October 2020
For the past couple of weeks, every time I drink anything, I tend to cough. No, it’s not the covid kind of cough, it’s more like liquid going down the wrong pipe kind. I have to cough long and hard, before it clears up. Then, the little itchy part in the upper part of my chest clears up after an hour or so.
Today, after drinking a glass of carrot juice with ginger, I had the same experience. The itch and minor pain are still lingering. However, today it dawned on me that my father has the same issue.
My father has had this issue but noticed it more since his radiation treatment to cure his vocal-cord cancer. Could this be a genetic thing? To investigate the matter further, I called my father and asked if he knows anyone else in his family with similar issues. He immediately said, his father had the same issue.
So, this could be a genetic thing. May be as we age, the tongue and mouth muscles relax and don’t guide the material we are eating or drinking down to the correct pipe. Though I had this issue as a child with food and everyone blamed it on my gluttony! (Can’t tell you how many times I almost died of chocking on food.
In hindsight, gluttony in itself is a sign of lack of mindfulness! The idea, of mindful drinking or eating is perhaps the lesson here. Earlier in these notes, I discussed the realization of mindful eating, but today I realized drinking needs to be mindful too.
Imagine drinking and eating with the focus on ensuring the content goes down your esophagus and not your trachea. Truly, it can be a form of meditation, where you have to forget about the elections, the pandemic, the chaotic world, including the odd events in one’s life.
I guess the universe is guiding me to remain mindful at all times even when drinking a glass of water. If this indeed is a genetic deformity, I am going to thank my grandpa (photo above) and his father and my ancestors before them for a mechanical brilliance!
AMBKJ