Instead of Japan and Korea, spent a week in pneumonia

Two days before our trip to Japan and Korea, I felt ill. It first seemed like some ordinary and thus short fever, typical for situations in which you’ve just finalised a number of tasks and the body starts to relax — dropping its guards. No other symptoms, no cough, no sneezing, no headache, just fever.

Next day (Wednesday), I visited doctor and she was almost as puzzled as I was. I could maybe travel or then not. On Thursday, the travel day, I visited the doctor again, and while the fever had not dropped, I had dry cough from time to time. This resulted having me x-rayed, and pneumonia was discovered. No flying.

I was devastated and sorry for my family — who by the way took the news better than I did — and had to cancel the trip. I felt lousy both mentally and physically. Fortunately, the pills I got were pretty powerful, and I was quite ok already on Monday. Recovery was surprisingly slow, though, and I was up to the speed on Friday or Saturday, about ten days after the start of the illness. I’ve also come to accept my fate, and somehow been able to regather my thoughts to be able to focus on work and life fully again.

We should get our money back first from the travel agency, and the rest from our insurances. The bills have not yet been settled, but this should happen during the upcoming week. The next logical step is to start to think a new trip, but for the time being I’m too tired to do that. Maybe around Christmas.