Whooping Cough :: Whooping Cough Health Medical Essays

Whooping Cough These days whooping cough, also known as Pertussis, is not a serious disease because there are vaccinations available to prevent its occurrence. However, when I was five years old a vaccination was available but neither my siblings nor myself had been vaccinated against it and due to its highly contagious nature, I contracted whooping cough from my older sisters. Both of my older sisters had whooping cough, but they were lucky and managed to get well fairly quickly. Unfortunately, they passed it on to me and I suffered much more from it because I was a few years younger than them both. It started out as just a runny nose and a slight cough, which most people would attribute to the common cold or the flu. These symptoms persisted for about a ten days and my mom thought that I was getting better. After ten days she finally allowed me back outside to play with my friends even though I still wasn't feeling well. This unfortunately only made my whooping cough worse and that night I woke up coughing so hard I thought my lungs were going to explode. These coughing fits would only last for a few minutes but they were harsh and I was struggling to get enough air to breathe. My mom heard me coughing and came running from her bedroom to see what was going on. She comforted me for a few minutes until the coughing had subsided and I had finally fallen back asleep. However, an hour or so later I woke up again with another coughing fit, this one even worse than the first. My coughs were followed by a whooping noise in my lungs because I was struggling so hard to get enough oxygen into my lungs. After about three days of this my whooping cough was not getting any better and my parents started to get worried. My two older sisters had not suffered as much as I had and they decided to call my doctor. He came to our house that evening and as soon as he saw me and heard me cough he told my parents I needed to go to hospital that night. I was terrified. I had never been to a hospital; well not since I was born anyway.