All I have to say is…let’s not make it three weeks.

The last two weeks have been downright heartbreaking. On Monday, April 23, I was diagnosed with pneumonia in one lung and went on a five-day course of antibiotics. Thursday and Friday that week I felt a lot better, and hoped to get to work on Monday. Then I spent Saturday vomiting and Sunday nauseous. Monday and Tuesday I started getting low-grade fevers intermittently, but they were so low and infrequent I couldn’t be sure what was going on.

I finally went back to work on Wednesday, May 2, but not because I felt better. I felt the same: Exhausted, coughing constantly, and occasionally spiking a low-grade fever. Wednesday afternoon I took the first bus home, went to bed, and took my temperature. Fever of just exactly 100.0.

I called the doctor and they said they wanted to see me that night. They said that not only was my original pneumonia not gone, but it was now in both lungs, and my cough was (as I knew) much worse. I got a stronger seven-day course of antibiotics, two cough suppressants (one pill and one inhaler), and strict orders to do NOTHING for the next few days.

I can go back to work “when I have enough energy.” I hope that’s tomorrow. The doctor left it to my discretion and said that I was young and fit, so that should help, but also reiterated what I already knew: Full recovery from Pneumonia usually takes a month or more. A month from May 2nd is June 2nd.

June 2nd is after Memorial Day, when I always participate in the 7 Hills Century as my first organized ride of the year. The next Saturday is Flying Wheels Summer Century, when I’ve traditionally tried to achieve a sub-five-hour century.

This breaks my heart. I had such high hopes for the year: I had, before getting sick, finally almost clawed my way back to fitness after the December 2016 pneumonia. I wanted to ride 500,000 feet of climbing for the year and was actually on track to do so. I had a bunch of big bucket climbs on my list: Mt. Baker, Hurricane Ridge twice, Mt. St. Helens. I wanted to try to finally get back some of the speed I’d lost in the last illness.

Over the last two weeks, and even now, I’m going through a process of mourning the loss of my bike season. I’m having to let go of my hopes and expectations for Bike Everywhere month (riding 800 miles, doing my usual two big first rides of the season, that stuff), of my expectations for how fast and how I’ll be able to ride when I get back on the bike, of the hope of riding with my usual group at our usual pace.

I know; the mountains will be there, my bike will be there. Granted, my friends will be stronger and faster. Rest, recover, you can get it back. But I can’t get this season back. It’s already gone before it’s started.

On top of this, I’ve had to cede almost all my mommying duties to Ian, who’s kept everything from falling apart quite admirably. He’s bought me lots and lots of time to just lay around and rest, which is exactly what I need. I’ve missed two Saturday Bridle Trails hikes and other regular family activities. The grass and weeds are delighted at my complete hiatus from the outdoors, although the ladies from our church group came over and helped beat back some of the weeds in the front yard.

I have no idea what’s going on at work these days. Earlier in the week I was able to call in, but the last couple days of the week, I just laid on the couch and watched movies. (I watched all seven of the Harry Potter movies. They actually aren’t bad, watched back to back like that.)

Throughout all this, I’ve struggled with feeling guilty about missing parenting duties and work responsibilities and helpless, desperate frustration about the biking situation. I feel such sorrow and impotent anger and disappointment and grief and guilt; and all these kinds of feelings trigger anorexia brain. Plus I’m not hungry anyway, because of being sick. I’ve lost weight because of the sickness, and I know in my head I don’t have a lot of extra to lose. But at the same time, deep inside, my anorexia brain is happy that I might be losing weight. That I deserve it, to assuage the guilt and shame and all that nastiness. It’s a battle to overcome the lack of appetite and the secret sense that I don’t deserve to eat anyway. Oh, I’m eating, because I want to recover and I want to lose as little muscle as possible (a fruitless and useless cause; I doubt I’ve got any of the fitness I earned left); but every meal, every food choice, is once again a battle.

I’m so tired of everything. So many times in the last few weeks I’ve just wished I could just… stop. But that’s not how life goes. Just keep going.