Icebreaker Tuesday: Lesser Known Truths

It's time for Icebreaker Tuesday again! I'll go first, but make sure you answer the question too, in the comments. It's not really breaking the ice if I'm the only one talking. Here's a question that I heard used a couple years ago an event that I attended:

Today's question: What is one thing that you don't want the rest of us to know about you?

I remember that this question produced some hilarious responses, including, "I have extremely hairy legs" from this one guy who was then forced to roll up his pants and display his furry legs. The strange thing is, that I can't remember what I said at the time, so I just have to make up a new one.

Here's something really honest for you: I typically don't want other people to know that I have a bad cough, pretty much all the time. It's the kind of cough that sounds really bad--the "You're coughing your lungs out!" type. It's not as serious as it sounds, though. I think it was about 10 years ago that I first got a cough that didn't go away for six months. Since then, at various times I have coughed more or less, but for the past few years it's been pretty consistent.

At times in the past, I've been on as much as five medicines at once while they were trying to figure out what was causing this cough. Pretty much none of those have worked. I have had a TB test and that was negative, so it's nothing serious like that! Our best guess is that my throat is just a little over-sensitive. Things like being around smoke and eating ice cream or drinking cold drinks often lead to a fit of coughing. But bonfires are fun and ice cream is tasty so I don't avoid them all the time. Still, I apologize in advance in case I don't remember to offer you ice in your water, I never put ice in my drinks, so sometimes I forget that much of the rest of the world does!

I don't prefer people to know that I have a chronic cough because, for one thing, I'm very uncomfortable with medical stuff myself, and second, because they might be scared of my germs. I believe most people who I only see from time to time will just assume that I catch colds occasionally, like many people. I can assure you that even though you now know this, you should still be my friend, however, because the cough isn't contagious. I know because I've been kissing Angel quite frequently for the last few years and he never coughs.