A Week Down the Tubes

Last Friday, at about 3:00 am, I woke with a deep, bone-rattling cough. It kept me awake for a couple of hours, until I searched through our as-yet-unpacked boxes of grooming aids and health-care products to find a decongestant cough syrup.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday I coughed. I was getting very sore by this point. Monday I... oh cut out the middle part. By the time I got in to see the doctor on Wednesday it was clear that I had pneumonia. I felt as cold as if I were sitting on an ice floe in a raging wind, I was struggling to breathe and felt as if I had been run down by a steamroller. I was too sick to drive so we took a cab to Summerland to the doctor's office.

He took my temperature, listened to my burbling chest, and said, "You have pneumonia." He gave me an antibiotic, plus some hot-damn prescription cough syrup that puts the OTC stuff to shame. He also gave me a requisition for a chest x-ray.

Three days on the antibiotic and I am beginning to feel perfectly human again, though I sound like a rusty gate when I breathe. I had that x-ray today. It was too late in the day to have it on Wednesday and I was still too sick to drive yesterday.

I haven't accomplished much this week other than slumping from the bed to the sofa. My lovely plans to achieve wonders went down the drain.

The only good that has come from it is that I've lost 10 pounds. Pneumonia must be a real energy burner, but then coughing is a good workout. Alas, I know the weight loss will not last. As soon as I am feeling well again the pounds will catch up to me. The last time I had pneumonia I lost 11 pounds in four days. I thought it was the hospital food, disgusting pap that it was, but this time I've eaten my own swill, so I guess it's the bug and not the fodder.

I'm going back to bed now. After I go have another swig of that great cough syrup.