Yet another exciting day!!

… not.

Yup, this has been a yet another iteration of ‘Hrefna stays in bed all day’.  Am I feeling better?  It’s hard to say.  I feel slightly more energetic, even had the energy to bring the big camera and a whole usb cable to bed and upload some pictures onto my trusty and very very warm laptop.  That was my highest achievement today.

My major health complaints are now ridiculous coughing fits (especially when lying down completely flat to sleep) and what appears to be a permanently (for now) clogged left ear.  It’s mostly not very painful, just very very annoying.  Also, all surfaces linked to breathing have just about had it with all the abuse and are sore.

The big change today has been that I managed to nap for the first time in days.  I felt sleepy and lay down, and dosed off.  I like this new me.  A second curious new feature is that I am welling up with tears at the slightest provocation of any kind of happy emotion.  I had tears streaming down when I watched Iceland make it to the final in the Eurovision Song Contest AFTER I had already seen on Facebook that they made it.

(Quick backstory: ‘Sjonni‘ was the composer of the song, and he passed away without warning in January.  The lyrics had already been written at that point by his wife, on how one should ‘live in the moment’ because one never knows when one might pass.  These guys were his music buddies, hence the name ‘Sjonni’s Friends.  Also, the YouTube links are to the Icelandic broadcast, and you can hear the announcer totally freak out when Iceland’s name is called last.  I challenge you not to sprout a tear or two at that.)

But there have been lots of other tears too.  RadioLab has provided quite a few, and somewhat more embarrassingly, I shed tears of joy when one of the head Google guys announced at Google I/O (that I nerdily watched live for a while) that schools will be able to lease Chromebooks for $20/month/student.  I don’t know if this is a good deal or not, but I wept nonetheless.  I probably need to get out more.

So what’s it like having pneumonia?  I’ve often wondered (don’t ask).  It turns out that being vertical is very hard when you aren’t getting enough oxygen in your system.  Hence, laying down for hours at a time, is really the only option.  I did venture down and up again from the basement a few times on Monday (laundry!) and that left me out of breath and sweating for about 10 minutes afterwards.  There generally appears to be quite a bit of sweating overall, sometimes for no apparent reason.  Chills are also common, even when covered with something thick and warm.  Oh yes, and a consistent high fever that won’t go away.

You keep taking lots of short breaths because the deep ones aren’t terribly comfortable.  You are slightly dizzy/woozy when standing.  You move slowly.  You eat slowly.  There is not a lot of leftover energy, even for watching stuff.  I’ve mostly just listened.  You are capable of watching a three year old for perhaps 1-2 hours at a time.  Tops.  And yes, Bjarki’s at his grandparents’ again tonight.  We are very lucky. 🙂

The cough-type is really the interesting bit.  It’s very dry, and mostly unproductive.  So in the future, when you hear a wet and phlegmy cough, that is a ‘good’ cough because it is moving mucus.  A dry cough is doing nothing so that’s really a ‘bad’ cough.

Yeah, so that’s about it for now.  I’ll end with a couple of pictures out our windows, displaying how I just missed yet another awesome day.  Blergh!