This time last week, I was getting a chest x-ray done at a radiology lab. The results got sent back to my pulmonologist’s office this week, but given he’s been out since he’s on vacation, no one has followed up with me, even his backup doctor (how nice). So I called the office today, when the receptionist said the backup doctor would be available to review the results with me, and the receptionist said we actually didn’t need to have me talk to the doctor because she could see the notes from the radiology lab on the x-ray: everything was normal.

I wasn’t sure whether to be happy about this or not. Obviously, I didn’t want to hear anything dire or terrifying (like a tumor or abscess) in my lungs. But I did want some understanding of why the heck I keep getting these stupid coughing fits. It’s clear now, after over three weeks of being ill, that the only symptom I have left is the coughing, which is occasionally accompanied by coughing attacks that result in vomiting up phlegm or a little food. That is not normal. No one has given me a real, easy to understand explanation of why this keeps happening. The ENT doctor telling me that it’s just recurring silent reflux when I get sick just is not helpful. Why can’t anyone help me understand this better….?

This morning, I made my way over to the east side once again for my ENT doctor visit. I have only ever had one ENT doctor visit, and that was almost six years ago after I lost my voice during a Hamilton Island/New Zealand trip and got another bad virus that also felt like it was going to kill me. I decided to go back to the same ENT since he already had my history, and I remember enjoying meeting with him. I thought he was quite friendly and smart, so why try someone new?

Somehow, after six years, this doctor still remembered me. He said he remembered my symptoms, voice, and face (how sweet). We talked through what’s been happening in the last six years, and once again, we did the dreaded laryngoscopy: he sprayed my nostrils with numbing spray and got me ready to thread yet another camera down my freaking throat. It lasted about 15 seconds, and somehow, it wasn’t as awful as I remember. After the exam, he told me I still had evidence of silent reflux. It may just be that I had always had it but was asymptomatic, and whatever virus I picked up six years ago just triggered it in me and drove me over the edge. He suggested that I try the following for the next three months (!!): Prilosec at least an hour before dinner; famotidine/Tums or Pepsid Complete before bed, and to elevate my head so that my throat was above my stomach at bed time. Somehow, being diligent this way had cured many of his other patients with the same recurring coughing fits when they had colds. And maybe, he said, I could be one of the lucky ones this works for. He insisted I do this for three months straight and be consistent about it; I had nothing to lose… other than all the money I’d have to spend on freaking Prilosec – NOT a cheap OTC medication!

I may just be more genetically inclined for this. I guess it makes sense: my maternal grandpa did die from choking on his own mucus when my mom was six. My mom gets mucus constantly.

Ughhhhhhhhhhh.

My vomiting episodes since Monday have been pretty unpredictable. To be fair, they are always unpredictable, but since Monday, they have been far less frequent, but far more violent and scary. We didn’t go far at all today since I felt miserable today, so Chris decided to pick up some food from Bang Bang Bar at the Time Warner Center for lunch. We shared the food, and about 1.5 hours later, I found myself kneeling over the toilet, throwing up the spicy Korean pork and rice that he had ordered. It was not pleasant or fun. This vomiting session truly felt like I was dying: the force of the vomit through my throat was really intense, and at times, it felt like I could barely even breathe. All the force of the food coming up pushes on my entire face, and everything is coming out everywhere else: huge tears streaming out of my eyes, and more mucus is bubbling up in my nostrils. I’m hot and sweaty from the force of the vomit, and my body is exhausted from all the coughing and vomiting… because that’s what coughing and vomiting does: it wears on your entire body. And if we really had to be TMI about this, the force of the vomit went the other way, too: I even managed to pee a little in my underwear. Yep. It went there. That never even happened to me ONCE during pregnancy, so that goes to show how strong my pelvic floor has usually been, thanks to all my kegel exercises!

Then, I got a headache and another body ache. And I thought, wow, if this happened more frequently, maybe it would be better just to be dead? Because that’s what it really feels like when this type of coughing fit happens: it feels like your whole body is just giving up and not protecting you anymore.

I attempted to go to the radiology location close to my apartment yesterday after my pulmonologist appointment, and although chest x-rays are usually drop-in and don’t require an appointment, I apparently came on a bad day. I knew it was a bad day immediately as I entered the facility. There were so many people in the waiting room that all the seats were taken, and at least a dozen people were standing and waiting. Plus, the line for the receptionist had at least half a dozen people there. When I finally got to the desk, they told me that today was an unusual day: they were behind by over an hour, and so I’d have to come back tomorrow. To be safe, I made an appointment for 9am and returned today… to find out that the x-ray machine was down at this location, so I had to go down to Chelsea. They claim they called me twice and I never answered, but I know this was false because a) I never saw any missed call, nor any voice message (hello? isn’t that medical protocol to leave a MESSAGE?), and b) at least seven other people were standing there, yelling at the front desk workers because they said they never received any calls or voice messages. These are people who had commuted out of their way and weren’t anywhere as young or mobile as I was. Plus, from the pamphlets they were holding, they seemed like they had far, far worse, more serious conditions than I had.

Annoyingly, I made an appointment at their Chelsea location and hopped on the train downtown. And as I sat in the waiting room, I noticed the patients around me waiting to get called in for their x-rays. And they were holding pamphlets about everything from breast, lung, to pancreatic cancer. Lung cancer is the most deadly cancer in the U.S. Breast cancer unfortunately is more common than it is not. And pancreatic cancer is known to be one of the most painful cancers in existence. All I could think when I saw all these people around me was: wow. I just felt so terrible to think they were all looking at these x-rays and appointments as another step along their way to a potential death sentence. It must be so terrifying. One patient looks like she came in with the emotional support of both her son and daughter.

And then I had this dark thought: what if the x-ray results came back and they found I had something more serious that was wrong, like a tumor or malignant growth of some sort? How would I handle the news? How would I share that news, if at all, and to whom, and when? How would I even look at my young baby and think that my days could be numbered with her, this tiny little being that I had wanted so badly and waited so long for? It was a bit unsettling, but a real thought, a potential reality. It doesn’t escape me that death could always be knocking on my door at any point in my life. I am not one of those people who is in denial that death is a part of life, and it doesn’t always happen when you think it will, or when you think it will be convenient. I’ve known too many people who have died too young. Ed is just one of them, the closest of them. And my friend Raj is still the biggest mystery for all who loved him, as we still have no idea what took his life just over two years ago. Life is not long for everyone, unfortunately.

Yesterday’s GI doctor suggested I visit a pulmonologist to get my respiratory system checked out given my coughing fits. It may be that something in my windpipe or lungs was causing all my recurrent coughing fits and phlegm build up, so I took her referral and was lucky enough to get an appointment with this doctor on the very same day I called. I called at around noon and sounded so pathetic and sad on the phone that the receptionist took genuine pity on me. She told the doctor how awful I sounded, and despite having a full schedule of patients today before he left for his vacation to the Galapagos Islands tomorrow for the next 1.5 weeks, he told her that he could fit me in at 2:20. So I hauled myself over to the East 60s to his office and waited.

I thought he’d be the kind of doctor I liked before I even came in. I took a quick peek at his Google Reviews before I called the office, and almost all his patients raved about him, saying he had excellent bedside manner, was super friendly and thorough, never rushed you, and was extremely smart and knowledgable even outside of the pulmonary purview. Once he came into my exam room, we spent about 30 minutes together, discussing history, the events that led to today, my symptoms, and chit chatted about work, travel, kids, and life in New York. He told me how he knew and previously worked with my GI doctor, and how he had seen so many crazy things while working in an ICU for many years previously. So he’s clearly knowledgable about a broad range of things despite being focused on the respiratory system now. He did a thorough exam, which included listening to me breathe, a breathing test, examining my mouth and throat. He let me know that I actually did not have hand foot mouth disease — I had a tonsil infection. All those white blobs I could see on my tonsils were pus pockets everywhere, as lovely as that sounds! So he prescribed me a z-pak antibiotic and a nasal spray…. which he suggested I use every day, morning and night, to ward off all the nasty germs my child would continue to introduce me to… until she’s at least age 6-7. He was NOT joking about that. He also gave me a referral to get a chest x-ray done and suggested I do it either today or tomorrow so we could get the results in ASAP. He reassured me that while he’d be out the next 1.5 weeks that the other doctor in his practice would review my results once the x-ray was in and give me next steps.

I really liked this guy. He was just so normal, so smart, and even funny, like the kind of doctor I’d want as my primary care provider. Why can’t HE be my PCP….?