Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

I can’t hear you March 31, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:01 AM
Tags: , , , , , , ,

COULD SOMEONE PLEASE answer the phone, turn off the radio and fix the potholes?

That isn’t going to happen. Not for me now, anytime soon or perhaps ever.

Welcome to my new world of ringing telephones, annoying transistor radios and bothersome potholes. I’ll explain after giving you some background.

Three weeks ago I suffered a sudden sensory hearing loss. One minute I could hear mostly fine in my right ear. The next minute it was as if someone had closed the door to my hearing.

At this point, why I suddenly lost 70 percent of the hearing in my right ear remains an unknown. It could be related to an ear trauma three years ago at a Wisconsin waterpark where a waterfall pounded my head. That caused permanent nerve damage, and some hearing loss, to my right inner ear. Or it could be the result of a viral infection, or something else.

Whatever the cause, I now have only 30 percent of my hearing in my right ear.

Thus, the ringing telephone, the transistor and the problem potholes have become issues for me. It’s not like I didn’t try to eliminate all three.

I tried a 10-day mega dose of inflammation-reducing steroids in an attempt to salvage some, if not all, of my hearing. The Prednisone didn’t work, only made me jittery, sleepless and emotional. I noticed no improvement in my hearing. The drug is typically most effective within 48 hours of symptom onset and my treatment started long after that.

I see a specialist next week to recheck my hearing and perhaps get some answers.

I took this photo of my eyes last week when I wasn't getting much sleep due to the effects of my steroid treatment. I'm still having sleep issues.

For now, I’ve accepted the fact that this is my new world of hearing. Sometimes the tinnitus is so bad that I joke to my husband, “Can you please answer the telephone?” Only problem, the telephone is inside my right ear.

As for the transistor, those of you old enough to remember transistor radios will also recall how they were often plagued by poor reception resulting in lots of static. I’m hearing that type of static now in my right ear more often than I like.

With my “bad” right ear I hear just “noise,” nothing as clear or distinct as an individual word.

Driving over an uneven roadway surface, like a pothole or a crack, hurts my ear with the thump echoing unpleasantly inside my ear.

I’m trying to adjust to this hearing loss. But, honestly, it’s not always easy. I can barely tolerate the organ music in church and singing isn’t too much fun any more.

My right ear, in which I've lost 70 percent of my hearing due to a sudden sensory hearing loss.

But most difficult for me, like anyone with a hearing loss, is the inability to clearly hear conversations. And for me, a blogger and writer, that’s a very big deal. I need to hear, and hear accurately.

All too often I find myself asking others to speak louder. I’m sure they’re thinking, “Why doesn’t she just get a hearing aid?” It’s not that simple. An audiologist and an ear/nose/throat doctor have told me that a hearing aid will not help, not with this type of hearing loss.

Put me in a room full of people, and I struggle to hear.

The other night while waiting in a check-out line at the grocery store, I was frustrated because I couldn’t hear everything the young male checker in the lane next to me was telling the bagger. He was offering her relationship advice, something about his fiancée who’d gone to college on the East Coast and who’d cheated on him. I caught the advice about hanging on to someone you care about and to, basically, not mess it up. It would have been a great blog topic, but I couldn’t hear enough of the conversation to accurately pull together a post. My days of eavesdropping may have ended with this sudden sensory hearing loss.

Despite all of this, I realize my health issues could be much worse and that many people suffer from severe hearing losses.

Like all other challenges I’ve faced in my life, I’ll adjust, adapt, accept and move on.

Yet, if I feel the need to cry, which I have several times already, I’ll cry.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Suddenly going nearly deaf in one ear March 21, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:13 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

THE ELDERLY COUPLE stood in line next to me at the pharmacy gripping their skinny white canes.

He fidgeted, a plastic grocery store bag rustling in his hands. I wondered how much he could see through the thick lenses of his glasses.

She waited beside him. Calm. Steady. Sure. I doubted she could see me, only sense that I was there, close by.

I considered for a minute allowing them ahead of me. But I’d already returned for the second time to the pharmacy and didn’t want to give up my spot.

So I stood there, health insurance and debit cards clenched in my right hand, arms folded across my chest. I did not want to be there sandwiched between the mom with a clearly sick child and the visually-impaired couple. But, mostly, I did not want to be there because I did not want the prescription drugs I was picking up.

Eight hours earlier I laid on my back, head strapped down, face covered with a mask, as my head and upper body slid inside a magnetic resonance imaging machine.

Several hours after that, I sat in a sound-proof booth getting my hearing tested.

A half hour later I braced myself for the MRI results, hoping for the best, semi-prepared for the worst. The news was good. No tumor. No stroke. No anything abnormal, the ear specialist told me. I breathed deeply, the release of tension in my body palpable.

But the hearing, that was different. I had lost most of the hearing in my right ear. I had “one shot,” the doctor told me, to restore some of my hearing. There were no guarantees.

That is when I cried, although the tears had been building since the audiologist pointed to a graph showing that I had lost 70 percent of the hearing in my right ear. I verged on tears when she told me, too, that a hearing aid would not help me.

I listened to the doctor tell me that a 10-day mega dose of steroids could possibly restore some of my hearing. No promises. The Prednisone is most effective within 48 hours of symptom onset. Four days had passed since my symptoms—sudden hearing loss and eight hours of dizziness and nausea—began.

“You’ll cry some more,” he said, explaining that the steroid will throw me into emotional mood swings, cause insomnia, make me jittery, maybe even nauseated. He minced no words: The treatment course “will be difficult.”

And then I asked, “Is it worth it?”

He told me this was my “one shot” to regain some of my hearing.

Do you know how difficult it is to photograph one's ear? This is my best shot after many attempts. I could have done without the photo, but images always add to a blog. So there you have it, my right ear that I am hoping, praying, will be healed. Yes, I see the wax. Yes, I know my ear is not petite. Typically it's draped by my hair. But I don't care about lack of prettiness right now. I care only that I get some, or all, of my hearing back.

AND SO I FOUND MYSELF waiting in line at the pharmacy, next to the visually-impaired couple. As I watched them, I asked myself, “Would you rather be blind or deaf?” I don’t mean to offend any of you readers, but that is, honestly, what I was thinking.

The debate swirled briefly through my brain. As the store clerk placed the visually-impaired woman’s hand on a bottle and told her it was fish oil, I chose deafness. I determined that I would rather deal with the loss of hearing in one ear than lose my ability to see.

And so the next 10 days will reveal whether a portion of my hearing can be salvaged. Ten days. I am trying to steel myself for the negative physical and emotional side effects I am certain to experience from the high steroid dosage. I’ve been on the drug before, for whooping cough. I hate it.

I am trying to prepare myself, too, for the very real possibility that this course of treatment will not work—because I waited too long. I did call my clinic within an hour of the symptom onset, but was advised only to come in if my condition worsened. Within several hours, I was feeling better, although my hearing had not improved.

I thought I might be suffering a Meniere’s disease attack related to a previous ear trauma as my symptoms matched those of Meniere’s.

I am writing this post because I need your prayers for healing and strength through my treatment.

I am also writing to warn you that, should you ever experience sudden hearing loss, see a doctor immediately. Don’t wait. Ever. I waited four days to schedule a clinic appointment, another day to get in and then another day to have the MRI and get the diagnosis.

My ear doctor saw several patients just this week with the same sudden sensory hearing loss, leading him to believe a viral infection of some type is going around the Faribault community.

Since developing this issue, I’ve had several friends tell me of acquaintances who’ve suffered the same snap-of-the-finger hearing loss. One regained her hearing; two did not.

The cause of my sudden sensory hearing loss has not been determined. I’m following up with another specialist in several weeks, the same expert I’ve seen since that traumatic ear injury at a Wisconsin water park several years ago.

In the meantime, I am adjusting to the ringing and static (like a bad transistor radio) and partial deafness that are now a part of my world.

I am learning to position myself with my “good” left ear to anyone who is speaking to me.

And I am holding on to hope.

FOLLOW-UP: Today I started my fourth day of steroid treatment. Thus far I’ve noticed no improvement in my hearing. But I am still hopeful that some of my hearing may be restored. Many family and friends are praying for me and for that I am grateful.

I am feeling the effects of taking the Prednisone. Yesterday afternoon and into the evening, I was unsettled and sat twirling my hair, which is not a regular habit of mine. I had trouble falling, and staying, asleep.

Yet, through all of this, I remain cognizant that this diagnosis could have been something far worse than a hearing loss. In the realm of possible medical issues, this is minor.

If, by telling my story, I can prevent one person, even one, from delaying treatment for a sudden sensory hearing loss, then something good will have come from this.

Seven more days to go…

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Sick of high healthcare costs November 27, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 12:56 PM
Tags: , , , ,

MY HEALTH INSURANCE premium arrived in the mail yesterday. Happy holidays!

Not.

It’s due shortly before Christmas.

Bah! Humbug!

In mid-June, the premium increased from $801 to $813 for three months of coverage. Do the math. That’s $271 per month or $3,252 a year.

I am not happy.

Here’s the deal. I foolishly thought healthcare reform would mean lower premiums and lower costs for medical visits, in other words, more affordable healthcare for families like mine. We are not wealthy. We live in a modest home in a modest neighborhood. We have no debt. We spend carefully and wisely.

But when it comes to health insurance, I believe the word “affordable” cannot fit, cannot even be squeezed, into the same sentence.

I pay $271 a month for coverage with a $3,000 deductible. In other words, my coverage is basically major medical.

I’ve evaluated getting onto my husband’s plan at work. That would cost me even more than the individual policy I have as a self-employed writer. His employer pays only a small portion of his health insurance premium and my spouse, too, has a high deductible.

I haven’t crunched the numbers lately, but my family (which also includes one still-at-home 16-year-old) is forking out a lot of money every month for health insurance.

Yet, we rarely go to the doctor because of the high deductibles and the high cost of healthcare. Cost is a great deterrent for skipping routine exams. I’m just being honest here.

Another problem I face is past medical history. I had total hip replacement surgery in 2008. I will need a new, and very costly, hip in 15 – 20 years. Insurance companies have these policies about pre-existing conditions.  So, even if I was to look for different insurance, the hip would likely be excluded from coverage.

I have no answers to any of this. I just know that I am sick and tired of the high cost of health insurance and of healthcare.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS on the topic and do you have any answers? What are you spending every month on health insurance premiums?

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Minnesota Teen Challenge shares sobering, inspirational stories November 8, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:50 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

WHEN YOU PUT faces and stories to statistics, substance abuse in Minnesota becomes real.

On Sunday I heard the stories, saw the faces and spoke to individuals who are currently working toward recovery through Minnesota Teen Challenge, a Christian-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. The group brought its inspirational message to Trinity Lutheran Church in Faribault with songs and personal stories.

JEFF: He didn’t tell his story, but he sang a sweet, pure, heartfelt rendition of Amazing Grace. “The chains are broken,” Jeff sang with the Minnesota Teen Challenge Choir as his back-up.

MICAH: Once a church-attending youth with intentions of possibly becoming a pastor, Micah spoke of how he became caught up in alcohol after his church youth group folded and he no longer had anywhere to go, nothing to do. He stresses the importance of maintaining church youth groups.

Through his years of abuse, his girlfriend (now his fiancée) has stuck by him, turning him in when she had to with a tough love that today has led him into recovery. He plans now to enter the ministry.

Later his fiancée would tell me about the irony of their situation, how a vehicle in which they were riding was struck head-on by a drunk driver; how, when she lay in the hospital, Micah was back home drinking.

DAR: She shakes my hand before the church service begins and immediately reveals that she was a teacher with a double life as a cocaine addict. Later, she will stand before the congregation and perform a solo with the Teen Challenge Choir. “Love so amazing…the rescue for sinners…our hope is in you.”

JESSICA: She’s 29, a former heroin addict from St. Cloud with a felony record. She tells me her story as we sit side-by-side at the potluck dinner following the church service.

She’s made the news, for all the wrong reasons. She’s had a gun held to her head. For her, the possibility of death was her rock bottom. She never expected to live past 30.

Today Jessica’s doing well. She worries, though, about several roommates who lasted only one night at Teen Challenge. (Program enrollees are free to leave at any time.) She wonders why they couldn’t see the possibilities of successful recovery in her. She wishes she could have told them to “buck up,” that God has not given up on them. He never gave up on her.

Emotion edges her voice as she shares how her application for entry into the Teen Challenge program was prayed over by staff.

When a church member brings Jessica a piece of German chocolate cake, she becomes emotional again, this time over the simple act of kindness from a stranger.

DEVON: “You name it, I did it,” says Devon, 28, who grew up as a church-attending Catholic, the daughter of an abusive and alcoholic father. She was molested (not by her father), sold meth, spent time in jail, lost custody of her kids, lost everything, she says. One day she looked at herself in the mirror and promised God that she would change her life.

“I would probably be homeless or dead in the gutter if not for Teen Challenge,” Devon tells the congregation.

Later, as she sits across the dinner table from me raving about the Rice Krispie bars, Devon reveals more—how only her Catholic upbringing kept her from killing herself because she had been taught that suicide is a damning, unforgivable sin.

Devon tells me how she once asked for a sign from God, for money, after her home had been broken into while she was in jail. Her dealer, who was high, unknowingly left $1,000 in her apartment. She took that as a sign from God (How many times have you had $1,000 dropped in your lap?” she asks), using some of the money to repay her mom, pay a landlord, buy clothes and then buy more drugs.

Today she’s determined to stick with her recovery program, for the sake of her kids and because, if she left now, she would be homeless, a place she does not want to be.

She speaks with a fierce voice of determination.

JIM: He sings a solo: “You make all things new..I will follow you forward.”

JAMES: He’s returned to his hometown—Faribault—“a good town, but it’s had its down sides and its dark sides.” He’s stolen from people here, maybe even some sitting in the pews, he says. He is nervous about returning to the town where his criminal acts placed his name on the front page of the local newspaper. He shares a dream he had about a banner hung in Faribault’s Central Park that reads “From robbery to restoration.”

JERI: She’s 52, a Lutheran from Duluth, an alcohol abuser with her ninth attempt at rehab. “I never thought it would happen to me…I never thought that a cocktail would turn into a three-day binge…I never thought…”

She speaks with eloquence fitting her former profession as a counselor and an educator. It does not fit the image of a woman who confesses that she tried to kill herself in July, who ended up in a psych ward, whose addiction ended her career and her marriage.

“My heart was so far away from God,” Jeri says, quoting Isaiah 29:13.

She visited with her daughter on Saturday and heard the words, “Mom, you’ve changed.”

OF ALL THE INDIVIDUALS I watch singing in the choir, which is a mandatory part of the Teen Challenge Program, Jeri seems the most animated, swaying, lifting her hands in praise, her face expressing her inward joy.

I wish I could talk to all of these recovering addicts, hear their stories and write about them here. I wonder about the young woman who is fiddling with her hair, twirling her curls with her fingertips while she sings. Her fingernails are painted with bright red nail polish and she looks like the girl next door. I wonder about the tall young man in the back row who barely moves his lips and has all-American boy good looks. I wonder about the men with tattoos covering their arms.

Their leader, the administrator whose name I didn’t catch, tells us that we can help these recovering addicts through a volunteer mentoring program. “Sit and listen over a cup of coffee, go to a movie or go bowling,” he says.

They have all come to Minnesota Teen Challenge for sobriety, he says. They are here to overcome addiction, which he defines as “nothing more than incredible selfishness.”

“When they come in, they get God.”

IF YOU HAVE NEVER heard the Minnesota Teen Challenge Choir, check the MTC website for upcoming concerts. You will be forever changed by the inspirational messages these recovering addicts bring through word and song as they speak openly about their past and their addictions and about how God has worked change in their lives.

Their stories are powerful, sobering, inspiring, heartfelt, uplifting and hopeful.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

PS to my whooping cough post November 7, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:34 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

DELORIS EDNA EMILIE BODE died on May 10, 1935, from pertussis (whooping cough), pneumonia and a gangrene-type infection of the mouth.

The second-born daughter of Lawrence and Josephine Bode, she was only nine months and nine days old.

She was my aunt.

The gravestone of Deloris Edna Emilie Bode in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery, rural Courtland.

Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

 

 

An update on whooping cough in Minnesota November 6, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:29 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

WHENEVER I HEAR the words “whooping cough,” I listen. Last night a Twin Cities television station reported on the increased number of pertussis cases in Minnesota. Most recent statistics on the Minnesota Department of Health website show 1,000 reported cases as of October 21.

When I last checked those state stats in mid-August, and wrote about whooping cough on this blog, that number stood at 395, as of July 16.

The surge in this highly-contagious disease during the past several months is likely related to the start of school. A statement by the MDH seems to support that: “Minnesota is experiencing a peak period of pertussis that started back in the fall of 2008. Pertussis disease normally peaks every three to five years. Clusters continue to occur in the elementary school setting.”

I take a personal interest in whooping cough because I contracted the disease in the summer of 2005. If you don’t take pertussis seriously, you ought to. It’s called the 100-day cough, and it’s not misnamed, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Yes, you can die from the disease. Infants and senior citizens are particularly vulnerable.

Yes, vaccines exist to prevent whooping cough. But don’t mistakenly think you are protected because you were vaccinated as a child. Pre-teens need boosters. Adults can get a vaccine targeted especially for them.

If you want to know how many whooping cough cases have been reported to the MDH this year or in previous years in any Minnesota county, click here. As you would expect, the more densely-populated counties have reported more cases.

In Rice County, where I live, nine cases have been reported so far this year, holding steady with the previous two years of seven and nine cases.

But neighboring Steele County has seen a significant increase with cases rising from one and two the past two years to 37 thus far in 2010.

Similarly Mille Lacs County has shown a notable increase in numbers, from none in 2008, to six in 2009 and 29 this year.

I don’t know the reason for the rising numbers in those counties. But I do know that the disease spreads quickly and easily. My husband and one of my daughters caught whooping cough from me although their cases were not nearly as severe. Antibiotics administered in the early stage of the illness can reduce the severity.

I’ll leave you with this final note. When I asked my doctor five years ago where I could possibly have contracted pertussis, he told me, “You could have gotten it standing in the check-out line at the grocery store.”

That, my friends, is food for thought.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

How some Minnesota schools are serving healthier meals September 14, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:19 AM
Tags: , , , , , , ,

DECADES AGO when my relatives from the Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul, for you non-Minnesotans), visited my southwestern Minnesota childhood farm, they would scoop up fresh garden produce by the bags full to take home. We didn’t mind, if we had extras, and were happy to share the bounty of the land.

I’ll admit, though, that even back then I felt a bit smug about our ability as farmers to provide food for the city dwellers. They had small gardens, but certainly could not grow what we could on our acres and acres of soil.

Today, as a city dweller, I’m the one carting home fresh garden produce from the country. No longer smug, I humbly accept the eggplant, tomatoes, spinach, cucumbers, okra, green beans, zucchini and other fruits and veggies that my country-dwelling family and friends share. I could live on fresh vegetables; I love them that much. But in my scrunched yard, I have room only for growing tomatoes and lettuce.

Some of the garden-fresh vegetables I got from my brother a few days ago.

Eating local, eating fresh, seems the healthy, trendy thing to do these days.

So when I read in the September 9 issue of The Gaylord Hub (a weekly newspaper where I worked in the 1970s) that students at the Sibley East, Arlington campus, will eat garden-fresh vegetables in their lunches this year, I took note.

According to the article, last spring students and staff planted a one-acre vegetable garden, which has produced beans, potatoes, cucumbers, onions, cabbage and squash. Later the garden will yield pumpkins, carrots and kale. Food service staff has been busy freezing the beans and making salsa and refrigerator pickles. The other vegetables will be incorporated fresh into meals.

Four grants are helping to fund the Farm to School Program project, which is more labor intensive and costly than a regular school food service offering.

Some Minnesota schools are growing onions in gardens.

Sibley East students grew cabbage, which will be made into coleslaw.

I don’t know if I’ve had my head in the refrigerator or what, but I don’t recall hearing about the Farm to School Program, which has been around nationally since the late 1990s and began in Minnesota in 2005.

Today a check of the Farm to School Program Web site reveals that an “estimated 69” Farm to School programs exist in Minnesota. (Sixty-nine doesn’t sound like an estimate to me but rather like a precise number.) Seventeen existing programs are profiled on the site.

Several districts, including Alexandria and Dover-Eyota, have planted apple trees.

Some Minnesota school districts have planted mini apple orchards.

In Bemidji, students at Solway Elementary School planted a garden and are now eating fresh, and frozen, vegetables. Others, including Dover-Eyota, plus Little Falls and Minneapolis Public Schools, are buying locally-grown produce.

Over in Montevideo, the public schools hosted an educational tomato-tasting event.

Down in the southeastern corner of the state, Winona Area Public Schools students are eating bison burgers and hot dogs thanks to a partnership with a local bison farm.

I liked what I read about these districts partnering up with local growers and producers. Even more, I like that some districts are taking the initiative and getting students involved by planting gardens and mini-orchards. Hands-on involvement, in my opinion, creates ownership, which spawns success.

Despite my excitement about the 69 Farm to School programs in Minnesota, I wonder why more districts are not involved. According to 2008-2009 statistics from the Minnesota Department of Education Web site, the state had 336 public-operating elementary and secondary independent school districts and 153 charter schools with a total of 2,006 public schools as of July 1 (2009).

Although I don’t know this for a fact, I suspect that funding is a problem in this tough economy and tight budgets. Perhaps also apathy and apprehension exist among parents, students, administrators and food service personnel. Finicky taste buds are likely a consideration given this generation is growing up on lots of processed foods and fast food.

Last winter I watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution on television as Oliver sought to get fresh, healthy foods into a West Virginia school. The task proved difficult as food service workers, students and others didn’t exactly embrace the health-conscious meals.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying. I would like to see more Minnesota schools join the Food to School Program and provide healthier meals for a student population that truly needs a healthier diet, both at home and in our schools.

Ditto for us adults. We certainly could learn to eat better too by buying (or accepting from family and friends) more locally-grown, fresh produce or growing our own.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A closer look at whooping cough, including my story August 17, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:19 AM
Tags: , , , , ,

FIVE YEARS AGO, I earned the distinction of becoming my physician’s first adult whooping cough patient in his 30-plus year career.

I still remember that day when I perched on the examining table, so exhausted from my coughing fits and a subsequent lack of sleep that I could barely function. Five weeks earlier my doctor had diagnosed bronchitis. When I wasn’t getting any better, I returned and he gave me the same diagnosis. But now, on this third visit with my condition steadily deteriorating, I wanted answers.

Then I coughed.

For my doctor, that was a profound moment. He didn’t even hesitate. “I think you have whooping cough,” he blurted, then soon left the room to consult with another physician.

I don’t recall exactly how I responded, but I remember thinking that whooping cough couldn’t possibly exist in 2005.

How very wrong I was about that assumption. Today, five years after I struggled with this debilitating illness that invaded my lungs and throat, causing persistent coughing fits, a severe sore throat, asthmatic type attacks and a resulting inability to sleep, the disease continues to infect, and even kill.

California, if trends continue, is expecting more pertussis (whooping cough) cases in 2010 than it’s seen in 50-plus years, according to the California Department of Public Health. As of August 10, those numbers stood at 2,774 reported cases, including seven deaths among infants. The cases represent a seven-fold increase from the 395 reported during the same period in 2009.

Naturally, I wondered how Minnesota compares. According to statistics from the Minnesota Department of Health, as of July 16, there had been 395 cases reported. The report notes that the state is near the end of an outbreak that began in 2008.

In my home county, Rice, three cases of the disease have been recorded in 2010. The majority of infections are, as I would expect, in the more heavily-populated counties of Hennepin (75 cases), Wright (60), Dakota (52) and Ramsey (40).

But statistics really don’t matter if you’re the one with whooping cough. I remember the follow-up phone call from my physician who delivered the news that pertussis is known as “the 100-day cough.” He wasn’t kidding.

And he wasn’t kidding that he really couldn’t do anything for me. The disease would have to run its course—for me from early July until after Labor Day—and my body would need to heal on its own. Antibiotics help only early on in either preventing whooping cough or diminishing the severity of a case. The pertussis bacteria die off naturally after three weeks of coughing.

My entire family received a regiment of antibiotics with my husband and my second daughter both developing whooping cough, albeit much milder than mine.

Whooping cough, I can undeniably tell you, should be taken seriously. If you are an adult, or a teen, and haven’t been vaccinated since childhood, listen up. By age 10 or 12, you are no longer protected by that childhood vaccine. I was 48 years old when I developed pertussis. I’ll never know how I contracted the disease, but it’s highly-contagious. Infants are especially vulnerable.

Ironically, in the same year I became ill, new vaccines for adolescents and adults were approved. With widespread immunization, pertussis can become an illness of the past.

Within my own family, whooping cough claimed the life of my Aunt Deloris. On May 10, 1935, Deloris Edna Emilie Bode, second-born daughter of Lawrence and Josephine, died of pertussis, pneumonia and a gangrene-type infection of the mouth at the age of nine months and nine days.

Whenever I think of Deloris, I nearly weep at the thought of that beautiful baby girl wracked with uncontrollable coughing fits, struggling to breathe, fighting to live. I will feel forever linked to her by whooping cough, the 100-day cough, and today a preventable disease.

(The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has designated August as National Immunization Awareness Month.)

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling