My backyard is filled with bulbs I planted in the fall of 2021; a way for my family to remember me in the event I died before the following spring.
The symptoms began with a sudden, persistent cough. To make matters worse, I was in the middle of following a two-week trial where quiet is expected in courtrooms. I came to dread the tiny, nagging tickle that would start in the back of my throat — impervious to the stash of Luden’s in my purse — that would crescendo into a full-blown cough. A few times I rushed from the courtroom to the safety of the hallway where I could cough without disturbing anyone.
Then came unexplained weight loss; 10 pounds in a month without even trying. As someone who’s been on nearly every diet under the sun, the weight-loss symptom was one of the biggest red flags.
Last came the low-grade fever, a rare event for me.
I went to the doctor. She listened to my chest and ordered an x-ray, followed by a CAT scan that resulted in the doctor referring me to a pulmonologist. The scans showed two small foreign nodules in the right mid-lung area: Differential diagnosis includes fungal pneumonia, granulomatous infection and malignancy.
“Malignancy” was the only diagnosis I recognized.
I grappled with the possibility that I had lung cancer. I’m practical. We all die of something, so maybe lung cancer would lead to my demise. Why not cancer? My father died of lung cancer at 65. My maternal grandmother died of cervical cancer at 38. And colon cancer runs in my family. Although I’m not a smoker, I’d spent the first 12 years of my life – including in utero – consuming second-hand smoke from both chain-smoking parents.
Time passed at a snail’s pace between the CAT scan and my appointment with one of Redding’s few pulmonologists. This provided lots of time to think, plant bulbs, meet an attorney for an estate plan and consider end-of-life wishes.
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Except for a few people, I kept the grim medical news to myself. No sense causing unnecessary alarm. Even though I’d read the “M” word in black and white, I still hadn’t seen the pulmonologist, who might have a less-dire explanation. Meanwhile, the symptoms continued. I dropped down a few sizes, which was a silver lining.
Finally, I saw the pulmonologist. My twin went with me; a lot to ask because she’d already lost a son and a husband to cancer.
The doctor ordered a lung biopsy, which would require being admitted to the hospital, and undergoing anesthesia.
I asked about his best guess. He wouldn’t commit. I already had a death-grip grasp of the definition of malignant, so I asked about those other two differential diagnoses: the fungal pneumonia and granulomatous infection. He talked about contaminated soil spores, or mold, or even bat or rodent droppings. He asked if I was a big drinker, because sometimes when people become heavily intoxicated and pass out, they vomit and aspirate the vomit into their lungs. He said that actually, the fact that my nodules were located on the right mid-lung region would be ideal for an aspiration, in a kind of ricochet way that would hurl vomit particulates against the lung wall.
I eliminated the absurd aspirated vomit explanation, which left malignancy or the inhalation of something nasty. I was prescribed antibiotics.
I checked into the hospital for the biopsy. The results declared that the nodules were benign. Another CAT scan was ordered. The images showed that the nodules were shrinking, probably due to the antibiotics. Eventually, the nodules, the cough and fever disappeared completely. My weight returned to damn normal (for me).
The last time I saw the doctor I once again asked for his best guess. He shrugged. Who knows? Human bodies are mysteries. He again mentioned the subject of aspirated vomit, which was really starting to bug me.
The holidays were approaching, and I was making cookies, some of which I’d freeze. I used a trick that my mother-in-law taught me decades ago when she froze berries: Freeze the berries on a cookie sheet. Pour the frozen berries into a bag, insert a straw into the nearly closed bag and inhale until the bag was deflated of trapped air that could cause ice crystals. After that, just quickly seal the bag with a twist tie or rubber band and pop the whole thing in the freezer. Yes, I do have one of those FoodSaver devices, but they’re so powerful that they crush fragile baked goods.
Anyway, there I was on what would become an extremely insightful day of holiday baking. I inserted the straw into a bag of flash-frozen cookies to remove the air. As I inhaled, I felt a tiny piece of cookie crumb fly into my mouth. With that sensation came an instant epiphany: I was 100-percent certain that my lung infection was caused by aspirated cookie crumbs.
Doni’s ginger cookies were the lung-infection culprit.
I immediately called the doctor’s office. I needed to report this great revelation to him. Call the New England Journal of Medicine! Stop the presses!
Of course, the doctor was unavailable to speak on the phone. I asked the receptionist if she would please relay my important cookie-crumb message to the doctor. As far as I was concerned, this was crucial information that could arm this specialist and his colleagues with another plausible possibility for patients’ seemingly inexplicable lung infections; something to consider besides cancer, or the inhalation of gross stuff or the aspiration of vomit while unconscious: Aspirated baked goods.
The receptionist sounded harried. My hunch is that she never passed along my message. Perhaps she thought I was crazy. I don’t care. I’m writing about this now so this information will be out there on the worldwide web where someone might Google, “lung infection causes”. Maybe they’ll see this column, slap their forehead and say, “Of course! Food crumbs sucked through a straw!”
Apologies to my physician friends, but this story reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:
What’s the difference between God and a doctor?
God doesn’t think he’s a doctor.
I know a God complex isn’t true of all doctors, and I know many fine doctors, but I’ve also lived long enough to hear stories from regular folks who sometimes feel frustrated when they have first-hand information they believe might shed new light on a condition or ailment; information that might help other patients. Maybe it’s something they’ve noticed or experienced themselves. Maybe it’s something that borders on a wives’ tale that defies common sense or science. What could it hurt to consider something as seemingly absurd as aspirated cookie crumbs?
Three cheers for health professionals who take the time to listen, and even file strange information away for the day when another patient has a similar vexing condition.
“Hmm. So you’re suggesting that sucking air through a straw in a bag of cookies caused your lung infection?”
“Yes, doctor! That’s exactly what I’m suggesting!”
I’m betting that like me, some of you have first-hand revelations that are worthy of being reported in a medical journal, too. Let’s hear them. Think of the lives we’ll save.
In the meantime, each spring when my yard is ablaze in tulips, daffodils and freesias, I feel grateful to have cheated death, and to have lived for the last five years to see the flowers growing strong, the very ones I’d planted back when I was convinced I had cancer. Those flowers also remind me that never, under any circumstances, do I suck air from a bag a cookies without first covering the straw with cheesecloth. Learn from me. You’re welcome.
