Cough Spin-off

I think I've coughed about 58 million times since August 2011, when I was sick as a sick dudette and the doctor gave me the timely and useful advice to ride it out for the following six weeks.  Good times were had in those following six weeks, which turned into 12 weeks, particularly for anyone silly enough to be in my vicinity. 

The doctor refused me antibiotics on the grounds that my cough was viral and not bacterial and, therefore, the drugs would have had no effect.  It may also have been on the grounds that I begged him for a script in a way that would have put a Kings Cross junkie to shame.  There's nothing like a medical professional ignoring your pleas for sickness-killing drugs and telling you to suck it up princess.

And now, six months down the track, The Pariah Cough seems to have reared its ugly pariah head again.  I will acknowledge that my coughing must be a little annoying for my long-suffering work colleagues and, well, the general public, but in my defence, I find many of them annoying as well.  Particularly the annoying ones who annoy the crap out of me.  They are few and far between, except when they group themselves in moronic abundance (hello Queanbeyan), but their annoyingness certainly makes up for their lack of numbers.

So I went to the same doctor again today because I am a responsible adult and wanted to make sure I am not suffering from atypical pneumonia or hip cancer.  Yes, this is what happens when you start off on little tangents on The Google; you end up with 18 diseases when you really just wanted to know why you have a mysterious cough.  In my first year of psychology at uni I thought I was suffering from half of the disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but it turns out that I was just your average bear suffering from only a couple of chapters.

So, today the doctor decided that he has absolutely no idea why I have all the key attributes of an elephant seal, which makes sense given there are no elephant seal linkages in my family history.  I don't even know any elephant seals.  Although he thinks that The Cough is stemming from my trachea.  If only I had a smarter doctor.   

Although, the doc rocks a little bit because he gave me a showbag of fancy pants drugs including antibiotics, ventolin and a Hello Kitty super sipper and instructed me to come back if they didn't work so we can proceed with a battery of tests, presumably so a fresh batch of specialist health practitioners can make a bunch of fake diagnosises while I assist in putting their kids through private education in Switzerland.