Yesterday we rode up to the Pont d’Espagne, which translates to Spanish Bridge. We left from the gite and climbed 4500 feet on the day, with about 3000 of those up to the bridge. We drove the night before and got some beautiful pictures of the bridge and surrounding waterfalls:The ride was definitely challenging. I did not feel great after, but a nap and some good food (and wine) helped.

Today we did an even bigger ride, up to the Col du Soulor, and the guys went further up to the Col d’Abisque, where the Tour de France will finish tomorrow. I asked a Brit to take a picture of me at the summit:

There were a lot of people on the roads and in campers, preparing for the Tour to go through there tomorrow. I took one picture at the top of some of the campers, but it does not begin to accurately represent what it was like riding up – got lots of cheers (and sympathetic looks) from fans along the road. And as you can see, the view around it is incredibly beautiful.

I took a wrong turn and ended up with more miles than I intended to get home, so for the day I climbed just over 5,000 feet and my total mileage was 48. I felt much better today – perhaps I’m finally getting a level of fitness back after pneumonia.

Tomorrow we are going to watch the stage of the Tour de France, so it probably won’t be a big riding day, but will be an exciting one.

We arrived Thursday morning and spent 2 days in Pau sightseeing and trying to get acclimated. Friday we drove up to the border of Spain and had lunch at the top of a beautiful mountain pass in the Pyrenees.

Today we checked into our gite in Viscos, a tiny mountain town with beautiful views. It was quite foggy today so I couldn’t get any decent pictures of the view but will definitely post those later.

We did our first ride of the trip, up to Luz Ardiden. I went the back way from the gite, and Jonathan, Matt and Tim rode into town and rode up a different way. It was incredibly foggy for the last 3 km. I could hear cow bells all over (cows roam freely here) but I couldn’t see them until I was right next to them. Needless to say it made descending very tricky.

I felt good, except for an issue with my derailleur which kept me in one gear only, and of course it wasn’t my easiest one! I couldn’t downshift to stand because it wouldn’t go back into the easier gear so I sat and had to grind away the entire climb. It felt like I was being punished, yet it was enjoyable because I was riding a beautiful road in France.

Here’s a picture at the summit from today, and the one below is from 2 years ago. Quite a difference!

Tomorrow will be a little tougher ride, up Hautacam, another ski resort with super steep roads. Guess I should put the wine glass down and get some rest!!

I had a wonderful Memorial Weekend with my mom visiting.  I rode the trainer each day, did my achilles exercises, and worked on core strength and upper body strength. We picked up Jonathan and our friend Matt after they tackled Mt. Evans on Sunday. We saw the new Star Wars movie, “Solo” on Monday night. It was a great weekend. And then everything went black.

I woke up Tuesday morning knowing something was seriously wrong. I fought a fever all night, along with a splitting headache and pretty serious back ache. I literally could not get out of bed. I’d been dealing with the back pain for about 5 days, but it wasn’t anything serious, just more of an annoyance. And other than feeling like I was breathing harder than usual on the trainer, I had felt good exercising the prior days.

All day Tuesday my fever soared and my back ache continued. On Wednesday morning we went to urgent care, with me thinking I had a kidney infection. They ran tests for a kidney infection and the flu, and both came up negative. The Dr. then wanted to do chest xrays to get a closer look at my lungs, as my oxygen numbers when I came in were lower than they should have been, and I was running a 102.8 degree fever.

I was shocked to learn that I had pneumonia. I racked my brain trying to think of how I could have contracted it. The last few weeks have been particularly stressful at work and I wasn’t sleeping well, but I was still exercising, getting accupuncture treatments, taking my vitamins…and still it managed to get to me.

I spent the next 3 days in bed, and now I’m taking it easy trying to recover. But it has prompted me to learn more about pneumonia, and, in particular, whether I am more susceptible to getting it in the future now that I’ve had it once. Unfortunately, I cannot find anything definitive on the question of whether I’m more susceptible now. There are a few sites that just say you are more likely to contract it again, but they don’t say why.

So I decided to focus on how to avoid getting pneumonia in the future, which led to me to an interesting article which suggests that our bodies may produce protective cells that actually prevent us from a second episode of pneumonia. The article, “Your Lungs Aren’t the Same After a Battle With Pneumonia” is based on a study done on mice. The mice were first infected with a type of bacterial pneumonia, with a control group that was not infected. After recovery, the mice were infected with a more serious strain of pneumonia.

The mice who were previously infected fared far better than the control group who had not been previously infected. All of the control group mice died, while only 10% of the previously infected mice died. The previously infected mice had a population of white blood cells called memory T cells in the lobe where the previous infection occurred. The memory T cells protected that lobe from the second infection.

The authors of the study believe that these memory T cells could be used in human vaccines to provide protection against lung infection, without having to have pneumonia first. I hope they are right.

For now, I’m focused on finding ways to speed up my recovery and prevent future infections just in case the T cell thing doesn’t work out or become available in my lifetime (knowing how quickly the FDA approves medicines that can actually help people). I did learn about a type of plant, mullein, whose leaves have healing and protective properties for lungs. Mullein acts as an expectorant and removes excess mucus from the lungs while soothing the membranes. I’ve already found it on Amazon, but also hoping to find it at our local health food store as well. Here’s an  article discussing this “weed.” I just hope it tastes good enough to choke down, as I plan to drink gallons of it over my lifetime.

This is yet another setback, but I’m trying to focus on what I can do with my extra time as I recover and not what I’m missing out on. I’ve already learned a lot from this experience, and hopefully others will benefit from this knowledge.