I Have My Dad’s Cough
My Dad had a chronic cough, as far back as I can remember. To hear it, you would swear it was a smoker’s cough, though he never smoked a cigarette in his life ((I assume it was actually from working so much at the barn with the pigeons and the chickens and the various other birds and breathing in that barn air so much, but that’s just a theory.)).
That sore throat I was complaining about decided to turn into a full on nasty cold late last week – I was all stuffed up and had a most disgusting phlegmy cough, which has now turned into a hard, dry cough that sounds exactly like my Dad’s used to. I don’t get sick all that often, but when I do, my phlegmy coughs generally turn into this cough and lasts a while and I find myself thinking “Am I going to have this cough forever, just like Dad did?” It also gets me to thinking – what is it, exactly, that I inherited that gives me that same cough as my Dad had? Is it something about the shape or physiology of my lungs? About the way my immune systems works? Did I just pick up his way of coughing as a behaviour?
It was four years ago today that my Dad took his last breath. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to hear that cough again.
I miss you, Daddy.
Comments |5|
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<3 Love you, sending big hugs
Love you too, Linda. Big hugs for you too!
Hugs!
Is it possible it’s cough-variant asthma? I was diagnosed with this after a post-cold cough just wouldn’t go away. I’d never heard of it before, and I’d never wheezed or anything like that before, but apparently for some people asthma manifests as a chronic cough.
I think I remember you mentioning developing asthma recently, but I didn’t realize it manifested as a chronic cough. If it continues on, perhaps I should ask my doctor about that.
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