Patient Zero in Coughmania

Guess what? Just for something refreshing and unusual, I am going to post about my elephant seal cough. I figure people exhaust and astound me every damn day with their often ludicrous medical counsel that it was time I gave back to the people.

I have had coughmania for six months now. Six fucking months. I reckon it would have a red hot chance at surviving a nuclear holocaust, along with all the cockroaches and Kevin Rudd. And it is not particularly pleasurable, with the most annoying part being that it annoys other people. The fact that it annoys others doesn't annoy me in the slightest, but when other people are annoyed with my cough they pester me and this is fucking annoying.

Every day is cough groundhog day. You know when it rains constantly and everyone rabbits on about the rainfall and the traffic and the dams and the grey sky and the ducks everywhere? This is how people have been banging on - all day, every day - about me and my cough, for six fucking months. It's like my cough was invented to give boring people something to talk about when it's not raining, which fortunately it is.

I went to the doctor a few weeks ago - the same doctor I have accused in the past of being not the brightest antibiotic in the medicine cabinet - and he gave me a course of bright yellow, daffodil-scented cough killers, that did nothing but mask the seal effect until they ran out.

So yesterday I went back the the doc for the fourth time, given that all the drugs and cough mixtures and totally stupid alternative fake-medicine concotions have failed me so far. I'm starting to think I am patient zero in a new infectious disease outbreak. Prove that I'm not, medical fraternity. 

Or maybe I am actually an elephant seal. I do like tuna and I think Antarctica is real pretty and homely.  Perhaps I should think about starting my own reality television show or, in the very least, I should try and get a gig on one of those medical marvel programs they show at midnight on free-to-air.

Despite evidence that the cough - I really should give it a name - is not stemming from my chest or throat, my doc is sending me for a chest x-ray and then to a chest expert specialist person to suss it out. At least things are progressing.

He thinks it is triggered by talking and that it is largely unproductive. I didn’t think the doctor knew me well enough to make assessments on my interest level and functioning capacity in the public service, but perhaps he is smarter than I give him credit for.  My dad reckons that I should ask for my money back if they can't figure out the problem.  Despite the fact my dad's solution to most problems involve shooting the bastards, I think perhaps I should heed his advice this time.