Pneumonia: Know your enemy.

So, you want to know pneumonia?

The funny thing about pneumonia is that you have no idea you have it until you're practically on the floor in a bad dream of convulsions, expelling fluid from your lungs in this convoluted spasmodic vomit nightmare.

I say bad dream and nightmare both because the feeling really is bad enough to warrant the pair, it's a bad dream nightmare.

You cough and your lungs explode with a rasping heat that brings to mind inhaling ignited aviation fuel. I don't want to give Dante's vision much credit, but it's hot and it hurts like hell.

You daren't lie on your back lest you feel that excruciating drowning feeling gurgle its way up your trachea. Again. Trust me you learn after the first time. I mention drowning like he's familiar, a cousin or perhaps an uncle, but I've never drowned before.

Your temperature drops, yes drops. Think about that next time you have a fever then reverse it. It's like being undead. You can't rest; you can't sleep or pass out even until you have no energy left to shiver. That and your toes are caught in the perpetual twilight of a late autumn dusk. You just can't warm them... or your fingers. I say perpetual twilight of a late autumn dusk; I've been there before, more than once.

You know when the bad guy in the movies has been defeated and tries to get out his final curse but he ultimately fails in a bubbly death rattle and wheezy sigh?

That's pneumonia.

Bret Higgins 10 30 07