When your health suddenly takes a turn for the worse

First, let me be clear. I  am not looking for your sympathy, I'm just looking to vent.

This has been the worst winter of my life. No, I am not dying, nor am I in constant pain. Many of you are far worse off than I am. So forgive me if your winter has been worse than mine.

Sometime back in November, life as I know it took a left turn. Three games of hockey a week, runs with my buddy Mike Stringer, long walks downtown — all of it interrupted abruptly by viral pneumonia.

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After 54 years of generally robust good health, I was about to discover what it means to lose your mojo.

I am 54, going on 84. And I will never take good health for granted again.

I was off work for three weeks. An occupational health nurse told me it might take me 12 weeks to recover.

In my own mind, I dismissed that. After all I'm different, aren't I? I play hockey; I ran the Cape to Cabot two years ago.

So I was back to work by Christmas. On Boxing Day, buoyed by the steroid-induced euphoria of prednisone, I even hiked Signal Hill.

By mid-January, I was sick again.

Wheezing like a punctured set of bellows

Since then, I have been weaned off prednisone at least three times. It's a powerful anti-inflammatory, a miracle drug that allows you to function normally.

But once the dosage comes down I start wheezing like a punctured set of bellows. I wake up in the morning to the sound of the cat meowing and realize it's not the cat at all. It's my lungs squeaking and creaking as I wake up.

At least two of the medications I am taking warn that I may experience irritability, depression and the desire to self harm. No kidding!

I am 54, going on 84. And I will never take good health for granted again.

Chronic illness isolates you. Every Monday morning I pump my buddy Ryan Snoddon for information on our Sunday night hockey game, the one that I used to play. Who scored? Which goalie lost his temper? How are the boys?

Dashed dreams and saving graces

I miss my hockey buddies, every last one of them. I dream about playing hockey. I dream about running with my friend Mike on a nice warm spring morning. And then I wake up wheezing.

There are some saving graces. I can go to work. It takes pills and puffers and lots of water during the show but I can function.

When I'm not wallowing in self-pity, I think about all of you who have serious illnesses, like cancer.

I feel for people in chronic pain. If I can get this low over a bit of pneumonia, what must it be like for them?  If nothing else, I am emerging from this winter a whole lot more empathetic.

Now, before you fill up the comments section, I am not looking for your pity or sympathy. I was always an optimist at heart. Spring is coming and with it the promise of better health.

So to all of you who've had a tougher winter than me … hang in there. And thanks for letting me vent.