Living in the Scoot Utopia

The next morning I awoke feeling drained but with a less frightening fever in the vicinity of 103. I slept through much of the day except for when my coughing woke me up. The fever stayed between 102 and 104 as I fought what I thought was a really bad case of the flu.

Sunday was much of the same.

I called in sick on Monday, feeling absolutely no improvement. I decided it was time to see the doctor, but after spending half an hour on hold, I decided that by the time I'd be able to actually get in there I'd probably be better so hung up.

Tuesday I still felt like ass and so planned to not bowl in the league that night. But I decided to go anyway just to sit and watch. By this point just walking across a room took everything out of me (walking the dog three times a day was hell) so Cari drove me to the lanes. Stupidly, once bowling started, I couldn't just sit and watch... I had to play. When it was my turn I'd trudge up, roll, then return to slump on a bench until my next turn. It was my worst series of that season (week 5) but thankfully my team won 3 and that's what's really important.

Wednesday my fever was back above 104 so I gave the doctor another try and this time was able to get in.

When my doctor stepped into the exam room, the first thing he said was "You look terrible." The tests he ordered sent me to several departments throughout two buildings and I had to stop to rest several times.

I was stunned when the doctor determined that I had pneumonia. After telling me that I could have died Friday night, he debated hospitalizing me but decided to send me home after making it extremely clear that I had to follow his instructions to the letter and that I would be hospitalized if I did not improve, quickly. He then told me I was the sickest person he had ever not put in the hospital, so I decided not to mention that I had bowled the night before. :)

Properly medicated I began recovering quickly and the pneumonia was gone 10 days later. By then I had used up all of my sick and vacation days but luckily I was cleared to return to work just before I would have had to fall back on my disability insurance.

Though the pneumonia was gone, I was pretty weakened by the whole ordeal. It would not be until early April before my strength and my lung capacity would return to normal.

Much of the two weeks I was at the sickest is a blur, I spent so much of it in fever delirium or asleep. Cari, Ken, Seth, and my parents helped out a lot during that time by running various errands for me.

The end result of the entire ordeal was that during a follow-up doctor visit, early signs of diabetes were detected that were not present during my initial visit. So in a way, getting pneumonia benefited me because it allowed me to catch diabetes and control it early. Otherwise it might not have been caught until damage was already done.