A cough…. It’s just a cough. That’s what you tell yourself when it is coming from someone else. How does it possibly interfere with everyday life? Well, it does. Doesn’t it? Let me explain to you all the way it does!

First of all, it is completely unfair that it takes three weeks for a viral throat infection to pass. It does not get any better as soon as you take those antibiotics. That just does not make sense. The miracle of modern medicine was supposed to be “pop the pill; stop the drill”. I just got to know that it isn’t so in case of a cough. You are doomed to cough away your life even as you heal, and sometimes even after you have healed!

Four years ago, I got a dreaded case of the cough, which tortured me for weeks, leaving my throat with internal bruises, and heavy chest pain. Now it is back again, right at the beginning of this year. Maybe it’s like leap year, and I am bound to get it every four years. It has been keeping me at the edge of the seat, not quite sick, and not quite normal making it impossible to both lie-down and go live my life.

As I write this, I have a constant sensation of a small ball of mucus rolling around like a snowman in my throat. It neither goes in nor does it come out. I have been diligently taking my post-meal pills and the horrible cough syrup that tastes like honey-glazed paracetamol with a dash of menthol. My parents keep assuring me that it tastes good. I don’t understand them and their appetite for cough syrup.

Today morning, while I was brushing my teeth, I coughed up a small ball of yellow mucus along with the pink toothpaste froth. I looked at it with gratitude and thanked it for doing its bit by projectile exiting my throat. I felt better for a while after that, until I didn’t. The cough comes at intervals. Slowly at first, and then violently and from deep within. It almost feels like if I am able to control that first cough of the series, I can avoid the whole series.

I try that the next time on my Uber ride to work. I have this familiar urge to cough and internally scratch my throat itch. But I use all my resolve and I hold it. I hold it even as I feel like I will throw up air, which occurs to me now, is what a cough really is. A cough is me throwing up air. Anyways I digress. As I try to hold my cough and prevent a series of old man coughs inside a cab, I turn a little pale as I sniff my nose. My Uber driver looks at me with concern through the rearview mirror and asks if he should stop. I shake my head at him to convey a non-verbal “NO”, and end up looking miserable.

I somehow make it to the office and as I take in the first breath of the catastrophe that is OMR (Another busy, polluted road in India), my cough comes rushing out of me swiftly, and then you know the drill… A good ten minutes of coughing that will put old men on deathbed in Black and white movies to shame. I let it all out, and pop in an orange-flavored Strepsil hoping it will magically put an end to this for at least a few minutes.

An open office is a wonderful thing. It really is, until you become that person who coughs 60 times a day, demanding attention from all the co-coworkers on your floor. It is not only embarrassing, but it is also extremely distracting. It does not let you focus on your work completely, and neither does it really stop you from doing something.

Right now, this cough is a huge disabler to doing anything I really like or don’t like.. Here I am sitting, and making glorious plans about things I will do when I get better — like working out, eating healthy, and always giving my dog a bath on time. You see, I would be well on way to my best life if it weren’t for this whooping! cough. I blame all my life’s failures on this and this cough entirely!

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Originally Published by Dhivya at https://medium.com/the-haven/a-whooping-cough-is-ruining-my-life-7f160271ee57