World Pneumonia Day is November 12. (My awful journey through pneumonia).

I take care of the elderly population, and their immune system is suppressed. So in turn, they are sick a lot, and sometimes I catch what they have. I've had pneumonia twice in my life. It is horrible. I also have asthma, and I would smoke sometimes, that could be a factor. Smoking increases your risk for having pneumonia, and so does having asthma. I felt sick at work one day, with just a runny nose, and no appetite. I was driving and I felt weak and I was nodding off. They next day at work I was so sick, and incoherent my manager let me go home early. I accidentally fell asleep in the bathroom. She was asking me how's everything going? As in do I have all my work done? I didn't understand her, I was like work is going fine. I was so out of it. I was doing laundry for a resident and getting everything mixed up. I went home, laid in bed, and my heart was beating out of my chest. I just stayed in bed, and slept all the time, and didn't go to work. I didn't eat and lost a lot of weight. I would wake up thinking that I needed to call 911 because I couldn't breathe so I took my enenubulizer, but then that would help. I felt so sick, I told my husband to take me to the hospital, but he didn't. I think I stayed in bed for four days without going to the doctor. I get sick a lot in health care, and it is usually a virus that just goes away on it's own. I'm pretty healthy. I had a fever and I was hallucinating. I woke up out of sleep and was walking downstairs but I didn't realize what I was doing. The fever was bad, I would sweat, I just plain felt awful. Finally I went to urgent care, and she didn't really help me, she just gave me steroids, and said she "hopes that she doesn't catch it". Then I went to my PCP, and I told her about my fevers and chest pain, and she took an x-ray of my chest. She called me a day later to tell me that I had pneumonia and gave me antibiotics. I went back to work and I recovered soon. The next time I had it was last May. I had influenza A in March, then in April bronchitis, which turned into pneumonia. My place of employment forced me to work with pneumonia and I got so sick. I worked an overnight, and I slept on the couch the whole time, while my co-worker took over. I left work at 6 AM and then I came back at 2 PM. I felt horrific. After work I went to the hospital and they told me I had low potassium. Luckily the manager that forces me into work went on vacation, and the more understand one was in charge. I took a week off. My couch was horrible, and I was taking my rescue inhaler all the time. I was weasing in my lungs so bad. I've been on steroids for bronchitis for a month and on an antibiotic for a week. It wasn't strong enough to get rid of the pneumonia so I got put on another antibiotic, Levaquin. That one finally worked and cleared it up, but I had extreme fatigue. I mean extreme. I could not stay awake at all. I could sleep for days and feel like I just ran 5 miles. My doctor did a complete blood count and everything was fine, I was just recovering. I went back to work on restrictions, but they weren't able to follow my restrictions. I finally recovered, but that was rough to go through. I got a pneumonia shot, since I have asthma, I hope it helps. Fingers cross. I do not want to go through this ever again! I am so glad that I am alive this day in age, with breathing medicine, and antibiotics. When I an on Ancestry.com I see that a lot of my ancestors cause of death was pneumonia. November 12 is world pneumonia Day. 50,000 people die every year from pneumonia in the US. Pneumonia is the worlds leading killer in the world of children aged 5 and under. A child dies every 20 seconds from pneumonia worldwide. Vaccines can help prevent this.