'Tis not a Plague.

'Tis not a Plague.

This morning marks my fifth morning of being dead tired. Same with Erik. And it's my fault. Since Friday night, I've had this constant and random cough. It's with me all day, but seems so much worse at night. I'm not exaggerating about it being constant, LET ME TELL YOU. You're lucky you're being typed to, and not getting the maybe-one-word-per-cough conversations most of my in-person acquaintances are enduring. At night, I can't even get the words out. My throat doesn't tickle (except after coughing for an entire night straight) nor does the cough actually produce anything, or feel like it needs to produce something. It's just air being forced out from my lungs. Or something.

Last night in particular, I thought I had The Black Plague. Erik thought I had pneumonia. The second he said something, I figured we should probably call the nurse's hotline through our primary care provider and find out what they say. At the very least, if the nurse hotline tells us to go the ER, we won't be charged up the butt for going to the ER for a non-emergency; it's on record. The nice lady kindly suggested I take some cough syrup. Anyway, she helped me rule out the Plague, and then made an appointment for this morning with my doctor.

The doctor helped explain why my non-productive cough got worse at night. Basically, as you go to sleep, your biorhythms signal that less cortizol (maybe not the right word; I was trying to act smart and not ask stupid questions) be sent to your lungs, because it's needed less as you sleep, or something. Cortizol keeps things nice and uninflamed. And if you don't have it, your lungs get unhappy, and there's wheezing and asthma-ing and coughing. It's totally not because of what the REGISTERED NURSE said on the hotline: that when you lie down, more phlegm falls down your throat. Dude. That's the kind of thing my mother would say, alongside things like going out with wet hair makes you catch a cold and wearing socks at night makes you go blind*.

Anyway, I'm just happy I don't have The Consumption.


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* I'm pretty sure mine was the only mother who used the socks/blindness one.