It starts with a P.

P..neumonia. We've been talking a lot lately about why there is a p in the word pneumonia. Two of the kids are curious, because they've got it. We all got seriously smashed down hard with some infection at the beginning of the month, and it progressed into pneumonia in the eldest two. It might have gotten the rest of us, but we didn't get sick enough, for long enough, to realize it.

Times like these, my paranoia flares up, and I wonder about biological attacks. This would be a good one-- it's easily transmissible, not all that easy to treat unless the right antibiotic is found, and suppresses the will of an entire population. I kind of can't believe that the current "bug" going around is fucking pneumonia!

I also can't believe that I had to wonder if one of my children was about to die last week when his fever skyrocketed. It's a measure of how much my medications tamp down my emotions that I didn't really feel all that connected to the idea. My therapist thinks that I am just getting better at reality checking, so I didn't worry because I knew he wouldn't die. But I didn't know. Not at all.