Pneumonia: We Meet Again!

I have a chronic lung infection which loves to roar its ugly head when my body gets stressed out. I try extremely hard to not get into stressful situations. But last week, I could not avoid some unexpected situations which resulted in me being awake for 26.5 hours. The exhaustion from this ordeal left me unable to leave my bed for three days.

On day four, I felt as if I had a little bit of energy, but I had a sore trachea. I wanted to rip out my tracheostomy tube because it was causing a lot of irritation to my trachea. The mucus in my tracheostomy tube was clear. This translates into the bothersome trachea as being only from a virus or allergies.

That night, my tracheotomy tube sealed shut when mucus clogged my airway. When I could not breath, I woke up and was able to force air through the airway by blowing out as hard as I could. The clog moved and allowed air to pass in and out of my lungs. I went back to sleep.

On day five, I woke up, and my trachea was slightly painful. I needed to run an errand. I left the house. My health did a dramatic downward spiral. It felt as though I could not breathe—my lungs were on fire! I learned there was thick smoke in the air. It was amusing a lot of respiratory issues. I went home and made a tremendous improvement once I was able to breathe clean air.

On day six, I thought I was making a lot of improvement, My energy was better. My slight cough had nearly disappeared. I was happy. By the next day, I should be all better. Moreover, the smoke in the air was improving. The smoke must have been causing all this sickness.

One day seven, I woke up, and it felt as though there was an elephant on my chest. It hurt to breathe. The mucus in my tracheotomy tube was thick and a dark yellowish brown. (This means there is a bacterial infection and also blood in the mucus.) My cough was worse and very productive. Anytime I coughed, I could tasted blood in my mouth. Additionally, lead weights had attached themselves to my extremities. I had zero energy and a low grade fever. Alas, it was my old friend pneumonia.

It seems my chronic lung infection decided to take advantage of my run-down state last week. Now, it will be a long recovery as my body fights off this infection (with the help of antibiotics) and attempts to re-gain the energy its needs to keep this ugly infection at bay.