STRUGGLING WITH SERENDIPITY
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a bad idea

2/20/2019

6 Comments

 
Picture
After Brazil, Beth flew into Boston, since our Ohio days were over. She helped me complete her new bedroom with a blue duvet cover and throw pillows. Before her senior year of college began, I often drove her to Harvard's Blodgett pool for workouts, about a half hour drive from our apartment in northwest Waltham. Maria joined Beth at the Bear Hill pool to sunbathe with books and to swim.
           
John’s change in jobs left us with a one-month gap in our health insurance. He bought coverage through his Ohio retirement at a reasonable cost. Against his advice, I decided to go without health insurance through August to save us several hundred dollars. As luck would have it, I couldn’t stop coughing with a persistent chest cold. I should’ve gone to the doctor. Instead, I waited another week until my new insurance started.
 
A bad idea.
 
I learned a new lesson. My lung capacity diminished with a full-blown, miserable, and intense pneumonia. For the first time, I experienced the anxiety triggered by not breathing easily. Antibiotics had no effect the first two weeks, so a lung doctor added steroids, inhalers, and a different antibiotic. I felt a little better by the end of September, in time for visitors.

​Still coughing, I assumed that a month of antibiotics had eliminated the possibility of being contagious.
           
My parents arrived for a visit with my niece Meghan and her husband. We walked part of Boston’s Freedom Trail and rode a trolley. When others boarded a boat for a harbor cruise, I shared ice cream with my dad at Legal Seafood near a big aquarium.
           
Maria and Beth visited us at our Waltham apartment for fun family dinners. After the visit, my dad contracted pneumonia—probably from me. He spent a rough week in an Ohio hospital, and I felt awful about it.
 
My pneumonia completely cleared three months later and left me with elevated neck and head pain from the prolonged coughing.
 
Next: A New Treatment!
6 Comments
Jason Rhode link
2/21/2019 09:47:03 am

I saw that A LOT at the office, people putting off seeing the doc for whatever the reason, no ins. being one of them, then, getting their butts handed to them and infecting others.

I'm glad all's well that ends well.

Reply
Cindy Kolbe link
2/24/2019 10:44:07 am

Me too, Jason! Health care can be such a big problem in our country. I hope all aspects of it improve soon.

Reply
Esther Merves
2/21/2019 10:31:17 am

Wow, what a story. I'm sorry I have not been keeping up with the blog as I like to each week. Others benefit from your experiences and it encourages us to share and relate to one another because we all go through similar things.

Reply
Cindy Kolbe link
2/24/2019 10:46:27 am

So nice of you to say, Esther. I hope that's true. Thank you!

Reply
Amy Henry link
2/21/2019 06:11:29 pm

Good lord! I hope your dad recovered--assuming he did, since I think you would have written about it differently if he hadn't. What I loved about this post is seeing how your whole family has sort of migrated east, even if that means just visiting. You and John and the girls obviously weren't the only ones out there. My stepdaughter's partner has something like this. Both his sisters are east with him, and his mother comes out from the Midwest to visit all.

Reply
Cindy Kolbe link
2/24/2019 10:50:05 am

Yes, you're right, Amy! Beth changed the course of many in our family, in good ways. We live in a bigger world now. ;-)

Reply



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