“The greatest wealth is health.”

-Anonymous

“Going to the woods is going home.”

-John Muir 

Even though I have been hiking pretty regularly over the course of the last several weeks, I have had a nagging cough that has produced abnormally (in my opinion) large amounts of phlegm. I really haven’t felt bad but the cough and the phlegm had me worried.

So after delaying the inevitable for a couple of weeks, I bit the bullet and went to my doctor. At first, I was only expecting to hear that I had a cold and that I should just take it easy to give it time to clear up. I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear that I had Bronchial Pneumonia. In the middle of the summer?? Who has ever heard of such a thing? If it was January and they told me that I would have been able to accept it better than the first week of July!!!

And since I had been coughing so hard, I pulled a muscle in my chest, which was more painful than when I actually cracked a rib coughing. So I haven’t been hiking since Friday and that has me bummed out. I have, however, been riding my stationary bike which has given me some peace of mind.

So here I sit, waiting to go out into the woods again. I believe tomorrow may be the day.

GOOD HEALTH TO YOU AND HAPPY HIKING!!!