The next day was a Friday, Jan. 24/20. James, being the tough guy who can't sit still person that he is headed back to the farmhouse to keep working on renovations as best he could with his gimpy hand. I dragged myself to work my Friday 1/2 day at the office. I was feeling very tired and by the time I got home it was all I could do to fall into bed for the rest of the day. I felt so frustrated.
Around 5:00 pm I got a phone call from my doctor, Dr. A. She got right to the point. "You have pneumonia," She told me.
"What?", I said, "That can't be".
She told me the chest Xray had showed a spot in the upper lobe of my right lung and she felt it was pneumonia. I questioned her a bit more because in most of my experience as a nurse, pneumonia would typically show up in the bases of the lungs. She admitted it was a bit strange. My heart was sinking fast as the tendrils of fear started to creep into my mind. Could this be a simple pneumonia? Or was this another sign pointing to a sinister underlying disease? The word cancer had certainly been on my mind and anything unexplained like this "spot" in my lungs made me wonder - maybe all my symptoms were actually cancer? How long did I have left to live? Was this the beginning of the end?
My thoughts were tumbling around in my head. Meanwhile, my dear Auntie Jan dropped by to bring us some supper. Bless her soul. She asked me how I was doing. I tried to sound positive - I hadn't even had a chance to really tell James about the phone call yet.
I was so grateful for all the kindness shown to us by our church family, our family, and our friends and now with this diagnosis of pneumonia the meals started coming again. I felt so overwhelmed and grateful by the outpouring of support. I tried to be brave and positive.
I had to take more time off of work and I felt so bad trying to explain everything to my manager and colleagues again. It sounded unreal. Like, how could so many things be going wrong one thing after the other? I was grateful for their graciousness to me.
Thankfully, after a round of strong oral antibiotics the pneumonia apparently cleared up and I told myself I felt a bit better. It was kind of hard to tell. I still had joint and muscle pain, fatigue, and other weird symptoms like my hands clamping up and not working properly. But I felt a little less run-down and a little more energy - or so I told myself. I decided I just had to go back to work! Things would get better if I could just get back to some kind of normal routine. So, I told my manager that I would be back to work on February 10.
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