We’ve had weekly abrupt and extreme weather changes in April, and that’s never a good thing for my allergies. Temperature changes of 30+ degrees within 24 hours tend to trigger laryngitis for me, so I’m very diligent about taking my allergy medications when that happens. Sometimes, though, diligence isn’t enough.

On March 26, my throat started getting sore. “Uh-oh!” I thought. “I’m going to get laryngitis.” I was wrong. My throat kept getting worse until it felt like ground glass, and I couldn’t stop coughing. Ted took me to Urgent Care, where I was diagnosed with strep throat and bronchitis. I was treated with a steroid injection, a breathing treatment, and prescriptions for prednisone and amoxicillin.

I felt a little better the next day, but by evening, I coughed so hard for over an hour that it was difficult to catch my breath. It was late at night (of course), so Ted took me to the ER. The diagnosis was the same, with the hypothesis that the strep throat germs had migrated from my throat to my lungs, triggering the bronchitis. I was given a breathing treatment and sent home with a prescription for a nebulizer so that I could do breathing treatments at home to open my airways and, hopefully, calm the coughing.

Again, I felt a little better in the morning, but over the next three days, I kept getting worse and the coughing just wouldn’t stop, in spite of the nebulizer treatments. For the third time in five days, Ted took me for treatment. It was past midnight, so we went to the ER again. Looking at my previous treatments over the last few days, as well as my current condition, the ER staff decided to get aggressive. This time, they gave me an hour-long breathing treatment with five medications in it, including one to calm my lungs and another to reduce the swelling in my bronchial tubes. Simultaneously, they gave me five other medications through an IV, including two different antibiotics and a stronger version of prednisone. There was talk of admitting me to the hospital but, instead, they just kept us there for several more hours to see if the medications stabilized me. At 6:30 a.m., they sent me home with five prescriptions for more prednisone, two more antibiotics, a cough suppressant, and a painkiller because my ribs were so sore from coughing for six days.

The ER staff told me my coughing would be less painful if I held a pillow against my ribs when I coughed. That really helped and I found the perfect pillow at home. It fit under my arm and I could hold it tightly over my ribs. My mom made this pillow a long time ago (1980s?), which just goes to show that your mom keeps looking after you, even when she’s no longer physically present. Thanks, Mom.

I followed up the ER treatments with a visit to my allergist two days later because the coughing was not improving. He looked over my reports from Urgent Care and from the ER, reviewed the test and x-ray results, and looked at all the medications, treatments and prescriptions I’d been given. Then he turned to me and said, “With all of this in you, you will get better,” although he admitted it’s going to take some time. His prescription (yes, another medication) was a game-changer: an inhaler with three ingredients. He said my lungs had become so sensitive from the bronchitis that I was coughing spontaneously from the irritation. The inhaler would calm my lungs and reduce the bronchial swelling. My coughing improved after the first dose of the inhaler. For the first time in eleven days, I had an evening without a 60-90 minute coughing spell. What a relief!

Even though the coughing was finally under control, I continued to feel worse every day for another three days–14 days of feeling worse each day–before I started to feel as though the medications were finally winning the fight. For eleven consecutive nights, I hadn’t slept more than 3-5 hours because of the coughing. The lack of sleep, the constant coughing, and the rib pain left me totally exhausted. There were many times when I just sat still because I didn’t have enough energy to read a book or to watch TV.

It’s been 25 days since I first noticed my sore throat, and I’m still not back to normal. Although I no longer feel sick, my energy level is very low (nearly nonexistent) and, even though I’m sleeping 7-8 hours at night now, I still take a long nap every day. My allergist wants me to continue taking the inhaler for two more weeks, and I think it will probably be at least another week (hopefully not two weeks) before I feel more like my normal self. This is getting old, and I choose to interpret that feeling as a sign that I’m getting well.

Guess what: there’s another big temperature change coming tomorrow. Today’s high was 88 degrees, tomorrow will be around 80 degrees, and after the cold front comes through tomorrow night (with possible severe storms), there’s a frost advisory in our forecast. I’ll be staying indoors.