For no particular reason, I sneezed 10 times nonstop the moment I woke up this morning. The first couple of sneezes were accompanied by sympathetic sounds of ‘Bless You’ and ‘Santinho’ from different directions of my house.
Incidentally, diverse cultures have their own unique ways of responding to sneezes. In English, it is “God bless you” and, in German, they say “Gesundheit”, which translates into “good health to you”. In French, the response is “À vos souhaits”, meaning “for your wishes”, and, in Spanish, it becomes “Salud”, which in Italian gets switched to “Salute”, and all imply wishing good health to the sneezing person.
In Portugal, however, we say “Santinho” after a sneeze, as an appeal to the saints for protection of one’s soul. It is attributed to Pope Gregory the Great, who ruled in the sixth century during the Black Plague.
Sneezing or coughing were obvious symptoms of illness, so it became customary to respond to a sneeze with blessings or wishes of good health. After all, if someone sneezed, it was likely they were soon going to die.
But, in this age of information overload and Doctor Google, it is never a good idea to dissect one’s medical problems by oneself, because in the vast ocean of health advice available online, one can easily get convinced into thinking that one is invariably suffering from some sort of incurable disease or the other. Even if one is not, that is.
Nevertheless, curiosity being what it is, I had to explore everything ever written about ‘hay-fever’ immediately. Though, I should have stopped with the indication, description, causes and treatment of Rhinitis (medical term for hay-fever). But, of course, I did not. And soon, I was so fascinated with my own self-analysis that I decided to investigate further.
Before long, everything I inspected – whether it was pain in my jaw, cramps in upper abdomen, ticklish sensation in my throat or swollen ankles after a brisk walk – all of it pointed towards serious sicknesses, which, till now, I was not even aware that I was afflicted with.
Additionally, I found that I was sneezing so much because, maybe, I was an acute bronchitis patient or I had probably contracted a flu virus that had inflamed my bronchi (the big tubes that bring air to my lungs) or perhaps I was recovering from a serious bout of pneumonia without actually being aware of it. The imaginary possibilities were limitless.
As I read up the research papers, I was overwhelmed with a sudden wave of anxiety. In order to suppress it, I toyed with the idea of self-medication. I mean, why could patients not heal themselves by, well, themselves? But before I could turn myself into a doctor, my cell-phone rang. I let it ring for some time before picking it up.
“How you feeling, Mum?” our daughter was on the line.
“What’s wrong with me?” I said.
“You tell me”, she countered.
I sniffed in response.
“You get hay-fever this time of the year”, she stated.
“Who, me?” I feigned surprise.
“When the pollen scatters around”, she continued.
I tried to stop the ticklish feeling in my nose.
“Wear a mask, Mom”, she insisted.
“I am fine”, I said.
“Or else you will keep sneezing nonstop”, she was firm.
“I am practising self-healing”, I informed.
“Right”, she said.
“Achoo!” on cue I sneezed into the receiver.
“Mask up, mother”, she repeated.
“Bless you”, I muttered nodding at the phone.
By Nickunj Malik
|| features@portugalresident.com
Nickunj Malik’s journalistic career began when she walked into the office of Khaleej Times newspaper in Dubai thirty-one years ago and got the job. Since then, her articles have appeared in various newspapers all over the world. She now resides in Portugal and is married to a banker who loves numbers more than words.
