Wierd Cough

I've had a persistent cough for the last 2 months which has been getting gradually worse. By cough, I mean I cough fairly loudly every 20 minutes, wake up in the middle of the night coughing and have coughed long and hard enough to cause me to vomit *and* cough (and then the fun *really* starts).

I have, as usual, been ignoring this.

however, I am annoying enough that the folks around me have noticed and been bugging me to go see someone about it. I was reluctant, in part because of a childhood incident which taught me an important lesson.

When I was a kid, I stepped on a bee. A big, nasty bumblebee with a stinger the size of Ford Falcon. I didn't notice it. Rather, my foot hurt a little and I thought I had a rock in my sandal, which was annoying, but hardly a crisis to a 5 year-old. I played with my friends for the better part of 20 minutes being a little annoyed with my foot but not really noticing. Finally, I thought to take the rock out, grabbed my foot, took off the sandal and saw a giant bee stuck in my foot, half squashed and very angry.

and then the world exploded in pain.

I was fine until I saw the bee, after that, after I knew what it was, it was agony. To this day I swear I could watch my foot swell up as my brain figured out I had been stung. The lesson? I would have been fine had I not known what had happened.

Hence, I am not ever in any rush to head to the doctor.

That said, I figured something had gone wrong and went yesterday. Much to my surprise, my GP knew immediately what was wrong. I was having a drug interaction with my meds, one of which is an ACE inhibitor called Lisinopril. For reasons I can't say I understand, my body was building up an overabundance of a chemical which was causing the cough. He changed my meds, told me to stay off planes for 3 weeks and told me I'd be fine in about 10 days, the length of time it will take to have the drug wash out of my system.

Which means a) it’s all minor with no larger meaning and b) I have to cancel my Japan trip, at least until January.