I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...
I really don't want to be a once-every-other-month blogger. But here's what I did last month...
About a month ago, I started feeling lousy. Super sick over a weekend, started feeling better for about a 6-hour period, and then started getting much, much worse. Visited the doc and found out I'd had the Hamthrax and (oh joy!) it had turned into pneumonia. So I basically laid on the couch for a month. I'm in week 6 of the recovery period, and the doc says I could feel the fatigue right up until Christmas (why yes, that's so encouraging! Thanks for asking). For the entire first month of it, I left the house a total of 4 times -- 3 to go to the doctor, and once to go to the airport to pick up my sister's oldest, who had saved up his money for his first by-himself airplane trip to see a friend in Colorado Springs. I'm slowly making forays back in to society with grocery store trips. I don't have to get too close to people there, I was surprised that I missed it, and it's probably the thing that Unk hates the most.
Speaking of Unk, he won the Husband of the Year award in the last month. He did all the grocery shopping -- knocking himself out to find things that my antibiotic- and pneumonia-affected taste buds thought might sound good, he did the laundry, fixed all the meals, ran errands, talked to my mom several nights in a row when she wanted daily updates and I just couldn't talk, set up backrests for me in bed and on the couch, did the dishes ... and really took care of me. He was even peeling oranges for me, and making sure I was drinking enough water (which also had to be reported to my mother!).
I've recently done a bit of research online on pneumonia, since I'm now fascinated and a little bit scared of it. You can do your own research if you like, but the information below might help you self-diagnose. You probably have pneumonia if you have one or more of these symptoms:
To recap: take care of yourself. I'm convinced that I wouldn't have gotten both things if I hadn't been run-down. Unk was out of town 10 days before I got sick, and I just don't sleep well when he's gone. So when it hit me, I had nothing left to fight it. And now I'm afraid to go out into the real world with the sniffly people! (I really am much, much, better, and am just taking it slowly. I miss my friends and church, and the tea shop, and book club, and driving myself places, and my in-town niece and nephew and family and ...)
About a month ago, I started feeling lousy. Super sick over a weekend, started feeling better for about a 6-hour period, and then started getting much, much worse. Visited the doc and found out I'd had the Hamthrax and (oh joy!) it had turned into pneumonia. So I basically laid on the couch for a month. I'm in week 6 of the recovery period, and the doc says I could feel the fatigue right up until Christmas (why yes, that's so encouraging! Thanks for asking). For the entire first month of it, I left the house a total of 4 times -- 3 to go to the doctor, and once to go to the airport to pick up my sister's oldest, who had saved up his money for his first by-himself airplane trip to see a friend in Colorado Springs. I'm slowly making forays back in to society with grocery store trips. I don't have to get too close to people there, I was surprised that I missed it, and it's probably the thing that Unk hates the most.
Speaking of Unk, he won the Husband of the Year award in the last month. He did all the grocery shopping -- knocking himself out to find things that my antibiotic- and pneumonia-affected taste buds thought might sound good, he did the laundry, fixed all the meals, ran errands, talked to my mom several nights in a row when she wanted daily updates and I just couldn't talk, set up backrests for me in bed and on the couch, did the dishes ... and really took care of me. He was even peeling oranges for me, and making sure I was drinking enough water (which also had to be reported to my mother!).
I've recently done a bit of research online on pneumonia, since I'm now fascinated and a little bit scared of it. You can do your own research if you like, but the information below might help you self-diagnose. You probably have pneumonia if you have one or more of these symptoms:
- No energy
- No appetite (you might lose 18 lbs., though!)
- Go to bed at 8 PM and get up at 11 AM
- You have to sleep sitting up (yes, it's as fun at home as on a plane!)
- Food you usually like tastes funny or downright unappealing
- Food you ask your husband to fix (like homemade macaroni and cheese!) tastes good for a whopping 3 bites and then you're done
- Constant coughing, even if you have cough syrup with codeine
- Too sick and weak to read (this is how I knew I was really sick)
- You watch 3 or 5 episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress" in a row and then dream about wedding dress problems all night, in between coughing, trying to get comfortable, and going to the bathroom because you're drinking so much water
- Your legs feel rubbery when you stand up
- No interest in email, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, or any other website you previously spent any time on at all. None.
- You can't catch your breath walking up 3 stairs
- You don't leave the house for a month and you don't care.
- Did I mention no energy?
To recap: take care of yourself. I'm convinced that I wouldn't have gotten both things if I hadn't been run-down. Unk was out of town 10 days before I got sick, and I just don't sleep well when he's gone. So when it hit me, I had nothing left to fight it. And now I'm afraid to go out into the real world with the sniffly people! (I really am much, much, better, and am just taking it slowly. I miss my friends and church, and the tea shop, and book club, and driving myself places, and my in-town niece and nephew and family and ...)