I Left My Voice in Paris

I promise, some day maybe even soon, I will write a blog post that doesn't feature an illness. But today is just not that day. I've spent most of this weekend trying to recover from my own personal pneumonia diagnosis. Apparently I taught my children how to share a little too much.

I really tried to prevent myself from getting sick this time. Actually, the morning of the day we ended up in the hospital with Max, I'd gone to my own doctor, noting that I was getting sick. I just wasn't sick enough then, so I left empty-handed. I survived the hospital stay, but my cough kept escalating, and so I spent a Friday evening in a fancy new urgent care center. The doctor there thought I was past the crux of my cold, or bronchitis, whatever, and gave me a few things to help with just the cough and said I was fine to travel to Paris. So I did.

And I lost my voice after a full day of meetings, somewhere along the Champs-Élysées. At least I left it somewhere pretty?

I had one more meeting the following morning, and could barely say a word. I was lucky to have nothing to declare at Customs on the way home, as I couldn't make any declarations at all. I finally made it back to a doctor and got the antibiotic that cured both of my kids, and seems to now be working its magic on me.

So while the business portion of my trip was successful, the tiny bit of downtime I had in Paris was mostly spent in bed, watching this past season of Downton Abbey. I'm so glad I got to take the trip though, as it means a lot to meet far-flung co-workers and clients face-to-face. But next time, I plan to leave with everything I brought along with me--including my voice.