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I want a new pair of lungs
Mar. 17th, 2002 02:03 amoh yes. Fortunately didn't have too many coughing fits on friday - though coughed once or twice during the service. Apparently my cough is so distinctive that people in my family who barely ever see me more than once a year can recognise it. It's the wheeze/cough mixture. Had several at work today, three times when I had to rush out the damn back just to have the things so I wouldn't cough all over the chocolate. Once when I was icing. I must have looked like I was going to be sick or something. Once had to apologise.
It's just so damn embarassing. Yes, I want new lungs that don't make me sound like a cross between a smoker and asthma attack or trying to get rid of my own lungs by the power of my diaphragm alone, and something special of my own whenever I get a cold/get ill, and isn't painful when I cough. Sometimes I think of just going to the docs and getting them tested and x-rayed to see if there's something wrong with them. But more of it, when I'm in public, I just get embarassed. It's the way people look at me, like they're scared. On anyone else they've got the right. Me, if I cough like this, it's just me being ill. Never mind that I'm coughing bad enough to give me headaches. I have to go outside if I'm in a public place to go and have the damn fit on my own so people don't stare and get that scared look. I can even hold the thing off as long as possible, like I did at work today, feeling the tickle and desperation to just give in to the inevitable coming up on me until it's too much and I have to bolt, saying 'scuse me'.
The story I always tell : Sitting in one of those half-yearly exams at school. Started coughing. The supply teacher got scared, asked if I was okay, wanted a glass of water. The rest of the class just looked irritated at the interruption - more at the teacher's reaction than my coughing, I was just background noise. They told her that it was normal and nothing to be worried about, I'd finish soon. She sent me out to get that glass of water, she just couldn't take it anymore. Just wish everyone would react like the rest of the class and my family. Not the supply teacher.
And they wonder why I don't smoke.
note on the this : when I'm ill I'm so pale I look like I have TB, like at Christmas. When I got a cut at the back of my throat and was actually coughing up bloody phlegm. If Nicole Kidman was me, she wouldn't need no damn make-up artist or voice coach for the cough in Moulin Rouge. She'd just need to get a mild strain of flu or stomach bug, et voila! Instant Consumption!
It's just so damn embarassing. Yes, I want new lungs that don't make me sound like a cross between a smoker and asthma attack or trying to get rid of my own lungs by the power of my diaphragm alone, and something special of my own whenever I get a cold/get ill, and isn't painful when I cough. Sometimes I think of just going to the docs and getting them tested and x-rayed to see if there's something wrong with them. But more of it, when I'm in public, I just get embarassed. It's the way people look at me, like they're scared. On anyone else they've got the right. Me, if I cough like this, it's just me being ill. Never mind that I'm coughing bad enough to give me headaches. I have to go outside if I'm in a public place to go and have the damn fit on my own so people don't stare and get that scared look. I can even hold the thing off as long as possible, like I did at work today, feeling the tickle and desperation to just give in to the inevitable coming up on me until it's too much and I have to bolt, saying 'scuse me'.
The story I always tell : Sitting in one of those half-yearly exams at school. Started coughing. The supply teacher got scared, asked if I was okay, wanted a glass of water. The rest of the class just looked irritated at the interruption - more at the teacher's reaction than my coughing, I was just background noise. They told her that it was normal and nothing to be worried about, I'd finish soon. She sent me out to get that glass of water, she just couldn't take it anymore. Just wish everyone would react like the rest of the class and my family. Not the supply teacher.
And they wonder why I don't smoke.
note on the this : when I'm ill I'm so pale I look like I have TB, like at Christmas. When I got a cut at the back of my throat and was actually coughing up bloody phlegm. If Nicole Kidman was me, she wouldn't need no damn make-up artist or voice coach for the cough in Moulin Rouge. She'd just need to get a mild strain of flu or stomach bug, et voila! Instant Consumption!
