Greetings from Grammy's House of Drugs

I have a cough. This may not seem like big news to you, but I’ve had this cough for over 3 months now and it’s begun to be one of the main focuses of my life.

It started as a cold before Thanksgiving. So I did all the usual things: vitamin c, Echinacea, lots of fluids and *z_ _ _ _ to shorten the duration. (I’ve never used this before and it tasted nasty, had to be taken often, was expensive and didn’t seem to work for me – so this is a last time for this experiment.) Then I resorted to over the counter stuff for the symptoms – cough syrup, mentholated chest rub, sinus spray and aspirin for the body aches. Still the nasty cough remained.

By Christmas, it was starting to clear up. But then someone – in the spirit of Christmas giving and sharing – brought home “the plague” and passed it around the family. My cough intensified and was joined by fever, chills, body aches and extreme headache. I felt like “walking death” (or more precisely, like “laying around, moaning death”). But at least I was in good company. We took turns either being sick or taking care of the more dramatically ill. And since almost everyone got their turn being the patient, we were incredibly empathetic! The nasty, rotten cough persisted.

I am of the old school when it comes to doctors. This means I never go to one until after I have toughed it out on my own for as long as I possibly can and exhausted every natural, herbal or over the counter method of treating myself. (Believe me, I have tried them all.) By the middle of January the sound effects had become quite dramatic. An almost non-stop symphony of dry hacking coughs with a wheeze at the end – guaranteed to illicit the sympathy vote of all within range. (And it hurt!) So I finally gave up and made an appointment.

This doesn’t mean that I saw an actual doctor. Around here you have to wait weeks for a consultation with one of those. I saw a PA. She repeatedly used phrases like, “You, poor Dear.” “I am SO sorry.” And “Do you have a history of asthma?” She took blood work and gave me a super strong anti-biotic, something for the nasal drip and an asthma puffer.

After 10 days their office called to say that it was official. I had had an upper respiratory infection, but the antibiotic should have taken care of it and I was now all better. Unfortunately no one told that to the nasty, rotten, good-for-nothing, cough that lingered on.

I was so tired. Coughing up a lung and getting no sleep takes it’s toll after a while. I knew it was bad, when a friend called to see how I was doing and I broke down and bawled on the phone. (The next day, she dropped everything from her busy schedule and came over to see if her prayers for me were working yet. Now that’s a real friend!)

Of course not everyone was as sympathetic. The man conducting a meeting I was coughing my way through indicated that my cough was having an effect on the hearing of everyone in the room. I think the term he used was “deafening”. On another occasions a Hispanic friend was talking to my Honey about my cough. I made out the word “perro” and thought he was empathizing - like “Your wife is sick as a dog.” But no. He was saying that my cough was so shrill that it would kill his dog (presumably if he were in the vicinity.) So much for empathy!

I went back to the doctor and saw PA #2. She kept saying, “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.” After a bunch of tests, she indicated that my infection was gone and that it was most likely allergies. So now I am on prescriptions for cough pearls, 2 different allergy medications and a nose spray.

The good news is, it seems to be working I slept through the night on Tuesday without getting up for a coughing fit and a steam. Wednesday afternoon and evening I hardly coughed at all and went to bed confident of finally getting better. In the middle of the night I woke up from the pain of my annual migraine. Is there no rest for the weary?

I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired! There. Now that I’ve complained to the world in general, I feel strangely better.