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And for Christmas I got whooping cough. The diagnosis was a shock, not only due to the violence of the paroxysms that visited me in the night, but because I’d blithely assumed the thing had pretty much been vaccinated out of existence in the UK.
To be told I had whooping cough — an officially notifiable disease — felt akin to waking up in a Dickens novel where characters are succumbing to diphtheria or consumption (“Oh aye, master Robert is taken badly with the whooping cough”). It is 2024, goddamit. I know it has a charmingly retro feel but frankly, if I have to be ill, I expect something suitably of the zeitgeist: a Chinese-bred pandemic, perhaps, or some artificially intelligent virus, which strikes me down while writing my articles for me.
In fact, there was a significant rise in cases last year, probably because of its suppression during Covid. While the spawn were all vaccinated against the blasted pertussis (to give it its proper name), I cannot remember if I was. My parents certainly would have given me the jab had it been available, since these were the days before Bill Gates began using inoculation as an instrument of mind control. It’s genuinely hard to believe that we were all so naive as to think the near eradication of polio and typhoid was a worthy enough goal to allow Bill access to our brains. Even so, I do wonder about the efficacy of the Microsoft founder’s devilish plans. If it was global domination he wanted, would it not have been easier to invent TikTok instead?
Anyway, what started as a normal cough graduated to unpleasant throat clearing at meals, before morphing into expectoration and finally the convulsive night-time coughs that finally sent me to the doctor. I wasn’t expecting anything to come of the visit. I was not making the distinctive whooping sound, and numerous friends had also complained of winter colds and coughs. But I was given a swab test just before Christmas and waited. The results came back and a day later, as if they needed laboratory permission before revealing themselves, the whoops arrived.
The noise comes from the extreme gasping for breath after a prolonged bout of coughing. Whoop, however, does not do justice to the bellows that emanated from my throat. The bedroom was filled with something akin to the mating call of a water buffalo. I never actually ever felt unable to breathe but I certainly disturbed the family watering hole.
My faithless wife duly fled the marital bed until the antibiotics had done their job and out of an unsympathetic belief that it would be wrong to share the experience of my coughing fits. Unfortunately, progress is not linear: two relatively mild nights might be followed by an absolute stinker. A wise spouse falls for this only once. It does feel like a corner has been turned but it is something of a damper to discover that the affliction is known as the 100-day cough. The good news is that while the coughing gets bad at night, in the daytime fits are brought on only by a handful of niche activities such as laughing, breathing and eating.
The disease can, of course, be extremely serious — fatal even — especially for children whose parents have prioritised protecting them from Bill Gates over vaccination. For me, the worst part now is the morning retching and the permanently sore muscles courtesy of the violent cough — sufferers have been known to break ribs — which left my stomach feeling like it had gone five rounds with Mike Tyson. On the upside, this has saved me from any ill-considered New Year’s resolutions around exercise. Better safe than sorry.
Entering the convalescent phase, I find there are numerous devices that can relieve my bank account of the symptoms. Humidifiers, air filters or something called a Neti pot to wash out my sinuses, although it is a general no to anything that sounds like it comes with a Gwyneth Paltrow recommendation. Cough lozenges, a spoonful of honey and steaming over a bowl of boiling water are little help, but are at least more cost-ineffective.
So, in spite of its undoubted curiosity value, I cannot recommend this infection. If anyone offers whooping cough to you, I would definitely decline. Next Christmas, I think I’ll just ask for a cold.
Email Robert at robert.shrimsley@ft.com
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