Crackled

Way back in November I had the cold which was doing the rounds, that one which left people with a repetitive cough,  I developed that cough. Coughs are like hiccoughs I think, they always happen at the most unfortunate, inconvenient times. My cough didn’t like me talking so the more I talked, the more I coughed. I’ve never been a person who carries a bottle of water around with me, I have no problem with tap water so I didn’t feel the necessity, the cough changed that though. My little plastic bottle was my constant companion, especially if I was doing a ‘booking’, as so much talking equals virtually continuous coughing. Embarrassing all round. After about a month of spluttering, hugely interrupted sleep, pulled muscles and a throat that felt as if it had been sand-papered I decided to make a doctors appointment. I did a sort of bargaining with my cough, ‘ Now look cough. I’ve made a doctors appointment for a weeks time. If you are just the remnants of the cold, and should be ignored, then you have a week to stop. If you’re gone, well you don’t have to be completely gone, but if I can tell that you are sorting yourself out then I’ll cancel the appointment.’ As it was I cancelled the appointment. Not because cough was gone, no it hadn’t gone, in fact it was worse, but the Met Office was predicting serious snow and I felt that the chances of me getting to see the doc then were fairly slim. I made another appointment though, for yesterday. I was sleeping so badly and was feeling so tired and woozy that I was going to ask the doc for something to help me sleep. When I’m tired I cry easily, luckily the doctor had a box of tissues on his desk so there was no unpleasant wiping of the nose on the sleeve, there was much sniffing though. After much rambling from me the poor man elicited the information that I had a troublesome cough and a mad mother. He listened to my chest and declared that there were nasty crackles in the left lung, thank heavens for that, it’s a chest infection, I can have antibiotics and my physical ailment should be sorted, the mad mother is a different matter. We had a chat, I recounted an abridged version of the accident, step-father dying, Crown prosecution, vengeful, suicidal and shingle affected mother and it was decided that I am stressed, I prefer ‘run-down’ to describe my mood but ‘stress disorder’ is what he wrote on my sick-note. I was about to leave his room carrying prescription, and a sick note when he asked me to complete a questionnaire ‘to assess my mood’ my immediate response was ‘I’m not about to kill myself you know’. Wrong response. Apparently this means that I must have thought about it to say it. I explained that I know that G.P’s use questionnaires as alerts so I was merely trying to reassure him that I am ‘run down’ and yes, stressed, but I am not in despair. Unfortunately this elicited more sniffing from me so in the end I left his room with a prescription for citalopram as well. I’ve picked up my prescription for antibiotics, the anti-depressive can wait, I think that once my chest infection has gone and the coroners hearing is over my tearful, ‘it’s all too much’ phase will be over and I will be able to sit and chat to a sympathetic G.P without using up his box of tissues.