Whooping Cough!
“I have to hang up,” I said to my friend Susan, “I’m coughing too much to talk,” I banged down the phone. “Cough, cough, cough.” I was sweating, gagging, miserable, exhausted. “Cough, cough, ahhhh, cough!” I swallowed a tablespoon of tussinex cough syrup, my second dose of the morning.  “That muy strong,” Judy Perez, my housekeeper allowed. “Tea, whiskey, good.” “Cough, cough, gag, cough. I’ll, cough, try, cough, anything.” I lay back in bed on my sweat-drenched pillow.  I had been coughing for three months. My doctor could find nothing wrong with me. “I’ll call if I find anything significant from your blood tests, but I doubt they’ll reveal anything,” he said. “You seem healthy. Your x-rays are fine, your heart is fine, there’s no fluid on your lungs. “Cough, cough, cough, cough. I’m, cough, dying,” I said, “Guess I’ll, cough, die, cough, healthy.” All my life I’ve coughed a lot. It’s a family affliction but I had never coughed to the point where I couldn’t go out to dinner or to any social function or even talk on the phone. Except one time, years ago, when it turned out I was allergic to a medication. At that time I was diagnosed with asthma, which was not the problem I discovered by trail and error. But now... My doctor called. “ Pat, your blood test shows that you have pertussis, whooping cough.” “Whooping cough? But I was vaccinated for that!” “We now find that even if you had whooping cough as a child or even if you’ve been vaccinated, pertussis can recur in old age.” Old age?  Me? No! Well, that’s’ how it is darlin’. If you live long enough be prepared for whooping cough and other difficult things. Wisdom? I’m not so sure, although I would like to think so.  The late film actress Betty Davis said it best, “Growing older ain’t for sissies.”