Thursday, March 3, 2011

So I'm NOT dying...

So death has not come for my young-ish body yet. Last week I wrote about how I was having heart palpitations and such. If you haven't read it, you can now. I've been feeling generally crappy and run down and different stuff was piling up and my body wasn't handling it well.

In the past, any physical problem I have had has been written off as being all in my head. (I have a lot going on in there.) But I hate that things are automatically dismissed because of my existing mental status. (To put it nicely. One day I will elaborate on this. I promise.) So when the 'heart' thing came up I was determined to advocate for myself and have something concrete done about it. And I did...sort of.
I didn't get the heart monitor that I wanted. I agreed with the doctor that, in my case, since I was able to do physical stuff like going up stairs and such, that a heart monitor would be jumping the gun. So we settled on blood work.

I don't particularly like getting blood work done. I'm sure no one does. But since I've gained weight and I have scars on my arms, I hate pushing up my sleeves. It takes a while to find my vein under the blubber and if they don't get it right away, they want to check my other arm and then I get that 'Oh those are scars. That took me off guard. Try not to look put off by them. Be cool. For God's sake don't stare!' look from the lady taking my blood. Like seriously, I already had to pee in a tiny jar and carry it out through the sea of people in the waiting room, I've reached my quota for uncomfortable. But it's gotta be done, so I do it and go home with a fresh headache.

I get a call from the nurse at my doctor's office yesterday telling me that my B12 is low and I can come in for a shot. I'll also have to pick up a 'sublingual' supplement that I will have to take daily.(That's a pill I put under my tongue so the B12 is absorbed better.) No big deal. I think it's really funny that a lot of the symptoms of a B12 deficiency also match a lot of the symptoms of depression. And can also worsen depression. Could it be that for the past 6-12 months since my last blood tests the symptoms I've been experiencing were because of the lack of a vitamin and not my depression? Anyway here is some reading about B12 deficiency. I have a lot of those symptoms, even the bleeding gums eww. Since I have IBS, I figure that's what is causing the deficiency. I didn't get any solid answers when I went for my shot today other than it's an absorption problem. I thought maybe I had Pernicious Anemia but my blood count seems to be in range for it just to be a deficiency. So now I have a new pill to add to my regime. And hope that it rights itself. I get blood work done in 2 months so I'll know then.

I'm stoked that for once the 'something-wrong-with-me' isn't all in my head. I was so excited that I called my girlfriend, the Ex and the Mother. I know, it sounds really strange that I'm happy about it but I can't help it. Everything else that I've ever had wrong with me was because I'm mental. But not this time. So there!!

I am disappointed that the B12 shot didn't perk me up right away. I was hoping that after I left the doctor's office this morning I would feel like had taken some quality street drugs and maybe be a little like this...
Instead of like this...

Time will tell. It was after all just my first day...

2 comments:

  1. Nice clip selection! Keep the medical conditions...er, Simpson clips coming!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks. I don't think I'll run out of either...

    ReplyDelete