Let me preface this by saying that I’m not looking for medical advice. I’m already consulting with a frankly dizzying array of doctors, so everything that can be done here is being done. I’m just updating so folks know what’s going on.

Since shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic began, every time I get a cold of any kind, I get a cough, and even long after the cold has passed, the cough seems to linger for weeks or even months. It’s always the same kind of cough – a wheezy, rasping thing that hurts my chest and neck and head.

As far as I know, I have never had COVID. I’m fully vaccinated, and every time I have ever been tested for it, I have always come up negative. And even if I had, like I said, this predates it by a small amount.

About a month ago, I got sick. Bronchitis, they tell me. Bacterial. It was the sickest I’ve been in a long time. Debilitating. But the meds helped, and I eventually got over it. Even the cough seemed to depart, though I had been so sick that I was left with damage to my inner ear that was treated with a new range of medications and is well on its way to healing up.

As that has improved, however, the cough has once more worsened. I am again on a bevy of medicines that are supposed to help. I’ve had chest X-rays and other tests. It isn’t pneumonia nor any of the other likely culprits, so now it’s on to specialists to try to diagnose what’s up.

I’ll tell you, though, being sick for over a month is exhausting. Even when I was technically no longer sick, the ear thing and this cough have both been exhausting. Add them into the various other challenges we’ve been facing around here, and you have a recipe for one of the tougher months of my life.

There’s nothing to be done about any of it that I’m not already doing so, again, this is mostly just a post to let people know what’s up, and to ask that those who care about me or may need something from me in the future treat me with what patience and forebearance you can muster.