My DD has a chronic cough that crops up about 2-3 times a year. Was thought to be asthma but now not for various reasons. Various investigations are ongoing to identify its cause, none so far very productive. Doctors are on the case but nothing really works.
It is absolutely horrific. I have grown to hate the cough with an irrational passion, I feel as if it is something which was sent from hell to destroy me. I know this sounds pretty bonkers but that's how I experience it.
I have tried every imaginable cough remedy/asthma treatment from the mildest cough medicine up to strong steroids. Nothing works. It goes on for literally hours at night -- average stint is about 4-5 hours, coughing about once every minute, on some occasions it has literally been all night. In bad situations she can end up in A&E. I can't ever get more than about 2 hours sleep a night. It massively impacts my life: I can't get any sleep while its going on so anything done at work during the day. This can go on for 2-3 weeks at a time and quite often she needs steroids to kick it into touch. I'm a lone parent so there's no-one else who can take over while I get some sleep.
Obviously it goes without saying it is awful for DD. I try really hard to support her where possible with it. She wants me to stay with her, let her sleep on my stomach, hold her hand through it. Which I do. When she is distressed, I will do anything to make her feel better and will stay with her until she is calmer.
But sometimes I just can't face another second of it and I have to just get out of the room. I can hear her coughing next door now, she's asleep been coughing for well over an hour, I'm probably looking at a minimum of another two hours before I'm going to get any sleep, if we don't end up in A&E. I had about two hours sleep last night and have had about half an hour tonight. I will keep an ear out and will check. But I just want to walk off a fucking cliff now and not have to be in that room with that cough another second. Am I being a bitch for not staying in there with her? I just can't do it.