Bobert, I'm going to scare the socks off'n you. This is serious stuff, as you know, but I want to be sure you KNOW it. So here goes:
In June I spent a week in Fairbanks Alaska where I stayed in a hostel (had a great time).
There I met this Englishman, from Dorset, I think, who had half of all of his fingers, except his thumbs, missing. He said his toes were also mostly gone. Being from Alaska, I assumed that he had lost the digits to frostbite in mountain climbing or some such.
Instead, he told me, he'd had pneumonia a few years back. The beastie went through his lung-walls and into his bloodstream. He had very little warning: didn't feel too hot one Saturday morning and went to the emergency room on Sunday afternoon. By Sunday night he was unconscious.
He said he went from being a working man to probably never working another day in his life (he is now in his early 60s, I think.)
His message? If you are told you have pneumonia, take care of it.