A few months ago I got a cold that lingered in the form of a horrible dry cough. It was a constant tickle in the back of my throat and a squeezing of my esophagus that made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. After two sleepless weeks, I went to the doctor.

“There are a number of viruses that cause this,” she said, “and one bacterium. On the off chance it’s the bacterium, I’ll give you a course of antibiotics. If it’s the bacterium it will clear up right away, and if it’s a virus you’ll have to suffer for a bit, but eventually it will go away.”

I took the first antibiotic pill. Within an hour I started feeling better. Within a day it had cleared up completely.

About a month later, I got the same symptoms, which I found out were also known as “walking pneumonia.” I tried to tough it out for a few weeks but eventually went back to the doctor, explained that the antibiotics had been effective before, and got another course, with the same rapid and efficacious result.

Only a week or so later, though, the tickle came back. I was in Florida for the weekend and decided that this time I wouldn’t wait. I called the practice and got the on-call doctor, whose last name is difficult to pronounce and therefore always refers to himself by his first name. “This is Dr. Steve,” he said (not his real name), and I thought, uh-oh, because it would have been so much easier to explain to the regular doc.

But I tried: walking pneumonia, antibiotics worked like a charm two times, I’m in Florida, could he call me in a prescription? “Well, 98% of the time these things are viral infections,” he said.

“Yes, I know, but the last two times for me it’s been bacterial,” I said.

“So you want to bet against medical science?”

I tried to explain that for me it was more like Pascal’s wager, except that no one has proven the existence of God, whereas plenty of people have proven the existence of bacteria.

“You know, if you’re getting repeated infections, it means your immune system has taken a hit. What are you doing to try to boost it?”

“I’m trying to sleep well and exercise, neither of which is possible when I’m coughing all the time.”

“There’s a homeopathic remedy that works on these viral infections most of the time, as long as you take it within a day of feeling sick. Write this down: [garbled]. It’s better than Airborne or Zicam.”

A homeopathic remedy! Why not leeches or nerve tonic or exorcism? Wait, has my uterus migrated elsewhere in my body, causing these symptoms? Maybe I need to have my humours balanced. What does my horoscope say?

I love that he’s all about “medical science” when it comes to the diagnosis, but not the treatment.