The Wilful Sunflower

This is for Dr Liew... :D

So when I was home the last time, Dad kept thrusting medical journals under my nose. This time, said nose was leaking non-stop (I caught some bug again), so I was blowing it continually.

Dad said, "Don't blow your nose too hard, or the mucus will get into your Eustachian tube."

I wondered what that was all about. He elaborated, "Your Eustachian tube will get infected and you'll go deaf."

So, not only am I having to deal with the sniffles, I also now have to worry about going deaf if I blow my nose too hard. Is there a way to calculate the velocity of carbon dioxide expelled from the two hairy orifices? I mean, how hard is "too hard"? Plainly, there needs to be a certain amount of force exerted in order to dislodge... OK, I won't go any further ;P

Mind you, Dad has also told me that if I yawn too hugely, I could dislocate my jaw. Thankfully I don't catch myself yawning much, so this doesn't weigh too heavily on my mind.

But I do rub my eyes periodically - and Dad told me, a very long time ago, that rubbing one's eyes can dislodge the retina and cause one to go blind. Not that this has discouraged me from rubbing my eyes - oh no. Instead, every time I do so, I quickly open my eyes again and squint to make sure I can still see. It's a bit worrying at night, when everything is dark and I'm not sure whether it's dark because it's night, or whether it's dark because it's (loss of) sight. I'm happy to report that so far, my retinas are still intact and no discernible damage has been done. Let's just hope things stay that way.

See all the worries that plague a doctor's kid? We are the only kids on earth who get spooked into washing our hands before meals, with the spectre of Helicobacter pylori infection being held over our young heads. It's a parental weapon: "You'd better wash your hands if you don't want to catch Helicobacter!" How can you argue against microscopic invaders, when it's a well-known fact that even the head of a pin alone contains millions of bacteria?

I'm also still jumpy about getting appendicitis each time I experience some kind of cramps in the abdominal area. I keep having to remind myself that it's not on my right side, so it can't possibly be an inflamed appendix. "Whereisitwhereisitwhereisit? Oh, it's in the middle. OK. Not appendix. Whew."

And, despite Dad's lecture on salmonella in runny egg yolks, I haven't quit eating eggs prepared sunny-side-up. After all, nothing else quite hits the spot like a sunny-side-up egg. I figure I'll only live once... carpe diem!