The Worst Way?

Couldn't sleep again last night.  Between anxiety, my aching knee, and the kids screaming, I just wasn't able to do it.  2:43 am:  Finally get settled back into bed.

Mind racing from this to that, it feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest.  This must be what it feels like to drown.  Drowning!  Yeah, that'll calm me down;  I'll just think about drowning.  My mind switches focus to an untimely fate and I feel myself gasping for breath.  What would it be like to drown?  I'm not talking about drowning in river rapids while trying to get back into your raft.  No.  No desperate gasps for air here.  This was more like the getting dumped in the Hudson while wearing concrete sneakers type.

Think about it.  Assume you sank straight to the bottom without a struggle. You are calm and can feel the pressure of the deep building in your head; you can hear your pulse slowing in your ear.  Holding out as long as possible, the lack of oxygen crushes your chest.  You know it is inevitable. You must breathe.

Instinctively you draw in a breath, only this time you half swallow, half choke on a lung-full of water. Violent coughing now ensues as your lungs are flooded with water and explode.  With the respiratory system down, the circulatory system is screaming towards cardiac arrest and therein lies the worst part:  You're toast and you're brain still knows it.  Though you've ceased being an organism, your central nervous system and all of its chemical and electrochemical reactions are still letting you know how bad your situation sucks and still letting you feel pain.  I can only imagine that things are pretty chaotic at this point.  Maxing out on endorphins and adrenaline in a last ditch, self-medicating effort, your body goes haywire while your brain fades to black.  You're dead.

Man that would suck.  Sure, you could conjure up a million more creative and seemingly worse ways to go, but this does it for me.  Suddenly, I have no desire to go to the beach again.  I need some sleep.