When the Well Runs Dry
My clueless adventure with anemia
“I don’t think you need a transfusion tonight, but you need to see someone tomorrow.”
So that’s an alarming thing to hear. Especially when the “you” referred to is you.
Let’s rewind.
Eight years ago, I noticed some bright red blood in the can when I’d finished my business in the business office.
That can’t be good, I thought. I oughta ask someone about that.
A few months later, the third such event occurred, and came with an intense desire to go to sleep. That prompted me to make a gastroenterologist appointment.
A week and a few Massive Invasions of Personal Space (MIPS) later, the doc said I had A Thing. A Thing that was bleeding.
“Uh, that sucks,” I said. “What do we do about it?”
“Well,” said the doc. “You could have A Thingectomy. That’s one option. But when you look at your situation” — he gestured to the entire half of the room where I was sitting — “you can expect to have these kinds of problems.”
“My situation?”
Doc nodded and continued. “You’re overweight. You lead a sedentary lifestyle. You eat a limited range of things, all of which are bad for you. You avoid roughage like you’re allergic to it.”
“I am allergic to grass, actually,” I said. Doc ignored me.
“As long as you keep making these choices, you’re going to have problems. A Thingectomy can cause all sorts of other problems. Usually people are fine afterwards, but every once in awhile a patient winds up with a whole new set of problems that make the original Thing they started with seem really great.”
“Plus,” Doc said, “when you consider that your choices are choices, I generally don’t recommend A Thingectomy. Just make better choices.”
Right. I went on my merry way, pondering my life choices and silently agreeing that A Thingectomy sounded like a very poor life choice. I mused on what concessions I’d be willing to make right up until I got home, where my two toddlers instantly hijacked my train of thought.
Blink twice and it’s 2013. The periodic bloody event that occurred every few weeks progressed into multiple times a week. Each time it happened, I gazed into the crimson water, searching for clues.
Look at your situation, Doc said in my memory.
Oh yeah. Maybe I should do something about that. I imagined dramatically reducing my carbohydrate intake, as I’d done ten years prior to lose weight. I remembered the grueling carb withdrawal symptoms. As I left the business office, the thoughts faded slowly into the background, leaving a residue of anxiety — NO CARBS!! BUT, THINGECTOMY!! — smeared all over everything.
Over the next two years, the red drip became more frequent. With a big sigh, I decided one day that since I was in my early forties, after all, I’d better start getting used to using various “adult absorption” products. Depressing as hell, but I was too tired to think about action plans. I especially had no time for A Thingectomy, and suddenly a nap sounded good.
Looking back, it’s noteworthy that the time period when CHRONIC BLOOD LOSS (as New Doc would write on my chart in the future) became something I was intimately familiar with was the same time I slid back into depression. I wrote about that party here. It’s funny. There are a lot of overlapping symptoms between chronic depression and anemia.
Time passed. I actively avoided thinking about my daily crimson tide, because ABSORBENT PADS and OMFG. I don’t think I was in denial (he said, the quintessential denial denyer) because I knew allllll about My Situation.
My energy ebbed. I had a harder time focusing. I bumped up my ADD medication but it didn’t help much. So much in life was demanding my attention and energy it was no wonder I felt lousy much of the time. I was just beat. Right?
But My Situation, I kept thinking. I was gaining weight. I was still not exercising or making improved choices about food, excercise, sleep — the things that contributed to My Situation. So of course I get tired easily. I’ve been told that happens to fat dudes, and I’m firmly in that camp these days, so yeah. I’m this tired because I’m that out of shape.
My world collapsed in many ways during 2016, as I’ve mentioned. Through it all, I experienced a lack of ability to work very well, extreme fatigue that came on suddenly, and more. I noticed these changes, was confused by them, and ultimately decided it must be due to Life’s Crazy Ways and my ongoing recovery from my holiday bout of pneumonia. Right?
In parallel to all this, my 5 Hour Energy consumption went from every so often to three times a day. And no Mom, I didn’t connect the dots. Yes ma’am, I should have.
Friends told me I was spacing out in conversations, or suggested I wasn’t even listening. My already sketchy memory seemed to be getting worse.
Through it all, I thought Ok, I’m going to have to do something about this every time I visited the business office. But I sure as hell don’t have time for A Thingectomy in the foreseeable future. I staggered on.
Yeah, actually staggered. I sometimes found myself so exhausted I’d stumble, bouncing off door frames on my way to bed.
I decided that something was definitely amiss when I sat down in the business office and heard a sound like urination. Now, typically I would not find this worth mentioning, as I was in the place where such sounds are common. It then occurred to me I was not, in fact, urinating. When given the opportunity, the blood just flowed in a steady stream. Not like the REDRUM scene in The Shining or anything, but steady.
Wondering if I’d just hit the threshold for “heavy flow,” I made an appointment for a physical. Due for one anyway, I figured.
During the two weeks until that appointment rolled around, the blood faucet stopped flowing like it had been. I had major head rushes once or twice a day. Sometimes my thighs felt tingly like they’d fallen asleep while I stood in the kitchen making school lunches for the boys. My pulse sometimes shot up to 130bpm (according to my trusty Apple Watch) when I did super-strenuous things like Get Up From Chair. My hearing started getting funky, like intermittently muffled.
I think there may just be something wrong with my blood circulation, I thought.
It was a head-scratcher in the physical. Pulse was good. Blood pressure was good. Heart sounds like it should. Hm, we mused.
“Maybe it’s related to the sinus infection I had last week?” I offered, flexing my I’ve-Seen-All-the-Seasons-of-House-M.D. muscles. New Doc wasn’t impressed.
“Maybe. Let’s order some blood work and make sure there isn’t something else going on,” New Doc said.
Which brings us back to the beginning of this story: a call from New Doc, asking if maybe I’ve had any gastrointestinal bleeding that I forgot to mention during the exam. Oh, yeah.
I was given an “emergency referral” to a gastroenterologist, whom I went to see the following afternoon. I asked GDoc if there was something in the body chemistry that allowed some people (y’know, ALL THE WOMEN) to bleed regularly without having these kinds of problems.
“Oh, a lot of women are anemic. Many of them are and don’t know it. It’s under-diagnosed,” GDoc said.
Okay then. GDoc explained that the sensations I’d been experiencing are what happens as your red blood cells and hemoglobin become depleted. Given the rate of blood loss, and that I was not consuming enough critical ingredients needed for my body to make more blood, GDoc figured my body has just shut down blood production. Probably a month or so ago, right around when things really started feeling worse.
Which brings us to the current moment. I’m on water only today, as I get set for my double ended MIPS tomorrow. I’m on 325mg of ferrous gluconate once a day. (GDoc promises I’ll feel much better when my body starts making blood again.) I’ll learn about My Thing tomorrow after I sober up from what they’ll give me to make me calm enough to allow the MIPS to proceed without any of the hospital staff being injured by resistance on my part.
As I prep for tomorrow’s adventure, I encourage you to read Dave Barry’s take on his experiences with MIPS.
I’m still sort of amazed I didn’t connect the dots any sooner. If you’re feeling a little wooshy, you might want to call the doc sooner than I did. 😉
