The Cough that Never Ends

Oh my goodness, what a week this has been!  I am so tired!  Let’s start at the beginning.

Last year, in February, The Chocoholic woke up coughing one morning.  Out of the blue.  He would cough all day long, but as soon as he went to bed, he would stop coughing.  This lasted for 9 days.  He didn’t go to school for 5 of those.  I ended up taking him to the doctor who asked him lots of questions about school and how he liked it and what kind of grades he got.  Basically, he thought The Chocoholic was faking it.  I knew he wasn’t.  We finally decided that it must be from allergies.

It happened again in May of 2009, but it only lasted 1 day.  It happened again in August, and lasted for 3 days.

Monday morning, he woke up coughing again.  I wasn’t too concerned.  I kept him home and gave him antihistamine.  He slept fine that night.  Tuesday he was coughing again, so I kept him home again. 

However, Tuesday night he couldn’t stop coughing.  It was bad.  I was so worried.  I decided to take him to InstaCare. Except when I got there, they informed me they didn’t take our insurance. So I had to take him to a different Urgent Care. We got there at 9:45, and they were supposed to close at 10:00. I could tell they were thrilled to see us walk in the door. They gave him a breathing treatment and a steroid pill. The doctor said he might need to go to the hospital by ambulance. What? That really freaked me out. They gave him some chest x-rays and everything was clear (no pneumonia, no bronchitis). So they said that he should stop coughing in 15 minutes and sent me on my way. I could tell they were just trying to get us out of there as soon as possible. I was on my way to fill the prescriptions they gave me, but then The Chocoholic said it was hard to breathe. So I immediately turned around and headed up to Primary Children’s Hospital. In the dark. And the rain. By myself. 

We got up there and they examined The Chocoholic, then gave him another breathing treatment. He does not have asthma, or croup. They have no idea why he is coughing. They gave me a prescription for Tylenol with codeine and Flonase for allergies. It was 1:30 in the morning before we headed home. I had to stop and get gas in the car at 2:00. It was 2:11 when I crawled into bed.

Wednesday, I called his pediatrician and we went in to see him.  He was baffled by the cough as well.  He prescribed more steroid pills and said to call him if things got worse.  That night, The Chocoholic had a hard time stopping coughing again, so The Doctor called his brother and they gave him a priesthood blessing.  Within 15 minutes, the coughing had stopped and he was able to sleep.

Thursday, he couldn’t stop coughing again. I have tried everything I can think of. Here is the list of things either I or the doctors have tried:

• Prayer
• Cough medicine
• Cough drops
• Antihistamine
• Mucus reliever
• Breathing treatment
• Steroids
• Vicks
• Flonase
• Honey
• Lemon juice
• Honey and lemon juice in hot water
• Antacids
• Vaporizer
• Vicks on the bottom of his feet
• Tylenol with codeine
• Steam from a hot shower
• Claritin
• Zyrtek
• Lemon drops
• Cold air

Finally I gave him Nyquil, in the hopes that the alcohol would do something. It seemed to help, as at 11:30, he finally calmed down and fell asleep.

However, his cough was worse this morning. I called the pediatrician and he said to take him up to Primary Children’s so he could get seen by a pulmonologist. So after I took The Princess to school, we drove up to the emergency room. We went through all the same questions as Tuesday night. They told me that the pulmonologists won’t come down to the emergency room. So I will have to get a referral from Dr. Ryan to see one. Great. They did another chest x-ray to make sure his lungs looked okay, which they did.

I did ask them if there was any possibility that he had whooping cough. They thought about it and said there is a distant possibility. There is no test for that, so there’s no way to know for sure if he isn’t making the “whooping” sound. But they also said that it’s hard to tell if he has walking pneumonia too. So they prescribed Azithromycin, which is prescribed for both of those. So we will see if it works.

I feel so horrible as a mother. Every time he coughs, I feel guilty because I can’t do anything to help him. But even worse, I feel horrible because I am so irritated by the noise of the coughing. After 5 days of the constant cough all day long, not to mention he has been home every day, so the TV has been on a lot more too, it’s just about more than I can handle. I just cried and cried last night while he was coughing in his bedroom. I didn’t know what to do. 

So that is what has been going on.  How has your week been?  :-)