Well I didn't Expect That!!!

Two years ago I had a cough. I can count on one hand how many times I've been ill with the flu. Once when I was 17 and age 21 both those times I was very ill, proper flu. Eyes hurt when move, aching bones, headache, have to go to bed and lie day for days..... it really hurts my tummy to cough or sneeze, very bad headache, high fever, its an awful feeling, you feel like very close to death!

That was when I was 17 and 21, then two years ago I had a cough quite a bad one it started off as a headache and a cough, so I went to bed and took a painkiller and rang in sick for the following day. I had the cough/headache on my day off! The day I had off work was my first day off sick, and two days later I was back at work, coughing my head off! Cough and talk cough and talk! Eventually everyone even my Manager was asking me if I had been to the Doctors! My family too asked the same question. I didn't see the point going to the Doctors for that. Usually if I feel a bit unwell I have a cough sweet for a day or two and I am fine again, but cough sweets wasn't shifting this. Then I remember a work mate who I'd worked with for about two years, a lovely young mum. She too had a bad cough, it was much worse than mine. One day after she had finished work I said to her in private, “Go to the Doctors about your cough Victoria,” she said she would. We work different times and days so I didn't see her often, then about a month later I was at work and they said to me, “Did you hear about Victoria?” I said, “No what” she had died in hospital!!!! We were all in shock.

So because of Victoria I decided to go to the Doctor's and I told him. “I am here in memory of Victoria, who didn't go to the Doctor's with her cough she left it too late, I don't want to make the same mistake” my Doctor thought it was a touching story. And medicines were given and eventually my first and only one inhaler. I hate taking medication and as soon as I feel well, I tend to stop taking it. Well it took months but the cough went, no one at work caught it, not one. One thing I did do at this point was go back to basics, I went back to a time when I was a child and bought honey and real lemons and made myself hot drinks with it and lots of sugar, old fashioned comfort drinks and I had hot sweet Ribena drinks.

Then this year January 2013 I had the flu, when I was shaking with cold feet I was wondering at home, why am I in shock? It was my day off and I was shaking for about 3 hours I knew I was warm but from the calf down to my toes was freezing, I couldn't get warm in bed and Husband was worried he wanted me to have a hot water bottle but I was SO warm I didn't want it.

Although my nose was very blocked I kept small something awful, it was so bad it smelt like a dead body!! but I could only smell this for a few seconds and then I couldn't smell it.

They have made a silly rule at my Doctors and that is you can't book an appointment to see the Doctor on the same day you have booked the appointment, I felt as if I was dying I went to the Doctors, for trying to get through on the phone IS impossible, I asked if I could see the Doctor today, and was told “No, but if you leave your details a Doctor will phone you back and assess you over the phone” I said “OK” so I went back home, and on the way home a Doctor from the surgery rang me and I told her I was in shock and shaking with very cold feet, she informed me I had a high fever! I never thought of that, but I'm not a Doctor, so I wouldn't have known that. She then said I should come in the same day so a few hours later I went to see my own lovely Doctor, Doctor Smith. I told him what the Doctor over the phone had said, that she said I had a temperature a few days ago, he checked my ear and said I still had a temperature now! He gave me antibiotics and I took it religiously until it was all gone as I'd felt so ill. Doctor Smith told me I had a sinus infection and that is what the awful smell was, and boy during the time I was taking my medicine, awful stuff came from my nose of all colours, brown, yellow, lime and even blood! Eventually after 2 weeks my cough stopped and got better and my nose was clear! It was amazing. Then about 3 days later my cough came back I went back to Doctor but I didn't see the lovely Doctor Smith by a stranger! I had just a cough on the day I saw him and he said he would give me nothing for it for they “Don't work” he said, “If your sinus infection comes back come straight back.” Well it came back in the night with a vengeance! I had to use baby wipe to clear what was first on the outside of my nose and then attempt to clear what was on the inside, yak! I went back again to the Doctors and spoke later to one of my least favourite doctor there, for they assess you over the phone, he prescribed me a different antibiotic. I told him I wanted liquid like the first lot Doctor Smith gave me but he had to be difficult and he said he would give me CAPSULS and said I would have to take them apart and put them in water! How mean is that!

So I bought Ribena but as I hadn't eaten much over the days before and had, had nothing to eat at all by 1pm when I took my first tablet in an inch high of sweet Ribena I was sick straight away. So the following morning I forced down a bit of toast, that I didn't want and waited for an hour so it could line my stomach then the thought came to me instead of having the Ribena in an inch of liquid have a glass full of sweet Ribena and the powdered tablet. That did the trick and I couldn't taste the the capsule that I had opened up and stirred into the glass of sweet Ribena. But that morning I noticed something that worried me all the time I was taking my one tablet a day. I noticed a pain under my breast bone, on the left hand side, what was the problem now I thought?
My mind went into overdrive, had I got TB? Had I developed Pneumonia, or even worse had I got Cancer! I hadn't told a soul, but I was worried sick, I thought I better get my house in order, I thought, what's it like to know you really are dying. I thought I am not going to cry …. yet, until I see my lovely level headed, not over-the-top Doctor Smith. So I had my Husband go to the surgery last Monday to book me an appointment with him. For only he would do as such a critical time in my life. I did fear the worst. So my eight days capsules had finished and the cough had sort of gone but now I had outburst of coughing, about every four days or so and just for maybe once a day.

So tonight, I went brave and ready for what he had to say. I told him I wasn't here for the occasional cough that I had but for the pain under my left breast bone, he touched it and said it was tender, he said, “You have pulled a muscle coughing” he listened to my chest back and front, as I breathed in and out through my mouth, he said, “I am going to prescribed something for your cough, you may not approve, I expected him to give me another inhaler but to my horror he said he is giving me STERIODS! I didn't expect that! He went on to to quickly explain it was only for five days and it was six tablets I was to take in water as one tablet, thirty in all!! I said, “That makes you put weight on!!!” He replied, for five days I wont put weight on, but I should take them in the morning, as it will make me, “Hyper” and my appetite will “increase” I don't like the sound of that! He said, “We need to sort this cough out, once and for all” and I should return to him a week later after I have finished the course and if cough remains he will send me for a chest x-ray!

I was SO relieved that I wasn't dying! I am coughing now as I type this.... I asked if it would make me feel sick, he said, “No just take it after food, and I will be OK.”

I went home and told my family. I hope the tablets work......