"Almost a medical miracle"
What a very interesting few days this has been. Enough to make me wonder what the heck is going on with my horoscope: is there some complex ascendant vs retrograde planetary war going on?
A couple of weekends ago, I managed to knock my head on a clothes-hanger and suffered a mild concussion. It was good for a few laughs, and in the context of my accident-prone life, not that big a deal.
A few days after my clothes-hanger encounter of the third kind, I went for a routine post-concussion check-up. For some reason, the doctor in charge decided to run a full blood count. And the fallout of that was, "It's almost a medical miracle that you haven't collapsed."
I have thalassemia minor; born with it and lived with anemia my whole life because of it. I've gotten used to the occasional bouts of shortness of breath and fatigue. It's not something I really think about all that much.
Then this happened. The doctor proclaimed with worrying sobriety that my red blood cell count had reached "critically low" levels and my immune system was "severely compromised". Most people with that sort of blood count reading would be hospitalized and put on a drip. Apparently, it was a violation of nature that I was standing upright and hadn't succumbed to every bacterial and viral infection known to man.
She ordered a period of hospital stay and medical "observation". On the one hand, oh, the joys of a comprehensive employer-provided medical insurance plan! On the other hand, I'm not really good at lying still for long. But it was never an option not to comply, not with a hovering husband and the terrifying thought of what my mother would say if I refused treatment.
For a while, I did keep up the protestations that I felt perfectly fine. The more I said it, the more the medical staff poked and prodded.
In the end, the doctor said, "You think you feel fine because you've gotten used to feeling unwell. Your body cannot remember what it feels like to be healthy".
And she was right. Just a few days of intensive iron therapy and enforced bed rest, and the difference is amazing. I have been plodding along as a physical wreck, and not even realizing it. It's remarkable how the human body copes, and how the human mind deludes itself into a false sense of comfort. Or maybe it's just my mind and body that achieved these dubious feats.
There is something to be said about spending several days in bed, laptop strictly embargoed for the duration. I finished reading three novels and wrote the old-fashioned way: long-hand, on the unlined pages of a journal bound in faux-leather. It was all rather romantic and decadent in the manner of The Lady of the Camellias. (Well, except without the consumption and the dying.)
Now it's back to the work and the discovery that there are people born without the sympathy gene. I was on a fucking drip and this was the email replying to that news - "Will this mean a delay in the scheduled submission date for the draft report?" Seriously, insensitive idiot client who's not paying nearly enough for us to put up with your crap? Fuck you.
I just hope I can read my own handwriting ....
A couple of weekends ago, I managed to knock my head on a clothes-hanger and suffered a mild concussion. It was good for a few laughs, and in the context of my accident-prone life, not that big a deal.
A few days after my clothes-hanger encounter of the third kind, I went for a routine post-concussion check-up. For some reason, the doctor in charge decided to run a full blood count. And the fallout of that was, "It's almost a medical miracle that you haven't collapsed."
I have thalassemia minor; born with it and lived with anemia my whole life because of it. I've gotten used to the occasional bouts of shortness of breath and fatigue. It's not something I really think about all that much.
Then this happened. The doctor proclaimed with worrying sobriety that my red blood cell count had reached "critically low" levels and my immune system was "severely compromised". Most people with that sort of blood count reading would be hospitalized and put on a drip. Apparently, it was a violation of nature that I was standing upright and hadn't succumbed to every bacterial and viral infection known to man.
She ordered a period of hospital stay and medical "observation". On the one hand, oh, the joys of a comprehensive employer-provided medical insurance plan! On the other hand, I'm not really good at lying still for long. But it was never an option not to comply, not with a hovering husband and the terrifying thought of what my mother would say if I refused treatment.
For a while, I did keep up the protestations that I felt perfectly fine. The more I said it, the more the medical staff poked and prodded.
In the end, the doctor said, "You think you feel fine because you've gotten used to feeling unwell. Your body cannot remember what it feels like to be healthy".
And she was right. Just a few days of intensive iron therapy and enforced bed rest, and the difference is amazing. I have been plodding along as a physical wreck, and not even realizing it. It's remarkable how the human body copes, and how the human mind deludes itself into a false sense of comfort. Or maybe it's just my mind and body that achieved these dubious feats.
There is something to be said about spending several days in bed, laptop strictly embargoed for the duration. I finished reading three novels and wrote the old-fashioned way: long-hand, on the unlined pages of a journal bound in faux-leather. It was all rather romantic and decadent in the manner of The Lady of the Camellias. (Well, except without the consumption and the dying.)
Now it's back to the work and the discovery that there are people born without the sympathy gene. I was on a fucking drip and this was the email replying to that news - "Will this mean a delay in the scheduled submission date for the draft report?" Seriously, insensitive idiot client who's not paying nearly enough for us to put up with your crap? Fuck you.
I just hope I can read my own handwriting ....