I am so sick of this cough

[Guest guest]

I am new to the this forum and have never posted before. I am hoping

to see if my issues sound familiar and if others are experiencing

what I am. I apologize up front for the coming long post.

14 years ago (I know its been a long time) I was diagnosed as having

Stage 4 T-cell Lymphoma. The bad thing was that this wasn't

diagnosed until I was in the terminal stages with all my organs

failing. I spent a month on life support and had many many bad

things happen including a stroke, ARDS, septic shock, etc.. The list

is long.

Somehow I experienced a miracle and survived this ordeal. Went thru

a traditional regiment of CHOP + Bleomycin for several rounds. I

went into complete remission after my 5th round.

A year after this I was told that I had to have a Bone Marrow

Transplant to prevent my kind of lymphoma from coming back. So I

went ahead with this. Part of my treatment was total body

irradiation (TBI).

So since then I have led a very normal life except for a couple of

things. I don't have the long capacity that I used to and I have

this incredible recurring cough.

I was diagnosed about 7 year ago as having moderate restrictive lung

disease. Not a lot was done then. Given what I had gone through I

didn't pay much attention to this.

The problems that I have is that A) when doing anything aerobic I run

out of air fairly quickly. Cycling is a huge sport where I live and

I have tried to ride at lunch with the semi-serious group. I can

keep up well for 4-5 miles but I simply run out of air. I have come

to live with this and move on at my own pace. The more annoying

problem is this cough. I get this recurring dry cough that can last

anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks. I am on week 3 of a cough right now. I

went to my doc at the beginning of this cycle to get the usual

narcotic cough syrup. I have since run out. I didn't sleep at all

last night and right now doesn't look promising for tonight.

I am so sick of this cycle that I can scream. I hate the normal

routine of cough syrup but hate the lack of sleep even more. It

seems like I cough hard every 30 seconds or so. I get

embarrassed going to the doc when this cycle starts. Seems like with

all the prescription abuse going on they seem to think anyone who

shows up as often as I do must have a problem. I am epecially

annoyed with my current internal doc as I had to direct him to do

some additional pulmonary testing to confirm that something wasn't

right.

If only they knew how much I HATE this cycle. It hurts all aspects of

my life. I simply am sick of coughing.

I know that many people here are fighing much worse issues than I

am. I wish them the best.