that bar is my guess at his carbon dioxide. the numbers above it are the stopwatch and the stopwatch is not guessing.
DUANE'S HICCUPS — WHAT'S BEEN TRIED
STARTED THE 30TH OF LAST MONTH. THIS IS DAY 11. HE IS BEHIND THE MINNOW TANKS RIGHT NOW AND HE IS FINE, HE IS JUST ANNOYED.
HE SEES DR. SALMINEN ON THE 14TH. THAT IS SETTLED, SO DON'T START.
READ THIS BEFORE YOU SUGGEST ANYTHING
A hiccup is two separate events and everybody gets this wrong. First the diaphragm — the flat muscle under his lungs — pulls down all at once, nobody asked it to. Then about thirty-five thousandths of a second later the glottis, the door at the top of the windpipe, slams shut. The noise is the second one. The noise is the door, not the muscle. I had him hiccup with his mouth wide open by the bait cooler Thursday to settle an argument and it sounded exactly the same, so the mouth has nothing to do with it and neither does what he's saying at the time.
The signal runs down the phrenic nerve and back up the vagus, and both of those go right past his neck. Nothing above the collarbone gets a vote. That is why "just relax about it" is not a cure, it is a sentence, and I do not want to hear it again from the propane outfit.
Every cure that has ever worked on anybody does one of exactly two things: raises the carbon dioxide in the blood, or physically scratches the back of the throat. That is the entire list. If your idea doesn't do one of those two, it isn't a cure, it's conversation, and I've got leeches to bag.
His rate is 9.2 a minute and has been since day three. Rate holds steady inside a bout. It slows when the carbon dioxide comes up, which means the stopwatch can tell you a cure is working ten minutes before anybody in this shop has an opinion about it. Watch the gap column. The gap column doesn't like anybody.
Ordinary is five to sixty hiccups and then it quits on its own. Past forty-eight hours it's called intractable, which means something is leaning on a nerve somewhere between his ear and his stomach. That is a doctor's problem, not a board's. Fourteenth. Salminen. That's that.
THE CURES. TRY THEM ON THE SHEET.
go ahead and use them. every one of these moves him. the clock will tell you by how much.
1
DRY SUGAR. A HEAPING SPOON. SWALLOWED WITH NO WATER ON TOP OF IT. DRY. The grit drags across the back of the throat on the way down and THAT is the whole cure — it's a real jolt on the vagus. Water just goes down and does nothing. He drank water on top of it Tuesday and ruined the test, look at the times, you can see it right there in the column.
DRAG THE SPOON RIGHT ACROSS THE BOARD. ALL THE WAY. →
BEST: 11 min 40 sec, Sat. average of six: 4 min 12 WORKS. best thing on the board.
2
HOLD THE BREATH. A LONG ONE. NOT A POLITE ONE. This is carbon dioxide, not concentration. Twenty seconds and up or don't bother. Let go early and you get a rebound run of three or four fast ones — that's normal, that's expected, that is not the cure failing, that is him breathing it back off.
HOLD THE SPACE BAR. OR PRESS AND HOLD THE PAD.
HOLD ▸ (SPACE)
Salminen's nurse gave me this one. works when he actually does it.
3
WATER FROM THE FAR RIM OF THE GLASS. Bend over the glass and drink off the side away from you. It works because of where it puts the throat and the neck, not because it's clever, and half the men who show me this one think the cleverness is the active ingredient. Tip it the ordinary way and you have simply had a drink of water.
GRAB THE GLASS AND TIP IT PAST THE FAR RIM LINE. TILT: 0°
FAR RIM — PAST THIS
near rim (nothing)
Marnie Ruonavaara showed me. about 2 min, repeatable.
4
BOO. SOMEBODY JUMPS OUT AT HIM. Least reliable thing on this board and always has been. A startle is adrenaline and adrenaline is not the vagus, so there's no reason for it to do anything, and about one try in seven it does anyway. Keep pressing it and the results column will bear that out. Leonard thinks his is special. It isn't.
BOO!
1 for 7 by my count. Leonard says 4 for 5. Leonard has never held a stopwatch in his life.
5
PAPER BAG
The bag's mechanism is fine — it's carbon dioxide, same as holding it. My objection is that the propane outfit has done it four times and timed it zero times. BRING ME A NUMBER.
6
SUGAR DOSENT WORK IT JUST HURTS
his times say otherwise. 11 min 40 sec, Sat.
7
PULL ON HIS TONGUE. Straight out, firm, count of five.
Ray. Legitimate — that's the throat again. buys about 40 sec.
8
LEMON WEDGE, BITE IT.
1 min 05, once. Also the throat. Not the sourness, whatever Ray says.
9
COLD KEY DOWN THE BACK OF THE SHIRT
DIDN'T. Twice. Nothing to do with either mechanism.
10
STAND ON HIS HEAD
DIDN'T. Not in the shop and not with the tanks running.
11
PLUG BOTH EARS AND DRINK
DIDN'T — and he got water down his shirt and it's a hot day.
12
THINK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE
WILLPOWER IS NOT ON THE LIST. See the top of the board. Nothing above his collarbone gets a vote.
THIS MORNING'S COLUMN
every time you try one, I write down what the clock did. that's the whole reason there's a board.
Duane hauls the tanks and runs the aerator and he is on day eleven and he can hear the board being written on from back there. He says leave the sugar spoon where he can find it. The dog in the blue truck is Bernie, the windows are down, he is fine, he is watching the door.
Leeches are in the cooler by the register — bag your own, quarter a dozen, and hold the lid down.