A week ago, I started getting an itchy/scratchy throat. The next day it got worse and I ended up with a cough, congestion, worse sore throat and loss of voice. I think I may have screwed my voice up by hollering for my dog to come into the house right at the time I was starting to get hoarse. Anyway, my sore throat is better, but I still have one for about the first half hour when I woke up the last few days. My mucus is yellow and really thick and seems to be more in my throat than lungs. My cough is gone unless I laugh at something then it starts back up again for a minute or so. What's worrying me the most id the lingering sore throat and hoarseness. Is it normal to be hoarse for a week, or have a sore thraot for a week (even though the sore thraot is only in the mornings"? Maybe I'm needlessly worrying myself by looking things up online, but when I looked up sore thraot and hoarseness symptoms that lasted over a week online, a lot of hits for thraot cancer popped up. In case it matters, I'm 37 and have never smoked, but I did drink from the age of 17 to about a year ago. I heard the thick yellow mucus means my body is fighting off an infection? So maybe I'm just having an unusually long cold of some sort?