With many horses beaten and a few more bishops flogged, I’ve returned with another missal of life calamity.
My ongoing illness—well into its third week—had me returning to the doctor on Wednesday.
The result of said appointment was another round of antibiotics prescribed; this time ones thought better at targeting the endless bronchial fist fuck I’ve been dealing with rather than the leg infection I had. There was also a chest x-ray to see if there is any pneumonia involved with all that lung fisting. Sigh.
Because my current doctor is sort of crap, it’s been two days, and I have no idea if I have pneumonia or not (I’m guessing not) and on Thursday morning I woke feeling like I got hit by a wheezing truck (again).
Red Breasted Nuthatch staring off into the frozen hellscape of Michigan.
As luck would have it, there was a 2-hour delay for B’s school due to ice (imagine that), to which I thanked God and a variety of other Universe roaming spirits, and rolled over to wheez and sleep for another couple hours before getting up to take more antibiotics. Then I dealt with the ill effects on my gut due to all of those antibiotics 5 to 13 times and got B fed and off to school.
As soon as I walked in the door after dropping B at school, I headed back to bed and slept until almost 12:30. I can’t remember a time that I’ve spent so much time in bed until this past month.
On the bright side, I awoke after that slumber feeling much better than I did before I crawled under the covers and finally felt that things might be starting to improve.
Things continued to improve through the day, and after another 13 hours of sleep, I awoke on Friday to feel the best I have in weeks. My body feels almost normal (other than sagging a bit more and a generous amount of atrophied muscle mass), and I’m starting to feel hopeful that workouts and outdoor junk miles will follow.
Veggie hoagie about to go in the oven.
Over the past few weeks, I have done my best not to get down about being sick. I’m not the first person in the world to get sick, I won’t be the last, and I’ll surely be sick again in the future. My time alone hacking and wheezing in bed also gave me generous time to think about how I’ve grown to take the physical activities I do for granted. Sure, I may not be racing bikes anymore; a “long” ride is about 30 miles, and I’m 50 pounds overweight. But my time Zwifting in the basement, lifting heavy things for no reason, hiking and snowshoeing in the woods, and my dirt road rides with my camera go a long way to keep my mind—and some of my body—from turning to complete mush.
White bean vegetable soup.
With that said, after 5+ weeks of illnesses, travel, debauchery, and infections, my body is muscleless sack of man flesh. However, instead of getting down about that, I’m looking at it as a chance to start fresh with a blank canvas. A blank canvas that just happens to be made of sagging flesh and lost muscle.
Despite my illness over the past few weeks, I have been enjoying my Cat 5 Cooking, eating way more vegan and vegetarian dishes, and making a shit ton of homemade soups. I’m hoping that I can keep that up as I (fingers crossed) head back into “doing stuff” in the coming days.
Later.