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Reflecting on what an utter failure of the health system this has been. Two of us, 6 weeks off work each, 3 months of ongoing illness, totally avoidable if they had listened and treated it in time. Patronising dismissal of both of us saying we thought it was whooping cough, over and over again. Luckily we treated it as if it was that and isolated, but assuming most don't do that, I wonder how many they've killed.

That's 3 GPs, 2 paramedics, and 1 hospital doc all wrong, and our allotment neighbour right - she immediately said it was probably that when I described what my partner was experiencing in week 1, before I got it. So for anyone else, if you're coughing like nothing you've experienced before, your throat restricts so you can't inhale and you're gasping for air, and you vomit at the end of the coughing, all worse at night so you end up with sleep deprivation, that's what whooping cough is like.

No temperature, no drop in blood oxygen, nothing to be heard with a stethoscope on the lungs, so clinically you appear well. Also being worse at night means daytime GP appointments won't show how bad it is.

Got called into GP this morning and got an actual apology for poor treatment! Changes nothing, and nothing will change, but that's a first.

@vicgrinberg am personally hoping for a massive pre election scandal! Got to get something good out of it

@domino_joyce lots of people have - which makes it even more mindblowing that the docs are so insistent on it not existing as a possibility!! Hope your colleague gets better asap, I probably don't want to know how long they've been unwell, another response to this said they were ill for 9 month

@b_longdon yes totally could have if still had the lab