I made a trip to the ER last week and it wasn’t for work. My wife was having coughing fits and after pouring my considerable medicine cabinet full of anti-coughing drugs into her without any improvement, I know we had to do something more. After each coughing fit, she had a harder and harder time catching her breath and the coughing started to get a seal barking like quality so I did what any good medical guy does when he’s over his head and brought her to the ER. On the drive there her voice went out and every breath was a gasp and by the time we went through the door, the veins in her neck were sticking out and she really did sound like she was about to croak.
One way to always ensure quick service in a crowded full of people is to have a loud barking cough, have your eyes roll up in your head while doing it and turn blue at the same time and not being able to communicate a word. She beat all of my personal records for getting quick service to my Marines. A very nice staff (thank you Naval Medical Center San Diego) brought her to a bed and had an IV into her arm in minutes. After pressing some IV steroids and antibiotics into her vein and an inhalation treatment she was able to whisper, whew. During all of this, they did a CT and X-ray of her throat and chest and drew a bunch of other labs. Finally the friendly resident came by and let us know she had whooping Cough.
Whooping Cough? That’s still around?
Guess so, there’s been an 11 fold increase in whooping cause cases in adults in recent years and if you google any news search engine you’ll find plenty of stories and sites dedicated to the subject. Figures it would have to hit us. Well she’s now hopped up on some high priced government sponsored drugs and we're buying stock in cough syrup.
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