Pneumonia, round three

Here we are again. Me, one good lung, one sick one. I am starting to be able to measure out my life as a mom in the intervals between bouts with pneumonia. The worst one remains the late October 2008 one, the one that landed me in the ER and then forced me to recuperate for a full month. The night of the presidential election I lay in bed, listening to mayhem erupt across Brooklyn, crying (because I couldn't join in, not only because I was sick, but because I didn't believe in or vote for the winner... or the loser, for that matter). Jonah was 22.5 months at the time, and I remember how upset he was at first that I couldn't pick him up, couldn't go out to play with him. Suddenly he had an Invalid Mama. But then he remembered how good it was to snuggle up and read books, and all was OK.

Seventeen months later, May 2010, I also had a three month old, so I guess that explains why I hadn't been paying attention to the cold that had been festering for weeks. Bam! Back to bed. At least it was welcome relief from the sheer exhaustion of being a mom to two. And I could still nurse Abe. I can't really remember how Jonah took it, but he was in school at that point, so shielded from my incapacity a little more.

Fast forward twenty more months, and here we are again. I spent the first week of the new year full steam ahead with diet plans, giving up sugar, and somehow neglecting the cold that had been dogging me since before the holidays. I was busy, of course - birthday and Chanukah celebrations, thinking and talking about sugar in lieu of eating it, finding ways to make the scale creep lower and lower. Then one morning last week, after a short walk in the neighborhood, I found myself much more out of breath than I should have been. I had no fever, no pain, no elaborate coughing fits. I went to the doctor that afternoon. The nurse hooked up a gizmo to the computer and fitted a disposable tube into it. An illustration of a leafy tree appeared on the screen. I inhaled, then blew through the tube to try to blow all the leaves off the tree. Then I tried again. The nurse clucked with her tongue. I tried another time.

Those fucking leaves! My fucking lungs! I didn't even need to see the doctor to know what I was dealing with. The protracted period of time she spent listening to me breathe just sealed the deal. Again she handed down a sentence: rest. This time, though, I had to demand an explanation. After all, I'd gotten the pneumococcal vaccine after the first time. (The second time, she explained, "Oh, I didn't say that would keep you from GETTING pneumonia. But it keeps you from DYING from it.") The doctor asked if I was under stress. Who, me? Nah... Stress?

Stress is something that happens to other people! Me, I just get pissed off and yell a lot. Me, I just harangue my kid for having sensory issues and not always being able to pay attention when I talk to him, instead of committing to finding ways to work with him, as his teachers and therapists do. Me, I just yell at my nearly-two year old for climbing onto the kitchen table and grabbing the matches, instead of moving them to a high shelf once and for all. And I can't possibly be stressed out, because everyone I meet tells me how very calm I seem.

Yes, I said to the doctor. I said "yes" to stress. I got the name of a social worker to call once I'm well (I'm not going to stress out about the fact she hasn't returned my call. Not yet.) I'm going to try acupuncture to improve my "lung chi." I wasn't aware my lungs had that. Perhaps that is my problem. I'm going to try to remember to take astragalus supplements to boost my lung chi. I'm NOT going to go a solid week forgetting to take my multivitamin because I'm preoccupied with not eating sugar.

The kicker is that in a little less than two weeks, the supposed cure for all this stress is coming, and I hope to be well enough to take it (doctor said it would be fine to go if I promise to just sleep and lie on the beach, which are things I can enjoy, but not for five solid days!). Josh and I are taking a trip to Puerto Rico, our first ever trip without the kids, and the final nail in the coffin of my 40th birthday celebrations. My mother in law is staying with the kids, with our babysitter providing backup. I am worried that the stress of leaving the kids and of wondering what may not be getting done because of the inexperience of the caregiver is going to overwhelm our trip.

I have about ten days to get past this.