Here we are in the latter part of January 2025 and I am recovering slowly from pneumonia contracted just before Christmas 2024. I first felt symptoms in the evening of Monday, December 23rd, when I felt really cold and unable to get warm, even snuggled up against a radiator.
The next days were very much up and down. On Christmas day I felt fairly good until about 6pm when I went to bed. The following days my condition fluctuated and on Monday, December 30th, Lyn persuaded me to go see the doctor. The doctor diagnosed pneumonia and arranged for me to check in at University Hospital, Coventry. A hospital I have become all to familiar with over the last few years.
That was the start of a two week stay during which I was fed intravenous and oral antibiotics. I had food too, but not much of an appetite for the first week. After 10 days I was itching to get out but my blood oxygen levels were rather low. I thought they might let me go and provide home oxygen like happened a couple of years ago when I had pneumonia and only stayed in hospital 4 or 5 days. For whatever reason that didn’t happen and they kept me in until Monday December 13th.
I made the mistake of thinking that I would be back to normal after a few days, but here I am almost 2 weeks later feeling tired and weak. Everything is a big effort. Before all this happened, I would go to the gym and go for walks of a couple of miles or so. But the first few days I couldn’t do much but go to bed at night and sit in a chair during the day. More recently I have been going outside to get some fresh air but only managing short walks. My plans for the next week are to try to be more active and get out for longer walks.
I don’t know how much of this illness was down to reduced immunity caused by the cancer medication. I was advised to stop the medication while I was ill and didn’t restart it until last Monday, a week after coming out of hospital. Coincidentally I had just recently had a month off medication, at my request, because I wanted to get back to feeling normal for a bit. The side effects of the medication are not too bad, but I still wanted a break. So with another break while I was ill, I have had more time off than I originally wanted and I wanted too get back on the medication soon to help keep the cancer in check. The latest scans at the end of November do show slight progression unfortunately, though not by any great amount. Directionally wrong though.