Pneumonia
For the past four days, I've been locked down at home fighting pneumonia. Not a pleasant disease. Three nights of 103^0F temperatures, and the general malaise that accompanies such fevers -- body aches, dizziness, listlessness. I used to coughing up mucous from colds and bronchitis, but when blood enters the picture, and I mean more blood then phlegm, it makes you ever sicker to your stomach. Then there's the breathing. Breathing is an unconscious action until you can't. Inhalers help, but give you jitters. And you don't know if it's the jitters making you take so many breaths or the diseased lungs lack of capacity for extracting oxygen from the air you breathe.
But I'm on the road to recovery. The fevers have gone, the labor of breath has not. Walk too far, turn to fast, bend over once, and you better sit down. Here come the dizzies. So you sit. And sit. And sit. It's great not lying down 20 hours a day, but there's only so much you can do sitting. There's T.V., books, and the internet. Mind you, the second two aren't options during the fever stage. Once you cook the brain, T.V. is the only form of entertainment, though even that is limited. Want to lose you sense of humor and emotion? A fever takes care of that. You see the picture, you hear the words, but very little connects with the higher level functions of the brain at 102^0F+.
But I'm on the road to recovery. Started reading again last night. ;-)