I'll be updating this as I can. So, with a month of treatment behind me, I wanted to start looking back and reporting on what it's like to live with BOOP at the same time.

Living with BOOP: First MyMan corrects me -- I am not an invalid. To me "invalid"conjures up WWI vets staring into space in shock, pushed around in wheelchairs by Susan-Boyle-like nurses in white caps. Plaid woolen blankets cover their laps. I'm not that kind of an invalid.

But, I can't take a flight of stairs without a breather in between. Standing is a stretch. The dog walks me; I don't walk the dog. Walking even once around the block, with our gentle inclines, is trying and I need to stop for breath. Sometimes breathing burns.

Any exertion results in perspiration. Walking, standing too long, a visit to an airless library...and I'm dripping. Or, I can wake up in a sweat, drenched, not damp, wet. I'm talking about wet hair, wet pillows, wet clothes, gobs of sweat dripping off my forehead and jaw. Suddenly, I'm a waterfall. Is it the disease...or is it my treatment?

I keep forgetting to touch on my appearance. No wonder. To be blunt, I look like a chipmunk, or a squirrel in mid-spring with nuts tucked into my expanding cheeks. I look away from mirrors. I can't bear looking at the transformation. I'm sure people on the street think me disfigured, gross, strange; worse: old. this is a result of 60 mgs daily of the steroid, prednisone.

History: We had made reservations at our favorite hotel in Saratoga Springs for New Year's Eve December 2008/09, but on Dec. 30 I came down with a fever of102.6. Plans were cancelled. Responses were mixed:

MyMan was relieved he didn't have to drive.

MyKid was disappointed -- no indoor pool to play in.

I'm 58 years old, in fairly good health, what was I doing with so high a fever? Here's what I remember from the first month.

January 2009: Dragging myself into the city to be seen by my ManhattanDoc, who didn't see bronchitis, but prescribed levaquin, apparently the protocol antibiotic for chest problems.

Then he was on vacation; unavailable. About 10 days home coughing, blowing out yellow mucus, lacking strength, taking the meds. It felt like a bad, messy flu.

Hoping I could see the inauguration, I did. Also I enjoyed watching the heroism of Sully in the Hudson River practically as it happened. (Greatly heartened by this.)

Back at work, I learned I wasn't entitled to sick pay, because my probationary period was still being held up. Work Drama will be taken up separately.

Sick, tired and dragging myself this time to a LocalDoc who immediately saw bronchitis/pneumonia, sent me for chest x-rays and referral to Dr. A, the pulmonologist.

The visit to the pulmonologist was a revelation. Never having been to one before I was confronted with an array of tests and treatments that staff took for granted. My favorite remains the "pointer pincher" to measure my heart rate and my oxygenation levels. I hated blowing into the blower. The albuterol treatment is given as if everyone in the world had experienced this before. I remember the dry, tasteless mouth it left me with. I resented having to explain that this was all new to me. I was annoyed.

I was just generally annoyed. It didn't help that I was spending hours in the waiting room, with dozens of sick or asthmatic people and -- the ultimate insult -- a not very good choice of magazines. Now in Manhattan doctors' offices, there's usually a good choice of reading material (ex: The New Yorker, Glamour), but no TV. In Bklyn, apparently there's usually a TV, but the reading material is lacking (Fishing). Apparently, this is one area where Bklyn's vaunted intellectualism is lacking. Or the hipster literati don't get sick yet.

But most of all I hated coughing and blowing and not really producing anything good and just not knowing. Maybe that was the worst thing of all. The doctor officious, the staff courteous, but ultimately no answers. This was a state that continues, even today, six months later. I could only think,

Where's my air?

Why was I sick?

Was I sick?

What did I have?

Tomorrow: the cycle of sleeplessness; the medicine protocol