To Die In Cairo

If you are faint of heart you may not want to read this blog. About 4 years ago I awoke in the middle of the night because I couldn’t breathe. I’m a heavy snorer and the trachea can close and did. It’s called tracheobronchomalacia, up to 99% of the tracheal collapses, I would say 100% in my case. I was in the VIP stateroom of my yacht, my wife would kick me out of the master stateroom at times if my snoring got too bad. The engine room separated the cabins on the bottom of the three decks so she couldn’t hear me. Try to imagine not being able to breathe, the first attempt at trying to bring air in NO AIR comes in, the second attempt VERY little, the third attempt at sucking as hard as you can just a bit comes in, time slows down and it’s very scary to suffocate. I can see how an elderly person dies from this because it takes so much energy to get air in. After a few more attempts a sound is made and it gets louder each attempt at sucking in air. It got loud enough to wake my wife, it’s not a pleasant sound. As the air passage is blocked I don’t think mouth to mouth recitation would work, maybe sticking a tube down the throat might. This has happened two times since then, it’s very scary and many things go through your mind when it happens. It happened tonight at dinner with a friend at a very small hole in the wall restaurant in Cairo, my friend the only one who could speak English sat across from me. As I tried to breathe many thoughts raced through my brain, I knew in his eyes he saw how serious this was, I knew him calling an ambulance was futile if I fell to the floor unconscious. I had just got back from a day trip and saw many ambulances stuck in Cairos amazingly horrible traffic. I thought about how terrible to die in that restaurant. I also knew I had a good chance to get some air in as this wasn’t my first time suffocating. I felt bad cause I knew he couldn’t help. It took a lot of energy to finally get air in and I’m very happy to report Dr. Fantastic will live another day to continue his world quest to make society kinder. On a side note, I made my Be Fantastic speech today at the largest church in the Middle East, the Cave Church. The church holds over 2000 people, no one was there but it was fun to give it. Here it is.