In sickness and in health

Hi. Long time no see. I've had pneumonia.

This goes back to a cold I had about three weeks ago, that I got over 90% of but never shook off the last 10%. Then I had a week where I spent multiple days on the road, and they were long days - days that involved regular office hours, followed by gymnastics class, followed by meet the teacher, followed by the kids' bath and bedtime and then capped off with a 3 hour drive to Niagara Falls and a hotel check-in during the wee hours of the morning.

During those days in Niagara Falls, Chad and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary - not together, mind you - (and hopefully, more to come on that later) - and to celebrate we decided to spend a night where it all began, at the Elm Hurst Inn. The Elm Hurst is not far from Lakeside so the plan was to have an anniversary dinner and spend the night there, then continue on to the race in the morning. I started feeling unwell on the Friday as I drove up to the Inn, and by the time I got there, Chad was all set for a steak dinner and I had a bowl of soup. Upon waking up the following morning, it was pretty clear that there was no way I could race that morning. Chad went on to race the duathlon, but I was there merely as a spectator.

(Sidebar: this means that my 2011 triathlon season produced the following results: one race only 2/3rds completed; one completed with a horrific swim; and one DNS. It was not exactly a successful season. I am only half-jokingly pondering retirement.)

After the race ended, I went home to bed and stayed there for approsximately three days, feeling worse and worse all the time. Finally, when I started having trouble breathing, I decided something must really be wrong and went to the emergency room, and six hours and two chest x-rays later, at 2 a.m., I had my diagnosis: pneumonia.

Isn't this something only old people get? And didn't people stop getting it back when the iron lung was invented? It feels all medieval-like. Apparently not.

So... yeah. Things have been a little quiet and slow around here, and have led to some questioning of what's essential and what is not, since this seems to be evidence of being spread too thin. Back with more when I am back to normal - hoping that it's one day soon.