A bug in the system

At Easter, Bill and I take our teenage children to America.  We're away for 2-3 weeks, visiting New York, Los Angeles and Disneyland.

On the way home in the plane, I feel a cold coming on.  It's very common to get sick in planes, so I count it as a small cost of a great holiday.

Arriving home, I hit the ground running.  I'm busy in my consultancy business and I'm also freelancing as a litigation lawyer, helping small law firms to handle large court cases.  Also I'm involved in a business development program which requires travel to Sydney.  And I'm a school Mum.

The cold gets worse.  It descends into my chest.  I develop a cough.  Nothing unusual - and, coming from a medical family, I know that colds get better and it's bad to take antibiotics too often, as they will lose their effectiveness for when you really need them.

I continue with my business commitments, and with my singing lessons, although I am finding it harder to breathe.  I pass up an opportunity to sing at a Weekend Warriors event because I'm not singing very well.  One morning I drag myself out of bed to fly to Sydney for a one-hour meeting with my mentor, Matt.  He thinks I look unwell.  I assure him I'll be fine.  I'm used to "soldiering on".  In a law firm it's hard to take sick leave, as no one else will do your work while you're away, unless you specifically ask them to.  So it's easier to keep turning up to work, no matter how sick  you are.  This is what I'm used to.

But I'm not getting better.  I'm running a fever and don't feel like eating.  I'm coughing uncontrollably, especially in the middle of the night, when the air is colder.  I get up and go to the back of the house so my coughing doesn't wake everyone up.  My lungs are congested and I can't clear them, even though I cough to the point of gagging.

As I breathe in and out, I hear my lungs crackling.  I don't just feel my lungs, I hear them.  It's intriguing and strangely entertaining.  When I do my regular upper-back exercises, with a soft rubber ball under my shoulder-blades, they make music.  I roll from side to side, playing with the rhythms.

After a few weeks, I finally accept that I'm not well enough to go to my office.  I divide my time between couch and bed.  One afternoon I crawl under the covers and lie inert.  It occurs to me that I could die there and it wouldn't bother me.

My husband comes home from work and declares that I look sick.  He organizes for me to have antibiotics and a chest X-ray.  It's pneumonia.  I need to stay in bed and rest.

The antibiotics work like magic.  The crackling subsides.  Gradually the fever goes away.  My appetite returns, although I've lost a lot of weight and manage to keep it off for quite a while.

A second chest X-ray indicates that everything is fine.  But I've acquired a coughing habit.  For months and even years, I need to clear my throat frequently.  I train myself to do less of it.

I'm wondering how much damage I've done to my throat - how scratched and scarred is it?

I don't really want to know.  I don't want to have injury as an excuse.  I just want to be able to sing.