Vagus Vacation
I want to talk about my brother a bit. Jim is a pretty good guy. He follows Homestar Runner; he teaches school; he works at a movie theater. He has a wife and a dog. He also has an interesting reaction to some things he finds really, really funny: he passes out. The first time it happened to him, I was telling him a joke…oh, okay, here’s the joke I told:
A man walks by a natatorium and sees a banner stating “Paraolympic Swim Meet”. He goes in, intrigued, just in time to catch the 50 meter freestyle. The first contestant appears, and it’s a person with no arms. The second contestant appears, and it’s a person with no legs. The third contestant appears, and it’s just a head without a body. They hop up to the starting platforms, the gun fires, and they dive into the water.
Immediately, the head sinks to the bottom of the pool. The other two contestants manage with some degree of difficulty to traverse the pool and return. After the race, an official notices that the head at the bottom of the pool is still showing signs of life, so the official dives in to get him. The head comes back up to the surface, finally exhales, and says, “You practice wiggling your ears for FIFTEEN YEARS, and one minute before the race someone puts a swim cap on you…”
Jim laughed at this joke and then went completely still. He then keeled over. Of course, we thought this was just a joke, part of his act. As it turns out, he passed out from laughing. Somehow, an electron fired causing a reaction in his vagus nerve, and that caused him to pass out. He’s had it happen before, and every time, it’s somewhat scary to watch. Laughing, silence, clunk.
He was at my parents’ house last night after a “grandma’s shower” for my mom put on by some of her school friends. We were there as well, and immediately after dinner, Jim wants to show me a trick. He puts a dime in the middle of his forehead, puts a shot glass in front of him on the table, and starts banging his chin into the table, presumably in an effort to dislodge the dime from his forehead. For some reason, this just seemed really, really funny to me….
The next thing I know, I’m getting up off of the floor.
I’m OK now, except for a slight headache.
The Garrison Keillor Joke Show is April 17. DON’T LISTEN AND DRIVE!
Oh, and how long do you think it’ll take Jacob to figure out how to "get" Daddy? What a great way to stop your father cold in his tracks!
Ok, Kevin needs to avoid fuzzy placentas and funny jokes. 🙂
Well, that was the first time. There have been several since. Once in the car at a stop light (scarry), once in the office at the theater in front of co-workers (scared them), a couple of times at home, one of those with pizza in my mouth (gross). Needless to say, I try to avoid laughing hard at things I find funny. Sometimes you just can’t help it. It is an autonomic response caused by stimulation of the vagus nerve. It goes pretty much like this… stimulus, blood vessles dilate radically in brain, blood pressure drops drastically for an instant, blackout. The blackout portion is usually for no more than a few seconds, and my brain comes back online before the body does. The brain tries to send signals to my muscles to move but all the muscles hear is white noise and confused impulses so I twitch somewhat while coming out of it. I’ve talked to the doctors and it seems there is nothing to be done about it, other than avoid funny jokes, and who wants to do that? I think I’d rather take my chances laughing than be a sour-puss the rest of my life.