Growing up in the 50s, we had a P-word in relation to health matters, but it was P for polio, not pandemic. We wouldn’t have even known the word pandemic, but we certainly knew polio. That was the only disease that scared us kids, the only malady that seemed a threat to someone of elementary school age.
Summer was the polio season. We did not know why or where it came from, but there was suspicion that a crowded public swimming pool was what would today be called a super-spreader venue. That was most upsetting to me because every day from the summer of first grade on I rode my bike about a mile to Recreation Park to spend most of the day in the swimming pool.
Mothers became concerned about letting their kids go swimming, especially in August, but somehow I was able to convince my mom to let me go. I met a guy there, Carlos. He became a close friend. We swam virtually everyday. Despite the fact that he had a younger brother my age who was in an iron lung with polio, Carlos’s mother allowed him to go swimming. I never met the brother while he was in the iron lung. Unlike our current experience with Covid, it was the polio victims who were quarantined, not the general public. You never visited someone who was in an iron lung if you were not family. After all, polio could be contagious.
Even though I never actually saw an iron lung, pictures in publications like Life magazine were ubiquitous and frightening. Just the thought of being so confined triggered claustrophobia.
Around fourth grade, I began doing an afternoon paper route, delivering the Chicago Daily News and Chicago American. One day when I picked up my stack of papers there was a headline story announcing that Dr. Jonas Salk had successfully tested a polio vaccine. I am sure I was ecstatic to read that except for the fact it would involve getting a shot and I hated shots. At the time I had to get injections fairly regularly for my asthma and hay fever. That put me off needles indefinitely.
In hindsight, it seems that in no time I was standing in a seemingly interminable line stretching out of Resurrection Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois. My father’s defining life event was the Great Depression. Thus, he watched his pennies carefully. To him, it was worth the cost of attrition to wait in line for what must have been hours on a very hot summer day to receive the new polio vaccine for free. I am sure I whined and moaned and gave my mother fits. But we stayed the course, and I survived the shot. After it was over, there was tremendous relief. I never had to worry about polio again. The public swimming pool was no longer a mixed bag of delight and dread.
As an aside, Park Ridge was the childhood home of one Hillary Rodham. She is about two years younger than I am. I have wondered if she might have been standing in line for a free jab that day. If so, it was a missed opportunity—of sorts.
Of course there were other childhood diseases. I was vaccinated for smallpox and had a tetanus shot every five years, which I remember hurt the most with discomfort that lasted for days. I am sure I got other vaccinations but do not recall which. Like most of my friends, I had chicken pox, measles, mumps and something called scarlatina, a mild form of scarlet fever. We never gave much thought to any of it. We stayed home from school for a few days, and it was over. We were then told that we were immune to that particular disease for life. For some reason, natural immunity did not seem to have the same cachet during Covid, the virus that kept on giving.
There was one disease designation that was never spoken aloud in polite or impolite company, and that was the C-word. If somebody had cancer they were said to be struggling with a stubborn disease, or some such euphemism. The obituary of a cancer victim would read “passed away after a battle with a lengthy disease.”
There was another P-word ailment that was spoken about, but always spoken about in a whisper. That was pneumonia. I recall several elderly relatives falling ill, then later developing pneumonia. My grandmother’s sister was in a not particularly serious auto accident in which she broke her femur. (That was the first time I had ever heard the formal name for the thigh bone.) At first, doctors thought the broken bone would heal, eventually. Later, however, I overheard my parents talking quietly that Aunt Carrie had developed pneumonia. I sensed that was the kiss of death. Pneumonia was frightening in its way, but it did not seem a threat to us young folks. It seemed to afflict only our oldest relatives.
By the time I reached adulthood and had some experience with infections and the miracle of antibiotics, I assumed that pneumonia was one of those conquered diseases, like the chicken pox, mumps and measles that I had overcome as a child. Pneumonia slid off my radar screen.
About a month ago, I started developing symptoms of what I thought was a cold—cough, congestion, weakness, malaise. However, the cough got worse, and I developed a slight temperature. I became very weak and constantly tired. After a few days, I did not have the ambition to get out of bed. By Easter Sunday, I was having trouble breathing. We canceled our Easter dinner plans. I am one of those said to be typical males who put off going to a doctor until the last minute.
Easter Sunday became the last minute, and there was only one option—an urgent care clinic. I finally acceded to my wife’s pleadings and went to a walk-in clinic, Patient First (turned out to be very good). I was given various tests, including a Covid test, and had blood drawn. The Covid test proved negative. Bloodwork was normal, but the doctor thought I should have a chest x-ray. Much to my surprise the chest x-ray showed that I had pneumonia in both lungs.
The disease that I had presumed to be no longer much of a threat given modern treatments turned out to be probably the worst thing I have ever come down with. Fortunately, antibiotics tempered the worst of it after a week or so, but I am still on antibiotics and not completely recovered. So, I’ve developed a new respect for pneumonia and hope never to experience it again.
However, I realized that for all the familiarity of the word, I really had no idea what pneumonia was or what caused it. I checked the Mayo Clinic website.
Pneumonia is an infection that inflames the air sacs in one or both lungs. The air sacs may fill with fluid or pus (purulent material), causing cough with phlegm or pus, fever, chills, and difficulty breathing. (Yes. All that and more. - ed.) A variety of organisms, including bacteria, viruses and fungi, can cause pneumonia.
Pneumonia can range in seriousness from mild to life-threatening. It is most serious for infants and young children, people older than age 65, and people with health problems or weakened immune systems.
There was also this from WebMD:
Respiratory Failure
When you have pneumonia, it's possible for your lungs to fill with fluid. If that happens, they won't be able to transfer enough oxygen to your blood or get rid of the carbon dioxide in your blood. It's a serious condition because your organs need oxygen to work.
If your pneumonia is severe or you're in the hospital to treat it, your care team will watch you for signs of this rare—but life-threatening—complication.
There it was: carbon dioxide. LIfe threatening. The need to decarbonize. I should have known. In addition to its myriad other causations (see above for one of the more tragic), climate change also clearly causes pneumonia. And I, a denier, must surely be in the highest risk group for having offended Gaea. I should have listened to Greta. How dare I not?
Haha.
I'm elated to hear you made it. Get your pneumonia shot. What fool put the p in pneumonia?
Stay well.
Yours in health,
Scott