Pneumonia.

Yep. Went to see him yesterday. When he listened to my lungs he said he thought I had it, and ordered the x-ray. The x-ray showed less than he was expecting to see, but he said he still though it was pneumonia. Coughing without sinus drainage. No flu-type body aches. No fever. Just the persistent cough. They gave me a breathing treatment and a shot of antibiotic, plus prescriptions for an antibiotic, a home breathing treatment, and a strong cough syrup.

So, it looks like I’m home for a while, at least for this week. I won’t go back to work or church until the cough ends. I have gobs of sick time accumulated, so no worries there. Guess I’ll just lay around and rest, sleep, eat, watch bowl games, read, and play mindless computer games. Lynda is in OKC with Sara, Richard, and Ephraim. I’ve been reading a ton, mainly in the letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Also in the Bible.

Funny thing, I haven’t felt much like writing. Made a few entries into my journal, but haven’t felt like writing to this blog or any articles for Suite101.com or anywhere else. But as I was reading in Numbers this morning, my memory was jogged about a Bible study I had planned to write about Israel becoming a nation, taking material from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. Perhaps tonight I’ll feel like at least outlining that. Maybe in a day or two, if the medicine kicks in like it should, I’ll feel like writing again.

Good morning, everyone. I’m back at work, my first hours here since last Tuesday noon. Fighting that cough last week I only worked 1/2 day on Tuesday. I had Wednesday scheduled as vacation, and we were off Thursday-Friday.

Weather reports didn’t look good on Wednesday as we prepared to drive 450 miles to Meade Kansas. We considered not going, but we got a local weather report that indicated things were pretty good there. So off we went, taking a southern route through Oklahoma and arriving in Meade about 8 PM. No snow at all on the way; Meade had only a dusting.

For the next three days I proceeded to do as little as I could. I parked my over-stuffed hide in a recliner and sat there. They didn’t want me in the kitchen, coughing all over the food. They didn’t want my on the furniture moving detail, since the exertion would set me to coughing. And they didn’t want me much in conversations and games, for the same reason. And I didn’t want that much either. Thursday I was mostly in a fog. I had no head cold, just the cough, but that was taking a lot of energy, so I rested. Outside the prairie winds blew at 40 to 50 mph for three days solid. The house shook and windows rattled. But with some senior citizens in the house the hostess kept the furnace cranked up pretty good and we were all warm enough.

I find that when I have a cough, if I just rest quietly, I can resist the urge to cough for a long time. After a cough I lay back, regulate my breathing to short breaths, and before long I can feel the air going after the tickle in my throat. Then it’s a matter of slowly letting my breaths lengthen, and restricting my air passage as best I can to minimize the irritation of the tickle. Knowing where the tickle is, and controlling my breathing, when the urge to cough comes I am able to endure the pain across the tickle instead of coughing. Eventually the tickle worsens, and I cough, but maybe it’s every 15 minutes or half hour instead of every three to five minutes.

I suspect that helps with healing, but it requires extreme concentration. I can’t read while doing that, for I will forget about the tickle and cough when I could have suppressed it. Even television is too much of a distraction. Don’t want to talk or hardly move at all. I can pray some while doing that, but even praying is a distraction that lessens the benefits of my cough self-suppression.

Of course, driving won’t work either. So Lynda drove on the trip home, and some of the trip out. We came back through Oklahoma City and picked up Sara and Ephraim to come and stay with us a few days. Richard is in Mexico with a group from their church and an extended group from the college on a mission trip. So they’ll be with us until New Years Day, when Lynda will take them back and I’ll batch it again for a few days.

During this time, writing went by the wayside. I hardly checked in at Suite101, didn’t check in at Absolute Write, and didn’t read, think about plots or story lines or poems. I think I need another day or two before I’ll be ready to think about words again.

Oh, yes. That snow that Kansas was supposed to get–Oklahoma got it, but a day later. On Christmas eve Oklahoma City got 14 inches and Tulsa 8 inches from a wrap-around band of the storm–the first blizzard ever in Tulsa. The roads east of Tulsa were still a mess when we drove them on Sunday. Lynda did a great job and we had no problem at all.

It’s amazing what a white powder, pressed into oblong shape and put into a dose pack, can do to rheumatoid arthritis. After all the problems of getting my prescription–both due to doctor error and pharmacy busyness–the pills did an amazing job. By Saturday morning I was in good shape. By Sunday morning my hands were mostly healed. I say mostly because not quite. The stiffness I normally have was back to background pain. The extreme flare-up was under control. I was able to work again.

Except the emotional toll of the pick-up repairs, the prescription fiasco, Lynda’s lingering illness, and general lack of success with writing in general brought me to Sunday not feeling like doing much. So I did little except go to church and rest. I read a few blogs, finished a stock trading article at Suite101.com (an article I had started on earlier), and read. I read in two days Charles Dickens’ novella The Chimes, the second of his Christmas books. Tomorrow I plan on posting a review of it.

Speaking of Charles Dickens, my Suite101 article on him is one of my recent success stories. This article was picked up and linked by a Charles Dickens dedicated web site. Scroll down to the “Dickens in the News” section to see the link. The way the page is set up, this link should be public for quite some time. Given the season, this is having a positive impact on my page views at Suite.

Also positive is that I discovered a certain site, Investors Journal, is linking to Suite101 articles. Several of mine have been there, although they rotate quickly and none are listed at the moment. But my recent stock trading articles were there, Google still has those links, which boosts my article ranking in a Google search. This apparently was unknown to Suite until I discovered it.

A negative is that the rheumatoid is a bit worse today: same hand, same finger. I’ve worked my way down the steroid dose pack to where I’m not taking much now, and I’m hoping this doesn’t mean in a day or two I’ll be back to where I was last Thursday-Friday. But, to compensate that my weight is down some. I’ve lost about six pounds from the Thanksgiving overeating times, and am pleased with it. I’m right now five pounds above where I hoped to be at the end of the year, so a little exercise, reasonable eating, and the New Year should see me at my goal weight. Time to set a more ambitious goal for 2010.

Two positives are things I wrote at Absolute Write recently, one in a poetry critique and one in a comment on a public events topic. Both were thought excellent by others, and are being quoted. That’s a good feeling.

I suppose we should expect a mixed bag out of life. It can’t all be good. The trick is to not become emotionally down when the bad comes. That’s been my problem lately. Setbacks have set me back emotionally, when they shouldn’t. Hopefully, with a correct appreciation for the situation and expectation for outcomes, from this point on they won’t.