Riding the medical merry-go-round

I got a cold last spring (about six months ago) and haven't stopped coughing (at least intermittently) for more than a few weeks since then.

In the summer, shortly after finally recovering from the cold, I got another, worse respiratory virus that - in addition to the cough - also left me with fatigue, shortness of breath, palpitations, tachycardia, and a bunch of other symptoms that took a couple MONTHS to go away. It wasn't Covid, according to several tests, but it was definitely something!

When I didn't get better in short order, I saw a bunch of doctors (primary care, cardiology, pulmonology) and had a bunch of tests (chest x-ray, chest CT, Holter monitor, and others I must have blocked out -- none of which found much of anything. Oh, except something completely unrelated that required yet another test, which found nothing). Are we there yet?

I also had a couple courses of both steroids and antibiotics, neither of which touched the cough, but eventually the rest of it dissipated.

The cough is productive (coughing up lovely gunk, so fun), and at this point, it just comes and goes, seemingly randomly, but I usually need my rescue inhaler at least once a day; thankfully, it does relieve the cough when it gets going.

Today, even as I coughed for him, my asthma specialist said my lungs sound fine. He put me on another round of antibiotics, I think just because he couldn't think of anything else to do. If the antibiotic doesn't work, he may try increasing the dose of my daily Advair inhaler and/or send me back to the laryngologist, who treated me previously for an irritated larynx. (Neither of us really thinks this is that same larynx problem - feels and sounds different - but at least she could look down in my airway to see what's up.)

So, I'm still on the medical merry-go-round, but it's thankfully mild, just some gunk in my throat that makes its presence known at the most inconvenient times. Besides that, I feel good, energetic and healthy, and I'm very grateful for that. Finding things to be grateful for helps me cope with things in general.