I think that I would have been more afraid if I really truly couldn't breathe? I mean, breathing wasn't exactly easy, but I learned a long time ago that if I'm choking on something (or even if someone is choking me - I learned this in self-defense and judo, not by actually being attacked and choked, I promise) that a lot of the time, if I can just focus on being relaxed and breathing through my nose, I can handle it a lot better than if I panic.

If I hadn't been able to cough-gag the bite of food up, I might have started to get scared. As it was, I remember thinking "Okay, you can still breathe, so this is okay. I can't get it back up by working my throat. Okay. But I can still breathe, so I'm okay. Let's try swallowing. That made it worse. I can still breathe, so I'm okay. Don't panic. Stay calm. You're okay. You can do this. Breathing's a little harder. That's okay, you can still breathe. We're going to try coughing and see if that does it, and if not, get Spouse's attention and if that doesn't work, Heimlich on the chair, that's going to suck but it should work. You can breathe, you can do this, you're okay."