“Whence October is upon us, There shall be magic in the air, why it shall be everywhere. All ye leaves shall fall as Autumn does call. And as the faery folk are now gathering up and foraging, tonight I shall be leaving them a wee offering. Why, I shall leave them a few freshly hand picked Bramble berries & a wee tipple of Whiskey, Oh why how merry they shall surely be.” –Athey Thompson
First I’m hot and then I’m freezing. I confess that I’m having a hard time locating the magic in October. Not yet.
Because I wasn’t very smart last year and didn’t get a pneumonia vaccination, I ended up really sick with the most horrible case of double (bi-lateral) pneumonia, so bad that but for the fact that I’m incredibly stubborn, I would have been hospitalized,
THIS time I got the vaccination, reluctantly, because I always endure side effects for about thirty-six hours: headache, chills, fever. Most people only experience a sore arm but my immune system likes to give me a more ambitious taste of reality.
That’s why I’m now wrapped up in a blanket on the sofa, drinking ginger tea and binge-watching my new obsession, Blue Heelers, an Australian TV show from the 90s about the daily lives of Victorian police officers working at a police station in the fictional small town of Mount Thomas.
I think I’ve pretty much exhausted all the available British shows, so I had to search in a completely different hemisphere. Yes, it’s outdated with the gigantic brick-like cell phones, floppy disks, and scrunchies, but I’m learning a lot of new words like “mozzy” for mosquito, “esky” for Eskimo cooler, “slab” for six-pack of beer, “good on ya” and “you beauty“. I had to look up “it’s my shout, mate” to learn it means whoever said it will pay for the next round of drinks.
Previously my DIL and I loved A Place To Call Home, Rake, The Newsreader, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, and of course, Bluey.
I’m bracing for more vaccinations next week because it’s better to have a robustly active immune than the alternative. The first Covid vaccine sent me immediately to urgent care with an allergic reaction (read about that here) but the rest of them have been well tolerated except for the thirty-six hours of subsequent hell.
If you read about my non-conversation with a haughty school secretary, you might remember I had a bit of a mild cold, but NOT Covid.
Well…on Saturday night the landscape changed. I started to run a low grade fever, went to bed, woke up wracked with chills and my temp had climbed to 102. I was nauseous and developed a very ugly, very productive cough (TMI, I know.)
With my asthma and history of viral lung infections, I had an idea that I now had a secondary bacterial infection.
All day Sunday I tried to lower my temp with acetominophen since I can’t take ibuprofen but my chest wasn’t feeling particularly great.
Early Monday morning I was able to schedule a video appointment with the doc who ordered a chest x-ray.
And just like that, the diagnosis was bilateral pneumonia!
Doc said I was very lucky. My proactive attention to the symptoms stopped me from having to be hospitalized, that’s how bad it was becoming.
That is my WORST nightmare, for sure. With a mom for a nurse, I’ve heard too many horror stories to want to end up at the mercy of strangers, no matter how talented or dedicated they may be to the craft of nursing.
Being hospitalized also triggers memories of my son’s near death experience and I literally can’t stand the smell or the bright lights or the constant sounds.
So now I’m taking two kinds of antibiotics which I also hate because I don’t tolerate them well, but no steroids because I have even worse reactions to them. I’m also taking probiotics because I definitely don’t want to contract C-difficile, which is what my son suffered from AFTER his surgery. We almost lost my precious boy twice.
How it went so quickly from a slight sore throat and congestion to full blown pneumonia in two days, I’ll never know.
There’s always a silver lining though, right? At least the x-rays showed no pleural effusion or pneumothorax and the cardiomediastinal silhouette is stable. (You medical professionals will know this is good news.)
But the real life lesson here is to never stop being your own best medical advocate. I’m only giving myself permission to have one more day of feeling poorly (and slightly sorry for myself.)
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 