The Return of The Cough

The Cough is back – a recurring bane of my life that crops up after I am recovering from any mild illness.

Viruses and bacteria can send a person to bed in a ball of misery, but it is The Cough that does the real damage.

No level of discomfort compares to the pounding headache that comes from repeatedly coughing all day – and most of the night. The chest pains that build up and the stomach cramps that come from repeated coughing.

Yes, The Cough has returned, just after I picked up some pills to deal with a lingering but quite mild infection deep in the throat.

Every time I pick up an illness, I wait in dread for the illness to pass, for that is when The Cough will reach out and turn discomfort into pain. A few days of pain transforms into a lingering mild cough that is barely noticeable, but takes weeks to vanish entirely.

The Cough started as a recurring phenomena when I was a teenager, and if recovering from a cold, and coughing, my dad would bang on the bedroom door and demand that I stop coughing. As if I were doing it just to annoy the parents.

A couple of decades later and I still haven’t found a way of switching off The Cough at will.

The Cough is back, and making me feel worse than when I was ill.

When I eventually die, I fully expect that my corpse will squeeze out a final cough. Hopefully during the funeral.