I’m a healthy young woman. I usually take stairs two steps at a time, and when I reach the top I’m hardly ever short of breath. I once had a full physical when I was 24, where the test results stated that my biological age was 13. Calling in sick is a concept foreign to me, and so is getting flu shots.

But for the past two weeks, I’ve been sick, sick, sick.

It began with a slight cold — a viral infection, as doctors like to call it — and ended with a persistent cough. The cold lasted two days, and the cough lasted two weeks. Those two weeks are turning into three.

I still take the stairs two steps at a time, but when I reach the top I hack and wheeze and cough like crazy. I still hop, skip, jump, dance, and sing the way I did when I was 13 or 24, but when I do I cough some more. I haven’t called in sick yet, but when I talk on the phone I pepper my conversations with far-from-sexy heavy breathing and noisy expelling of air — cough, cough.

I’ve run around with fevers before, blithely doing my normal routine while my temperature boiled, and I’ve had the occasional sniffles here and there. Except for the pain of headaches and cramps, none of it really bothers me much because I generally take my health for granted.

But this cough… this annoying cough…

Every time I breathe, my whole chest wants to cave in and explode. My lungs tickle, my diaphragm freezes, my face pinches, and my whole throat seizes. I want to cough and cough and cough and cough. Despite all the syrup and drops that I take, it annoys me during the day and keeps me awake during the night. Yet I’m still not coughing up anything productive. I’m just plain coughing.

I finally had to see the doctor to find out what in Hades was wrong with me. I thought perhaps it might be acute bronchitis (I only get the cute kind, mind you), which I’ve had once before. I even thought it might be terrorist-related… because, gee, I am such a threat to such folk (insert eyeroll here). Yet I never imagined that the doctor’s assistant would ever tell me that my blood pressure was perfect, or that the doctor herself would tell me that I was over the cold. It seems that nothing is really wrong with me.

And the cough?

Apparently, what I have is a post-viral cough — which in some cases can last up to six weeks (God forbid). It’s basically caused by an inflammation in the lungs, nothing serious, and most likely a result of my coughing so much.

A vicious cycle, I would say — sort of like being sick and tired of being sick and tired.

So for the first time in my life, I actually possess an inhaler, which the doctor gave to me to help decrease the inflammation. I also get to take cute little pearl-shaped pills called perles, which look a little bit like the vitamin E pills that my mother used to take — only smaller and rounder.

I don’t know how effective they will be, but at this point I will do just about anything to get rid of the coughs because I’m just plain sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Plus, it’s taking all the fun away from sprinting up the stairs.

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