Two weeks ago, as I was traveling back to LA from Orlando on a work trip, I started to get a sore throat. The sore throat turned quickly into a bit of a cough. The sore throat then went away and the cough went full speed ahead.
This wasn't just any cough. This was a wheezy, persistent cough, one that got worse every time I laughed (and I laugh A LOT). I had no other symptoms of anything and could not figure out what the hell was happening with this cough. I thought for sure it was bronchitis. I kept hoping it would go away. My co-worker finally dubbed it "the homeless man cough." When I realized people at work were sort of staring at me as though I were infecting them with the plague, I decided to go to the doctor. I also realized that I'm traveling to Ohio next week and I don't want to be sick in the cold weather, and around a couple of new baby cousins that have been born in the past 2 weeks.
It had gotten to the point where Sunday afternoon, before a dinner with some new friends of ours, I said to gina, "I hope they don't say anything funny... I'll be coughing all night."
I called my doctor, and in classic HMO style, she of course can't see me for a week. So I go to urgent care, where I see a doctor I've seen way more than my own doctor, because this one is actually available. He asks me a few questions about the cough and diagnoses it as asthma. Asthma! I'm 28 years old, and I've been diagnosed with asthma all of a sudden. Color me surprised.
Two doses of prednisone, two doses of cough syrup with codeine, and several doses of an inhaler, I feel amazing. I no longer sound homeless, and I no longer feel like a Rotteweiler is sitting on my chest.
