Metapneumo

This is what it looked like outside for the first ten days of April.

Have you ever seen one of those movie scenes where a person is suffering from a serious virus and they are delirious in bed? They’re sweating it out, shaking, mumbling, tossing and turning?

I recall one scene in particular from the Twilight Zone. Have you ever seen this episode? They show our world in the throes of global warming. In the episode, the world is heating to a point where humans are boiling to death.

Cut to a new scene showing a woman in bed whose fever just broke. She was actually having a dream type hallucination. The environment really wasn’t boiling humans, she was just sweating out her virus. Of course, there was another twist, but the final outcome of the episode is not the point of this post.

This post is about what has taken up my life for a few weeks now.

My brother’s family got sick first, then my mom got sick and landed in the hospital. While my mom was there, they tested her for all manner of sicknesses, and the diagnosis was meta-pneumo-virus (I think it’s all one word, but can’t be sure).

I was the last one to receive the lovely gift from them. Since we were in contact with each other and had the same symptoms, it seems that the diagnosis is likely the same for all of us.

I have never experienced a sickness like this one. My mom needed hospitalization to help her through it. I couldn’t help but wonder if I would, too.

From my bedroom window while suffering in bed.

I had never completely lost my voice before. With this virus, I could not squeak out a peep or a whisper. My voice box felt frozen and suffocating.

I’ll spare you the details of the usual symptoms that come with a head and chest cold. But, I had some other symptoms I never experienced before. My skin felt like there were thousands of microscopic creatures crawling around in the pores, making it clammy and pasty. I couldn’t move much without my head throbbing, but I felt like I wanted to get up and run from jitteryness. I was constantly hot. My cheap digital thermometer reported a low grade fever of 100, but I felt like the woman in that Twilight Zone episode boiling to death.

It seemed like I was breathing through a pinhole in my chest, so the doctor gave me an inhaler. I’ve never needed one of those before.

The lack of sleep from coughing was maddening. During cat naps, I felt delirious, because my dreams were like kooky hallucinations.

My buddy stuck it through with me, so calm and comforting.

At one point I thought I might spontaneously combust, until the fever finally broke. I’m on the mend but still have a lingering cough and hoarse voice.

When I got colds in Florida, they lasted 3 to 10 days, depending on the severity. They seemed to run right through me, and never forced me to bed rest for the entire duration. I gotta tell ya, before the fever broke, I was a little scared.

Has anyone else experienced a virus like this one? Did you feel delirious? Did you worry you wouldn’t make it through?