Ben Fogle: Killer bug I didn’t take seriously
Pneumonia mostly kills the elderly and infirm but can hit people at any age. Here 43, tells how it affected him – and how he wishes he’d listened to doctors who warned him of the dangers
I’ve definitely suffered my fair share of knocks and scrapes and even a horrific tropical flesheating bug, but nothing prepared me for pneumonia. Ironically it was while getting some much needed R&R in Portugal with my wife Marina and our children – Ludo, then five, and Iona, three – in July 2014 that I first knew something was wrong.
I’m so used to feeling so fit, being able to push my body hard through extreme challenges, that the change I felt was quite dramatic.
Over the course of a day doing the sum total of not much, my breathing became worryingly tight. I’d had catinduced asthma as a boy, and this felt very similar – like my lungs were half-full of water, or had suddenly shrunk.
Even the slightest exercise left me feeling out of breath and I was wheezing. Assuming it was a minor chest infection, I got some rest, drank plenty of fluids and took some painkillers, expecting this bug to run its course.
But it got to the point where I was out of breath walking up a flight of stairs, so two days later I went to a little clinic near our villa where the doctor listened to my chest and said it sounded like pneumonia. I was confused. I didn’t know anyone who’d had pneumonia, let alone someone as young as me, so I took the diagnosis with a pinch of salt. Doctors are humans and make mistakes, I thought, and this one must be mistaken. I thought pneumonia hit people with weak immune systems, who weren’t healthy, and I was in the excellent shape. I was prescribed a course of antibiotics, told to get plenty of rest and, as a fit and healthy 40- year- old, I should recover in the next few weeks. But my wheezing and tight chest got worse instead. Like a lot of people with busy lives, I couldn’t choose to take more time out of my schedule. So when we got home the following week I was dashing around to production meetings, filming, taking flights – I certainly didn’t rest, which I noww regret.
Just a few weeks before that holidayy to Portugal I’d been at peak kh physical lf fitness, running marathons, filming the Harbour Lives series in Dorset for ITV which required me to clamber up and down cliffs, yet suddenly I felt completely incapacitated.
I went to my GP, then got referred to see another specialist, who confirmed the pneumonia diagnosis and prescribed a new, different course of antibiotics. Yet again, I assumed wrongly the right medication would sort this out, and that resting was for wimps – but again I was proven wrong.
For someone who takes great pride in their fitness, it was hard. Somehow I felt that by pushing myself when my body was saying no, I’d beat this, like pushing through a pain barrier when training for marathon, but the opposite was true. So four weeks Pneumonia is a leading cause of death in the elderly and seriously ill, killing more than 50,000 adults each year. It is the swelling of tissue in one or both lungs, and is usually caused by a bacterial infection, but also by viruses or fungi. Tiny air sacs in your lungs become inflamed and fill up with fluid. Symptoms can develop over 24 to 48 hours or more slowly, and include a cough, difficulty breathing even if resting, rapid heartbeat, fever, feeling generally unwell, sweating, shivering, poor appetite and chest pain.
If left untreated, oxygen levels can fall to life-threatening levels. Having asthma, smoking or drinking increases the risks.
The Pneumovax vaccine is currently given to over-65s, those suffering from one of the most common bacteria, Streptococcus pneumoniae or pneumococcus, or those with chronic disease (especially lung or heart disease) or weakened immune systems. lat later I went back to my specialist, who pr pre s c r ibed yet ano another different cou course of antibiotics wh which this time wouldld h hopefullyf ll b be more targeted at my specific strain of pneumonia. Combined with proper rest, this third course of medication started to take effect.
But then, just as I was starting to feel like I was on the up, I took a flight to Africa, on which I picked up another cold, which then turned into a chest infection.
My immune system was evidently wiped, and I was picking up bugs left, right and centre – I seriously wondered if this would ever go, if I’d ever be back to full fitness which for me, in my work, was terrifying.
I’d say it took a full nine months for me to feel like I’d finally shaken the effects of my pneumonia. It could have been just a matter of weeks if I’d listened to those doctors and properly rested.
It made me think how deadly pneumonia can be to the elderly or anyone with a weakened immune system. One of the hardest parts is that it’s invisible, you don’t have a streaming nose or an obvious injury.
I was amazed I’d known so little about it before, that it’s a major killer. I count myself lucky and know now I have to get my pneumonia vaccination every year as I’m much more susceptible having had it once.
I’m doing all I can do to raise awareness including through the Expect the Unexpected campaign ( nooneexpects.co.uk ).
It was a truly awful – a time I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.