I have been poorly recently. In May, for the first time in many years, I was laid low with a chest infection. Long ago, starting in 1998, I had chest infections fairly regularly, half a dozen or so over a 10-year period.

The first one, in the summer of 1998, really knocked me back. I had no idea that’s what it was but one afternoon, feeling exhausted, I left work early, headed home to bed and slept through to the following morning. Not feeling much better, I called the GP expecting that they would make a home visit. No chance. I had to get to the surgery. I had rarely felt so weak or tired but drove to my afternoon appointment and was surprised to find that there was a simple, diagnosable, reason for feeling this way: a chest infection, treated with five days’ worth of antibiotics, three tablets a day. I had the first tablet as soon as I got home, the second one that night, and felt markedly better. Despite feeling OK the next day, I took one more day off work and returned the day after, feeling pretty much back to normal.

I thought back to the autumn of 1993, and a persistent cold that had taken weeks to shift. That must have been a chest infection too, and it could have been sorted in days if I’d gone to the GP.

In the spring of 1999 I needed another dose of antibiotics, after a couple of weeks trying to recover from what felt like another lingering cold. I didn’t want to start believing that every cold might really be something worse. And over the next 10 years of so there were four or five chest infections that needed antibiotics to see them off. The worst of them was in March 2003, exacerbated by a 24-hour work trip to Stockholm. That involved flying from Heathrow after a full day in the office, settling into my functional Swedish hotel room around midnight, a taxi to the office the next morning, another full day’s work, and a taxi straight back to Stockholm airport at 6pm. I returned from Heathrow around midnight and saw the GP the following morning.

Fortunately, this pattern of regular chest infections came to an end. Over the last 14 years I have been prescribed antibiotics once for an ear infection (In 2012) and once, maybe twice, for a chest infection. The fact that I can’t remember for sure is a good sign. Those 10 years of chest infections from 1998 onwards are much clearer in my mind.

On Bank Holiday Monday, at the end of May, I felt the same tiredness and weakness that hit me back in the summer of 1998. I had got up at a reasonable time, hung out with my daughter, eaten breakfast as usual, but by lunch-time I couldn’t stay awake. Over the next 24 hours I was asleep for about 18 hours in total.

On the Tuesday afternoon I contacted the surgery to arrange an appointment. It was the second time in just under seven years that I have needed to see a GP face-to-face to discuss my own health. I had been to the surgery with my son (when he had shingles in 2021) and have had telephone appointments to discuss insect bites, but my last two GP appointments were for eye problems (conjunctivitis in June 2017, and something that turned out not to be conjunctivitis in 2021).

Things have changed with our family doctors. The Health Centre where they were based since the late 1970s has been pulled down. A new one is being built to replace it. The practice has moved a mile or so further east, and has merged with two other practices, in other parts of town. If you took a walk from the most southerly of these, south of the A4, to the most westerly, and then eastwards to where my usual doctors are now based, it would take at least 45 minutes. These days you are actively discouraged from trying to book an appointment by phone. I filled in an online form as requested and got a call back within 30 minutes. On the basis of that I was given an appointment the following morning (Wednesday) and advised to go to A&E if my symptoms got worse in the night.

My appointment was with a locum, at the practice that is furthest away from the old Health Centre. She was Welsh, and about half my age. I gave her a history of my previous chest infections, which she could no doubt have confirmed from my notes. Early on she said, “So, when did you first get this pneumonia…?” “Pneumonia?” I asked, “I thought it was just a chest infection”. “Yes, chest infection …” She didn’t quite say, “Whatever,” but I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had.

The appointment was longer than I was expecting, 30 minutes or so, partly because of my stories about previous local doctors, especially the Welsh ones: there were numerous GPs with names like Morgan, Jones and Hughes. I thought she might have been related to one of them, but she isn’t. She used the word “pneumonia” again at one point.

She asked if I had been coughing and bringing anything up. “Not much,” I told her. “Do you think you could bring anything up now? There’s a sink over there”. I produced what I could, and she looked at it closely. “No,” she said, “That doesn’t excite me.” “Does it worry you?” I asked. Fortunately it didn’t.

Eventually she decided that a dose of antibiotics was in order. She asked if I was allergic to penicillin. No, I’m glad to say, but my brother recently suffered an allergic reaction to it, so I’m now concerned that the same might happen to me. I asked her what I should look out for. “You’ll go into anaphylactic shock, your lips’ll turn blue, but call 999 and tell them that’s what you’ve got and they’ll be round in five minutes”. And then, while explaining the dosage, she used the P-word (pneumonia) again. I said, “You keep saying pneumonia. What’s the difference between pneumonia and a chest infection?” She said, “It’s a question of semantics, really.” “So, is this a chest infection or pneumonia?” “Well, we can call it pneumonia if you like…” I said that I’d prefer to call it a chest infection, like 20-odd years ago. Either way, a 7-day dose of Clarithromycin (500mg tablets, twice a day) sorted it out, whatever it was. Call it pneumonia if you like.