Last week, I had a little cough on Monday.

Tuesday, it was one of those icky sounding coughs. Tuesday night, my voice got gravely.

Wednesday morning, I had no voice and my cough had gotten worse. Now I had a sore throat.

Sickness was descending upon my household.

Luckily I have been in a new training class and wasn’t really required to speak. I was freezing cold and it was 80 degrees outside. Fever had arrived.

By Friday, I had a temp of 102, could not take a deep breath, I could barely swallow and sounded as if I were trying to physically cough up my lungs and then squish them back down in me. I was there, logged into my laptop for a couple of hours and was falling asleep. I excused myself from training and promptly fell back asleep for 3 hours.

I called my doctors office, they sent me instructions for a virtual appointment. When the doctor called, she was concerned because I looked “gray”. The nurses told her I sounded scary. The dr. said my options were to go to an Urgent Care or she would send an ambulance. Fun choice, huh?

I called my daughter to give her the update, she had a patient in crisis and was waiting for an ambulance.

So, I drove to an Urgent Care close by and got into an exam room. The CNA asked a few questions, took my temp and told me we were going to do an “accelerated exam”. He left and got the Nurse Practitioner. The NP listened to my chest, my lungs, my back, take a breath as deep as you can… well you can guess where that took me. The X-Ray room!

Here is where the NEW part of the adventure comes in. while I have had the Flu, Bronchitis, Walking Pneumonia, Pneumonia and Covid (twice), I had never had Double Pneumonia and tah freakin’ dah….. I had double pneumonia!

It is a whole lot different than having it on just 1 side. Sometimes, if you have pneumonia, you might breath in some cold air and it causes your chest to get a little tight and maybe hurts a tiny bit, can’t get a deep breath, and then the coughing starts. Double does not mean both lungs, it means double everything. The shortness of breath, the coughing, the fatigue, everything is doubled. And I’m fine out, so is the recovery time as well. So taking in a breath outside this week has been scary. Our first snow of the season has turned into our first winter storm. So fun! Whooopidtydoodah. 😷

They gave me a nebulizer treatment and I didn’t feel like I had to gasp before every word. They gave me 2 different antibiotics, and cough drops “pearls”. The instructions were to only take them sparingly because I needed to keep coughing. Keep coughing, oh goody! 🫤

I spent the weekend in bed. I lost 10 pounds in 5 days because I couldn’t eat, because I couldn’t swallow. When I started back to training on Monday, it was done from my couch and I only typed my responses.

Today is Thursday. I have no fever. I’m not gasping for air, but I still have no voice or a weak one, and I’m still coughing. I did have to go back for follow up X-Ray on Monday. My lungs were still inflamed to I got steroids! Yay!

So my plans to explore Cripple Creek, Colorado were scratched. I will explore that another time and sing the song by The Band, Up On Cripple Creek.

And this is just about the most pitiful, little adventure and just about the most expensive.

This adventure didn’t take me to a new park, mountain, or restaraunt. It didn’t have me fussing with the navigation system or have a tag-a-long person or even my dog. Just me and my lungs. And a box of tissues. Oh, and a cold drink.

The goal is 60 new things before I turn 60 and I have 24 more to go and I can’t wait!