Okay, this time I've got a real excuse for not posting. Went for an easy six mile run last tuesday night, next day woke with a fever and nausea. By wednesday night, I had run a hundred and three (and i run a degree and change low normally), and was ready to join the zombie deer in their quest for brains.......you know, kind of like Dark Ash.
From there it was like those joke tees about tequilla shots......One day, two days, three days........floor.
Help, I've fallen and I can't get up. Two collapses later, I got a chest x-ray showing blockage in 4/5ths of my lung, and the fissure (the little cross pipe in between.) The picture was like 80's rock, you know, a total eclipse of the heart.
Before I continue, something I never thought I would do, and hats off to an Army medical facility. The staff at Darnell (the ft. hood hospital) were quick, efficient, CARED, and damned good at their job. They even laughed at my jokes.
If you call running a 105 fever and among other things, singing the catheter song from a Mighty Wind at the top of your lungs while having one inserted a joke. I didn't know i could remember that much vaudeville or showtunes, much less give such stunning delivery. Showtimes will continue whenever my fever next goes over 103.
Long and short, I came within an inch or less of dying of what's almost definitely Legionnaire's disease, a particularly nasty kind of airborne pneumonia, usually got from air conditioning in dark enclosed spaces......hmmmm. At several points, I truly wished for that moment that I could die, just to end the pain. It was that bad. Damned stupid of me, huh?
It is through the grace of God that I am alive, and he gets the glory for it. I don't remember much from the worst times, but I know that I called on him several times over the last week when I couldn't breathe, when the pain was worst, and my prayer was answered. I know many of you don't believe, and will condescend or blow by this part, but he was there and he answered.
Further credit goes to my family who came down from dallas and louisiana immediately to see me, my unit, who surprised me with a great show of support (SFC large-blunt-stick even brought flowers and a stuffed easter bunny), my church, who prayed for me, and are helping even now with meals, laundry, etc., and last, but most important to me, my beautiful wife, who stayed with me, and helped me constantly, even though she herself just came down with a really, really nasty case of bronchitis.
Current weather:
Able to stand and walk short distances, slowly.
Only threw up once today.
Highs in the low 100's, lows around 99, current temperature 99.3 degrees.
Mostly clear throat, with patches of phlegm moving in from the south and southwest, and occaisional patches of uncontrolled coughing.
Current attitudes for today and tommorow, partly sunny, with a general overwhelming gladness to be alive.
Yours truly,
nbs, king of the rocking pneumonia and the boogie-woogie flu.