Oh, some years...

[kate_schaefer]

This hasn't been the most entertaining fall or early winter I've ever experienced. From October 15 to about December 7, I had a respiratory complaint which we characterized progressively as a cold, a bad cold with a nasty cough, bronchitis, and walking pneumonia (in modern medicine, they call it atypical pneumonia, but it's still a brontosaurus to me). The treatment was push fluids and rest, push hot fluids and rest, push hot fluids and rest and antibiotics and albuterol, push hot fluids and rest and albuterol and inhaled steroids and are you sure you understand the concept of rest? At which point my butt spent significantly more time in bed, and my lungs miraculously got all better.

While all this was going on, for weeks and weeks, I canceled some things and did some others, coughing pathetically the whole time. I made Camille jokes and Chopin jokes. My father made Gipper jokes. I reminded him that George Gipp died several years before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, and that I'd have considerably better treatment, though probably no one would ever make a saccharine movie based on my life or death. I got better; I relapsed; I got better again.

My atypical pneumonia was caused by home improvements. We did a big round of stuff: earthquake retrofitting, insulation retrofitting, and long-overdue exterior repaint. The house looks great, if you like primary colors as much as we do, it's less expensive to keep warm, and it won't fall off its foundations for anything less than a 9. Probably. The whole process generated an immense amount of dust. In retrospect, it would have been better had I gone on a nice trip to practically anywhere rather than staying at home while the work was done. We tried to keep the house as dust-free as possible, but it's hard to keep up with blown cellulose.

At any rate, it's all over. No more pneumonia, and we'll have the daughters and grandchildren visiting soon to celebrate the designated midwinter holiday of your choice. Yep. Things are fine fine fine.

I have shingles.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Let's hear it for the medication. Having been through it myself, I know that shingles has to be hit early and hit hard to prevent the worst. Otherwise it puts people down for the count for weeks, even months. May you be spared that.

On the lighter (ha!) side, I've rarely had a cold or pneumonia attack for which even the precision of "about December 7" would serve for its ending. What I usually finish up with is a cough that carries on so long it's hard to tell when it finally goes away.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I started taking the drug early enough that there isn't anything on which to base the diagnosis except how my arm feels, how old I was when I had chicken pox, and the doctor's experience, so I should miss most of the true excitement of shingles. I hope.

December 7 was the date on which my doctor was satisfied with my blowhard capacity as measured by a peak flow meter.