The old wives’ tale warns us that if you hold in a sneeze, your head might explode. That won’t happen, but you can do yourself some harm.
A sneeze is a very complicated thing that involves many areas of the brain. A sneeze is a reflex triggered by sensory stimulation of the membranes in the nose, resulting in a coordinated and forceful expulsion of air through the mouth and nose.The Guinness Book of World Records reports the longest sneezing bout ever recorded was that of a schoolgirl from the United Kingdom. She started sneezing on January 13, 1981, and didn’t stop sneezing for 978 days.
The air expelled by sneezes is said to travel up to one hundred miles per hour, and an unimpeded sneeze sends two to five thousand bacteria-filled droplets into the air. Holding in a sneeze potentially can cause fractures in the nasal cartilage, nosebleeds, burst eardrums, hearing loss, vertigo, detached retinas, or temporary swelling called facial emphysema. Therefore it is best to let your sneeze fly, but please cover your nose and mouth.
Several years ago at the Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park, I came upon someone having a seizure in the street. As I attempted to help the patient, someone from the crowd reached into the nearby garbage can and insisted that I stick the dirty spoon he had found into the person’s mouth to keep him from swallowing his tongue. The guy with the spoon didn’t seem to be impressed with my medical degree and “politely” told me that I didn’t know what the (insert vulgar NY expression here:___) I was talking about.
This is not an uncommon belief, but it is not possible to swallow your tongue. The tonguecan block the opening of the airway and one of the first things that you are taught in basic life support is that if someone is having difficulty breathing, you should tilt his or her head and lift the chin. This helps to remove the tongue as an obstruction. If you do come upon someone who is having a seizure, just make sure that he is safe and won’t hurt himself. Do not put a bacteria-covered spoon in the mouth. Call for help and before you know it, the seizure will probably stop on its own.
CHAPTER 9. GETTING OLDER
I can’tbelieve it’s not over yet. I feel as though this evening has taken years off my life. Leyner and Jeremy have been separated, and there are only a few stragglers left picking at the remnants of Eloise’s glorious buffet.
Even Leyner seems beaten down from a combination of toxic tequila, amorous adventures, and verbal violence. He is leaning on the credenza and says to me as he agonizingly stretches his neck, “I used to be able to drink, womanize, and brawl and come out of it all as fresh as a daisy. Now I feel limp and shriveled like a rotting clump of stinkweed.”
Leyner stands and arches his back uncomfortably. “Did I mention my prostate feels a little swollen?”
With that, I turn and exit the party.
There are many advantages to getting older — early bird specials, senior citizen discounts, the fact that people don’t ask you to help move a sofa up a flight of stairs, and getting away with saying whatever the hell pops into your head. But there are some perplexing changes ahead for all of us….
5:33P.M.
Gberg: Maestro.
Leyner: Hey you… give me five minutes (at most)… go get something… then we’ll work.
Gberg: Surely.
5:45P.M.
Leyner: You there?
Gberg: Yes, sir.
Leyner: What should we do?
5:50P.M.
Gberg: Light this piece of shit on fire and go drink ourselves silly.
Leyner: Brilliant idea.
Gberg: Or we can talk about the health alert that I just received about mycobacterium bovis in U.S.-born children.
Leyner: What the hell is that?
Gberg: You are so filled with all of this medical knowledge, I was hoping you could fill me in.
Gberg: I am waiting.
Leyner: What is it? Some mushroom thing, some fungal thing?
Leyner: Some fungal cow thing.
Gberg: You are getting warm with the cow.
Gberg: Sounds perverse.
Gberg: Give up?
Leyner: I give up.
Gberg: Similar to TB (mycobacterium tuberculosis).
5:55P.M.
Leyner: Duh… should have known that.
Gberg: Infection that you can get from the milk of infected cattle.
Gberg: Unpasteurized cheese and stuff.
Leyner: People should just drink cow’s blood… like the Masai… that would solve the problem of mycobacterium and lactose intolerance.
Gberg: You should run the Department of Health.
Leyner: Thank you.
Gberg: And Homeland Security.
Leyner: Homeland Senility.
Gberg: We have to finish this book first.
You finally have time and money to relax, travel, and have a good meal. The bad news is you probably can barely taste this meal.
Starting at age forty-five, tastebuds begin to lose much of their sensitivity. Older people often lose their ability to sense bitter or salty flavors altogether. You start your life with about nine thousand tastebuds and in old age you have less than half of that.
You want some more bad news? Aging also causes decreased hearing, sight, smell, and touch.
All the hairs on our head contain pigment cells that contain melanin. Pigment cells in our hair follicles gradually die as we age. The decrease in melanin causes the hair to become a more transparent color like gray, silver, or white.
Premature gray hair is hereditary, but it has also been associated with smoking and vitamin deficiencies. Early onset of gray hair (from birth to puberty) can be associated with medical syndromes including dyslexia.
A more interesting question is why old ladies insist on trying to cover up their gray hair with bright blue hair dye.
Some of us don’t have a lot of inches to lose. In height, that is.
Unfortunately, we all will get a little shorter as we age. This takes place over many years, and ultimately we all lose an inch or so. Gravity is responsible for some of this height loss. You lose muscle and fat as you age and gravity weighs down especially on the bones in your spine and may cause compression. This explains why all those senior drivers in Florida can barely see over the dashboard.
The easy answer would be to work in a carnival, but it is actually not that simple.
At menopause, the ratio of male hormones, or androgens, to estrogen begins to change. This can produce mild increases in facial hair. The amount or thickness of facial hair is hereditary and how thickly hair follicles are distributed throughout the skin is determined at birth. Some ethnic groups or nationalities are more likely to develop facial hair than others.