What it sounds like at my house

Cough cough. Cough cough. Cough cough cough.

For 8 straight days and most of the nights.

My 100 pound, 13 year old daughter had a sore throat last week.

Two days later she started coughing. Non stop. Until she gags and retches.

We've had xrays, doctor visits, inhalers, steroids, two antibiotics, every cough syrup they make, with and without codeine, steam baths, controlled breathing, vaporizers, back rubs, you name it, nothing works. Nothing.

Eight days later she is still coughing non stop. A week of school missed, with midterms looming. No appetite, no energy, little rest, sore muscles, no voice.

It is the hardest thing I do as a mother, to try and stay calm, to reassure myself that there is nothing else that we can do but wait, and to be vigilant that she is getting enough oxygen and has no fever. But I am at DefCon 4, Orange Alert, and I have listened to her cough so long I can barely stand it.

Which makes me feel awful, because I can't imagine what she feels like.

Official diagnosis, pnuemonia, organism unspecified, acute bronchitis and cough.

We've been here many times before, but this is the worst bout yet. I'm trying to see through this and visualize her breathing easy, and sleeping. She keeps saying I'm sorry, Mommy, and that makes me feel awful too.

I give it two more days then I'm planning on freaking out. I'm hoping the new antibiotic can keep me from going there.

I don't know how moms with chronic, very ill children do it, I just don't. I never knew how weak and worthless and helpless I really was until I became a mom. I guess everyone just does what they have to, even if that means just leaving the room for a minute so you don't have to hear your child suffer, so you can come back in and offer what feeble comfort there is to give.

So far, I'm not liking this year at all. And I wasn't that fond of last year.

So that's what it sounds like at my house. Cough cough. Cough cough cough.

Cough, cough. Cough cough. Cough cough cough cough cough .... aaaargh.