Sickbay Update

It feels good the be able to breathe again without pain, but I'm definitely still sick. My course of antibiotics is running out today, but the doctor has already prescribed another dose. I'm still coughing, and that's when it hurts most, but not nearly as often as a few days ago. The medicine is definitely working, but it will be yet some time until I can call myself recovered.

I read Dick Beardsley's autobiography a few days ago, and it was weird to read about someone's addiction to pain killers, while at the same time counting down the minutes until I could pop the next little pill myself for an hour or two of relief. It certainly made me understand the book a lot better. Since then I've weaned myself off the pain killers. Apart from when I'm coughing the feeling is down to mere discomfort, and I can take that without aid.

Of the resolutions I had for 2008, reaching 4000 miles is of course already out of question, but the other one, about dropping my weight down to 63.5 kg/140 pounds, well, I'm already there. I've lost 7 pounds in the last 10 days, even though I ate as much as I felt I could swallow. My appetite is slowly returning, but my weight is still going downwards. When I wrote that weight goal I envisaged reaching it towards the end of a year, not within a fortnight, and certainly not the way it happened. Be careful what you wish for. Of course, the pounds may yet return as I get closer to recovery.

I was quite worried about passing my germs on the the kids, especially Maia, but the doctors have reassured us. They have never come across two cases of pneumonia at the same time in the same family. While the bacteria are indeed able to cause sickness in others, it wouldn't be pneumonia, just a normal cold. Just as to prove that theory, Cian got a temperature on Monday, recovered within a day, and is back to pre-school today, Wednesday.

I'm going to see the doctor again on Friday, and I'll have another chest x-ray next week, and then we can say with more certainty how the recovery is going. She's already written another medical certificate for next week, and I guess I might be back at work on the 28th, the day after my birthday. As for when I can go running again, that's still written in the stars.