The Pneumonia Dilemma

I have a persistent cough which is getting worse. The cough comes on at around the same time each year, which is before Thanksgiving, and persists until some point in the spring. It starts as an uncomfortable, fluid filled sensation in my right ear, then the right sinuses start to drip down into my lungs, then the cough begins.

My ex-wife (or soon to be ex-wife) called the cough my "neurotic cough", implying that at the very least it was psychosomatic, and at worst it was a conscious choice.

I am not in the least certain that each individual hack I emit is itself an expression of some moral or spiritual malady, but I am more or less convinced that my getting the cough so regularly and on such a clockwork schedule is evidence of a strong psychosomatic causal connection.

Lately I have been attending the Christian Science Church and reading Paramhansa Yogananda on Spiritual healing, all of this out of a growing intuition that such work will lead to the evaporation of mental states/dispositions that have been troubling me for decades. In the case of the cough, which is currently worsening, I have to some degree been following these teachings on spiritual healing by not taking my antibiotics. Whether or not I will take them at some point is an open question. I also yearn to cease the use of psychiatric medicine and to rely on a higher source to lead me out of oblivion. We'll see what happens with that one.

In closing this entry, I'll quote from Paramhansa Yogananda's book on the topic of self-healing, "Scientific Healing Affirmations" :

"Perfect Father, Thy light is flowing through Christ, through the saints of all religions, through the masters of India, and through me. This divine light is present in all my body parts. I am well."

(Now, where are those g*damned antibiotics anyway!?)