Valentine's Day Blizzard and pneumonia

How did it get to be Wednesday? Last time I checked it was Thursday.

Little saga to tell:

We had a freind here who was supposed to catch a flight back to JFK on the 15th. Well naturally, we were snowed in with the Valentines Day Blizzard (worst since 1883). He cancelled his flight in favor of one on the 16th, but we found out that the plow guy couldn't get to us until late on the 16th or possibly the 17th. No problem, we figured. A neighbor and good freind volunteered to take our guest down to town where he could catch a shuttle to Burlington. We only had to get our guest down to the plowed part of the road. This turned out to be a quarter mile away. My husband and I donned our snow shoes in order to tromp a path to the road since 36 inches of powder is no fun to walk through. We had a wind chill advisory that night, but this only means you need to cover up well to prevent frost bite. I put on my stuff and made sure my face and my husband's face were covered, grabbed my poles and off we went.

Have you ever snowshoed at night on new powder? If you're at all into winter, its one of the most sublime pleasures to be had.

Remember that cold I spoke about in my last post? I was busy being a festival of secretions, but its just a cold right? As we walked, I noticed a little tightness in my chest, and I seemed more easily winded than usual, but I brushed it off as not having been walking as much as usual. It was nice to have a few moments alone with husband and we tromped a path and were back to the house inside of forty minutes.

When we got back, my chest felt tight and I was tired so I went to bed. Woke up, sent hubby and guest out the door took more cold medicine and went back to bed.

After that it's a blur...At some point I woke up with a terrible fever and coughing copious yellow gunk. Hot bath, more cold medicine, back to bed. Hubby offered to take kids into town on our now plowed driveway. Sure fine whatever. I slept. Hubby came home and said something aoubt perhaps this was reaction to new drugs. I said something noncomittal and went back to sleep.

Woke with serious aching limbs and fever. Endlesss round of hot baths and cold medicine. Lying in one of those weird fever dreams that feel so much like having imbibed some less-than-quality mind altering chemicals (some really bad tequila I drank once comes to mind)

On Sat it occurred to me that this wasn't normal.

Called my friend the nurse and asked her when one should worry that a cold has turned to bronchitis.

This is depressing.

One of the problems with having a chronic illness is the length of time it takes for it to sink in that one is acutely ill.

On Sun I called the doc on-call over the weekend and got myself some antibiotics prescribed. Unfortunately, by this time, my bronchitis had become pnuemonia. A relatively long recovery for my poor lungs is expected.