Sickly Me

After months of feeling increasingly run down, too tired and wiped out to accomplish all that my day requires of me, as well as feeling forgetful, having a hard time completing sentences and still losing piles of hair, I finally decided this wasn't all just 'wiped out from having four kids' and was probably something bigger.  I called my doctor and asked to have my thyroid and iron checked.

Turns out my thyroid is fine.

Everything else though -- not so good.  My iron is dangerously low.  To the point where treatment discussions include blood transfusions, IV treatments and meeting with a cardiologist.  Apparently my red blood cells are deformed and abnormal now because of how low my iron is.  Also my Vitamin D is freakishly low, I've now had two different doctors tell me they can't believe I'm even getting out of bed each day with as low as these levels are.  My B12 is low too, but since you can't really absorb B vitamins well without iron, it's still undecided exactly how to treat it for now.

I went on our cruise with half my blood results still out (as I transferred to a new doctor), as well as a pending appointment with the heart people at the hospital for as soon as I got home.  At first I felt like the blood work and the heart monitoring were looming over me on our vacation, but I felt so much better at the lower elevation and with all the sun, that I almost forgot the medical mess waiting for me at home.  But that didn't last -- at 8:30AM the morning after we got home, I was at the hospital being shown how to manage my own personal ECG machine that I'll wear 24/7 for the next month.





I keep asking Greg if it weirds him out at all to see me covered in wires and leads and equipment.  He says it doesn't -- that it doesn't change the reality of what is or isn't wrong, it merely will provide answers, so in that respect it's a positive.  I'm not quite so optimistic.  I'm trying not to get down about it, but I look down at the wires poking up above my shirt, and the wires running down to my pocket where I keep the monitoring device, and I feel like I've been punched in the gut.  I feel fragile and broken, and a little scared.  The last couple weeks have been humbling as I've watched test results come back far worse than I was expecting.  Then I went on the cruise and felt relatively great.  Now back at home I feel slightly dizzy and light headed and weak as I reacclimate to the higher elevation and lower oxygen levels in my blood.  I feel overwhelmed as I look at my house that is overrun by toys and vacation laundry, and I feel so tired I just want to curl back up in bed as soon as I wake up.  I feel disheartened when I look above my headboard and see the long line of pill bottles and supplements that I'm just hoping and praying are doing what they're supposed to.  I want a quick fix, an easy answer -- and unfortunately those are rarely best.  I read about blood transfusions and IV iron treatments for people who have iron as low as mine, and on one hand I want to forget all the risks and get checked into the hospital right now, just so I can feel better sooner than later, but we need to give the oral iron time to see if it works (and even though it never really has before, insurance won't pay for the more invasive iron treatments until we show several months of oral treatments being ineffective.)  I feel like I'm waiting for it to fail enough to get real help.  I'm frustrated that the doctor's office who did my last round of blood work hasn't called me back (and has a very firm "do not leave more than one message" warning on their voicemail), as I waited our entire cruise to find out these results, then they never called me back yesterday.  In some ways I expect these results to be more of the same -- vitamin levels low, being depleted.  But this blood work also included some bigger tests for things like autoimmune disorders and lupus, and I really, really want to hear that those all came back normal.  Also, in the thick of all this, I decided to get my kids tested -- the girls are fine, but both boys have low iron and we've started treating them with twice daily liquid iron and Vitamin D supplements. 

There is a plus side though.   For months now I've felt so tired and worn out, and it made me feel bad about myself -- like I wasn't a good enough Mom, full of energy and keeping a spotless house.  Even though I was forcing myself to get up and make a hot breakfast, a sack lunch and clean the kitchen before 8AM, the fact it was so hard to do and took so much out of me made me feel lazy and pathetic.  To find out now that I've been operating well beyond what someone in my condition normally can, I can cut myself a break.  I can feel good about my efforts and what I've accomplished, instead of just seeing where I lack.  And there's some hope now, that this isn't just the state of my life now, but that things will improve.  That we know what's wrong, so we can start to treat it, and I can feel better one day, and I won't have to feel this way all the time. 



Oh, and kinda unrelated.  While I was making breakfast today, feeling weak and slightly dizzy the whole time, I was thinking about how much better I'd felt in Cabo and on the cruise, and I realized something.  Utah gets a lot of flack for having higher than average anti-depressant prescription numbers -- can I humbly suggest that at least part of the reason is higher elevation, and winters -- I've never been on an anti-depressant, but I did find that I felt significantly better laying out in the sun and running around in the surf.  I'm curious how that affects things . . .