Whoop whoop its the sound of the police

About ten days and quite a lot of penicillin later I was coughing like a miner (not a minor) so I decided to go back to the doctors. 

The doctor I had seen previously was all booked up so I went to see my least favourite doctor. She is my least favourite because 

a. she always looks very serious 

b. she nods very seriously whilst I talk

and 

c. she is very serious.  

She has a long face and quite a severe hair cut, I imagine she is married to either a vet or a vicar and I think she spends much of her time day dreaming about owning a cheese shop or having an affair with the owner of a cheese shop.

I explained about the noise and the coughing. She nodded seriously. She had a listen, she said the noise was but a whisper and that a piece of asthmatic equipment that can act like a nebuliser, some steroids and a rest should do the trick.

Then she paused.

'Now' she said seriously 'I'm not by any means suggesting you have this...'

'Oh god, I'm dying' I thought

'...but' she continued with severity 'there's this website.'

'I have a website in my lungs?' I wondered silently.

'...compiled by a GP. This website is dedicated entirely to adult whooping cough'

I don't know why it isn't spelt hooping cough, whooping cough sounds like an illness you should only have during significant periods of celebration.

'Now, you can go on the site and listen to recordings of coughing, and if your cough sounds like the cough on the website, you probably have whooping cough' She said matter-of-factly. 

'So, here I am in a doctors surgery and you are sitting near me and I keep on coughing, but you are unwilling to tell me if I have whooping cough but rather are asking me to go and listen to recordings of coughs on the internet and diagnose myself....isn't that your job?'

Of course I didn't say that. What I did say was;

'What if I have it?'

'Oh' she said seriously 'there's no cure, but its nice to know!'

'Is it?'

I left and went home to study www.whoopingcough.net

I shouldn't have been so scornful, its probably the best website ever! It's run by a doctor who bares more than a passing resemblance to Harold Shipman. He says;

"My mission is to make health professionals aware that whooping cough is much more common than they realise, that it now affects ALL AGES....This site gives relief to those who have it but cannot get anyone to believe them... "

God bless him!

Apparently...

"Attempts to get benefit from cough suppressants or antibiotics are generally futile"

and most damningly...

"Whooping cough is estimated to be 100 times more common than official statistics show!"

In your face statistics!

If you think you or someone you know has whooping cough, please click here

...I don't