Pneumonia

I was pleasantly surprised to be still functioning at (my) normal capacity even though my husband and our youngest daughter had been suffering cold and flu symptoms for days, and then weeks.  This means my immune system is strengthening!  When my daughter was spiking a fever every night and lethargic during the day with a cough that never let up, I took her to the doctor, who diagnosed pneumonia.
Monday she was halfway through her antibiotics and was coming back to life, and I had a mild cough but no other symptoms and surprisingly, no more fatigue than any other day.  In fact, I had been experiencing a little more energy than usual and was working in the yard--actual heavy lifting, not just fluffing soil with a cute trowel--and crushed my left index finger between a brick wall and a concrete planter.  I didn't break the bone (pretty sure, time will tell) but I cleaned, bandaged, and iced the split finger, focused on breathing, found a safe place to lie down under a blanket, and kept the hand above my heart for the rest of the day.
Tuesday morning I built a plan of activities requiring little use of my left hand but plenty of mental occupation to keep my mind off the throbbing.  By noon I had a fever.  When my husband came home from work, I asked him to start making phone calls to cancel all my plans for Wednesday.  I spent the next two days and nights on the couch with fire in every joint, pain in every muscle, 101° fever, horrible chills, no appetite, a hypoglycemic headache, an incessant cough, and thick despair.  I injure a finger and my immune system just...gives up?
I wasn't sure which was more excruciating: the thought of staying like this any longer, or trying to get up.  Thursday I called my mom and said, "If I can get dressed, could you take me to the doctor?"  I had managed a sort of bath that morning but I hadn't been able to wash my hair for days.  The best I could do was don a hat, trade the smelly sweats for my loosest pair of jeans, zip a sweatshirt over my sleeveless top, and sit on the couch while my older daughter slid my shoes on my feet.
The diagnosis was pneumonia, my mom picked up my prescriptions and returned me home where I swallowed dose number one and landed back in my comfortless nest, somewhere around noon.  I know the drill, weeks or even months of recovery time to get back to my own normal, which is still miles behind everyone else's.  Yes, I've been told it isn't a race, but then I've been left behind, too.
Five hours after the initial dose of antibiotics I went into my kitchen for a bowl of nutritious homemade chicken soup my mom had made for us.  It was the first time I'd been in my kitchen in two days.  (I normally live there.)  Friday morning I took a shower and washed my hair.  Conditioned it, too.  I changed the bandage on my mangled finger for the first time.
Today, Saturday, I was up around five-thirty and folded three loads of clean laundry before going to the clinic with my husband and our oldest son where they, too were diagnosed with pneumonia.  We picked up their prescriptions, then got them both home and dosed up and chicken souped and tucked in, and I set to work on the work that didn't do itself while I was "out".  You'd expect I'd be exhausted.  I'm not fully recovered, I'm still coughing, and I had to take several breaks today.  But I've been this sick before, and I've never recovered this much this fast before.  So...my immune system IS stronger.