddenly awoken by Bob leaping violently out of bed, vaulting over her and landing on all fours on the floor, making a noise like a squeaking bicycle valve. He had suffered a bout of acid reflux. As he was virtually comatose and laying on his back, he had managed to inhale some of his stomach contents. His larynx and bronchi had reacted to the insult of being suddenly and unexpectedly filled with 2 molar hydrochloric acid by immediately going into spasm and closing down to the cross sectional area of a length of capillary tube. This made breathing very difficult - well, impossible to tell the truth.

Liz's medical training kicked in immediately. "He's gone into laryngospasm" she thought, accurately. "Don't worry" she cried "I'll call an ambulance" and leapt to her feet.

It's a funny thing, blood pressure. When you're in a deep sleep it drops right down, especially if, like Liz, you take beta blockers. If you then leap to your feet, your head rushes up to - well, head height, but your blood stubbornly lags behind at knee height. Liz's brain decided it didn't go much on this and immediately started to shut down. Bob's potential saviour wavered, swayed, sighed and sat down on the bed with her head between her knees and her arms hanging limply by her sides. Bob found this all very amusing, but it didn't do much to assist his breathing. It's difficult enough attempting to breathe in these trying circumstances without having to make the effort to combine it with strangled laughter.

Bob came to the conclusion that, for the time being at least, he was on his own in this. Readers of a delicate disposition should turn away now.

He put his head and shoulders on the floor and raised his backside as high as he could, reasoning that he might as well enlist the help of gravity rather than fight it. He then concentrated on trying to relax his larynx and bronchi while allowing their contents to drool out, ably assisted by the aforementioned gravity. This was made more difficult by the fact that his state of consciousness was by now approaching that of Liz. However, by concentrating on breathing out, rather than in, he slowly managed to recover his breathing to the point where he was a slightly pinker shade of blue and his awareness of the world around him slowly expanded from the pinpoint of concentration in the encroaching blackness around him

Liz slowly came round. Into her returning vision swam an appalling sight. Bob was still in his novel recovery position, with his back to her. Face on the carpet, arse in the air, stark naked. Issuing from his mouth was a noise like a squeaking pub sign in a hammer horror film. Had she been a lesser woman she would have been permanently traumatised. As it was she merely told him to pull himself together and clean up the mess he had made all over the floor.

Nurses - no man should be without one.