Advice to Self

It is perhaps important at this stage for the artist's husband to remember that coughing is an important part of the artist’s defence system. It forcefully propels unwanted invaders up and out of the artist's body. A cough signals some irritation in the artist's air passages, just as the coughing itself may innocently cause some irritation in the mind of the artist's husband. This irritation may be in the throat, the lungs, or in the passageways connecting them. (That is to say, connecting the throat and lungs, not the artist and artist's husband.) An artist's cough often accompanies infections of the upper or lower respiratory tract, such as colds, flu, sinus infections, croup, bronchitis, bronchiolitis, measles, pneumonia, pastel allergy, and fixative exposure. As already suggested, sometimes the artist's cough will linger once the infection has cleared and regularly wake up the artist's husband at night. Hair cells, called cilia, normally move mucus along the respiratory tract to keep the area clean and moist. If these cilia are damaged during an infection, the artist's body may use coughing to move this mucus along – even after the invading germs are gone. (As many a bedside bucket or pile of tissues might testify.) Thus, the cough sensors tend to be hypersensitive following an infection. This however should by no means represent grounds for divorce on the part of the artist's husband as at no time is any of this the artist's fault. Wisemen and tribal elders through the ages have advised calm, faith, and relaxation over such matters. When the artist wishes for something, for example, the artist's husband should rise, salute the artist, and go hunt for whatever it is that is indeed the artist's wishes. He may well find that when the artist fully recovers, it pays him dividends. At no stage should the artist's husband court compliments from the artist, as this will ultimately work against him.