Who knew constipation and iron liked each other so much?

For the record, I’ve been taking the iron for almost two weeks now and things are moving along quite nicely.

When my surgery was scheduled I had all these plans of getting my posts about the doctor’s visits and my surgery up quickly and in chronological order.

I even have some super gross totally awesome before, during and after pictures of the inside of my uterus for your enjoyment.

But then, I actually had the surgery, and getting well thought out posts up quickly wasn’t so high on the agenda anymore.  While I was recovering, the anemia won the battle for my attention.

My initial consultation with the surgeon was on February 1, and I told him about some of my symptoms – night sweats, nausea, extreme fatigue – because I figured they might be hormonal or at the very least related to the fibroids.

He pointed out that I was really pale, and that my skin seemed sort of… yellow.  Awesome.

All signs of anemia, he said, which made sense seeing as how I was bleeding like a stuck pig every month, and had been for quite some time. He ordered some bloodwork to check my iron levels and some other thyroid-y thing.

At my next appointment, a few days before the surgery, he told me I was definitely anemic, and that my iron stores were 3 (or maybe it was 4?).  I didn’t give it much thought then, seeing as how the other part of our discussion was about how he would be cutting fibroids out of my uterus with some sort of lightening rod and then burning the skin that was left with a hot poker.  Or something like that.  I was a little nervous, so I might have gotten some of the particulars wrong.

Anyway, Jerrad had been googling things about my various conditions, and he was the one that found that symptom list I included in the last post. That is when everything clicked. Realizing that some of the symptoms I was the most worried about (mental confusion, nausea and vomiting, listlessness) were on that, or other, list(s) made me feel so much better. An answer! With a solution!

It doesn’t mean anemia is my only problem now.  I still have IBS, my uterus still lacks a significant amount of awesomeness,  and I’m still a neurotic nut job.

But. I learned that one of the things anemia does is take the problems, issues, and tendencies your body already has and make them worse.  Add to that the fact that no part of your body is ever functioning with the appropriate amount of oxygen, and it’s easy to see how you can start feeling like shit.  Quickly.

I can’t even describe the exhaustion.  It feels like you haven’t slept for days.  Like there are weights on your arms and legs.  Like you’re moving through water instead of air.

Four years ago, I woke up every day at 4:45 am to exercise for an hour and a half, then I went to work for 8-10 hours as an intake worker for child welfare.  A job that uses quite a bit of emotional and mental energy, not to mention requires multitasking skills.  I had hobbies, I read at least a book a week, I maintained friendships, and started a relationship with my husband.

Now? I don’t even know that bitch anymore.

I fall apart if I have more than two or three things I have to do in a day.

I’m like a toddler – you can’t give me a task to do that has more than two parts or I see something shiny and forget what I was doing.

Despite having all the time in the world, I can’t seem to accomplish anything of significance in a day.

I have bouts of nausea that last two or three days at a time.  Where I throw up literally every single thing I eat and drink.  Then it just… goes away.  As randomly as it showed up.  I’ve been calling these IBS flare-ups because I don’t know what else to call them.  Even though they’re nothing like flare-ups I’ve had in the past.

Although I make jokes about being lazy, the feelings of listlessness I’ve been having were pretty scary, too.  I didn’t understand where they were coming from.  I didn’t understand where my personality went.  I knew that I felt content and happy and not depressed, but at the same time things were just… blah.   It’s hard to find the right words to explain it.

But when you think about it, I got a pretty good anemia deal compared to some.  Others have more dangerous symptoms, or have consequences and reactions to things because they don’t even know they have anemia.

Others get more disturbing interesting pica symptoms like craving dirt or paint chips.

I haven’t gotten any of that, but I do notice that I crave foods with iron, like beef and spinach.

And? This one time I was cooking a burger and when the blood started oozing up through the patty I had the strangest urge to lick it.  Then I started literally drooling.  Like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

And no, I didn’t actually lick the burger. Gross! Although it did make me think about how it was a good thing I wasn’t a vampire.

Which is a shame because vampires are sort of awesome and they probably hardly ever get anemia.  Not pale, scrawny, sparkly virgin vampires that need to take a shower and wash their hair, but sexy vampires.   Like Mitchell from Being Human.

Yummy.

Do you watch Being Human? You should start now, because SyFy is going to do some crappy American remake.  That I’ll piss and moan about like a snobby purist and end up watching anyway.

It’s no secret that I’ve been battling ladyparts problems for years now, or that I have IBS.

I used to post about those things once in a while because it involved a funny story, like when I had to pee real bad that time at the ob/gyn’s office but there was someone else’s big giant turd in the toilet, or because venting it all out in one hopefully funny tirade helps me get some perspective, or because I want to share recipes or tips that work for me.

It’s quite out of character for me to be actually maudlin, or whiny, or complainy about how I’m feeling.  But yet… looking at my tweetstream or my facebook status updates there is a hell of a lot of all those things over the past 6 months or so.  A lot.

Also? I’m not the biggest fan of seeking sympathy from people.  But yet… well, see above paragraph.

Also not a fan of feeling sorry for myself at all.  But yet…

I’m the type of person that doesn’t like to sit around and whine and cry about shit. I’d rather employ the Scarlett O’Hara approach, in which, well, I just won’t think about that today, I’ll think about that tomorrow.  By the time tomorrow comes, I usually don’t give a shit anymore because it wasn’t a big deal in the first place.

Or my second approach is what I call, the “well that totally sucked.  Now what are we going to do about it?”  It’s like the scene in the SG1 episode where the team gets mistaken for kidnappers and Vala is trying to get something out of an alarmed glass enclosure, and it doesn’t work out so well.  And by that I mean a bunch of iron bars come crashing down. Instead of walking away, she was all, “Ok, freeing treasure from metal enclosure.”

Those approaches to stress were hard-won lessons for me.  Very hard-won.  I spent most of my life reacting the exact opposite way – obsessing, complaining, ruminating, plotting revenge, cursing the fates.  Even though I knew that wasn’t how I wanted to live my life, and that it didn’t feel right inside, it was hard to break through that.

Looking at all my blog posts over the last year or so, there’s a definite theme.  It’s… listlessness.  Confusion.  Feeling lost.  And extremely little application of either of my two approaches.

IBS is one of many conditions that requires a lot of self-monitoring of diet and behavior. You spend a lot of time thinking about what you ate, what you’re going to eat, what that particular twinge in your stomach means – did I accidentally eat some wheat?

You have to do this to be healthy.  You just have to.  I pissed and moaned and pouted and whined when I first got diagnosed.  And then I did it some more after the results of some food allergy testing.

But eventually I figured it out.  I figured out a diet that worked, an exercise routine, ways to manage stress, all that good stuff.  I didn’t always follow it, because well, beer and bread and cheese and cake and ice cream and pasta are really yummy.  And I learned what the prices of consuming those things were.

I’ve had 10 years to learn to manage my food intolerances and IBS.  10 years.

I’d have to say, at this point I’m pretty damn good at it.

Which is why it was so confusing and scary when I kept having new and ever increasing stomach symptoms.

When my legs started cramping at night so bad I could hardly stand it.

When I would wake up drenched in sweat, but freezing cold.

When my hands and feet were constantly icy.  So much so that my dog and husband would sometimes flinch when I went to touch them.

When I would get so exhausted I would actually stumble into walls when I was walking down the hall.

When I would feel confused and disoriented, or couldn’t remember what I’d had for breakfast, just a few hours ago.

But the worst symptom of all was the fact that I just… didn’t feel like it.  I wasn’t depressed, or sad, exactly. I just didn’t care.

That was pretty scary. There have been times in my life when I’ve struggled with depression, and it’s been mostly situational.  I also worked in mental health for a long time and I know the ways depression can clinically present itself.  I could tell this was different, but I couldn’t understand how or why.

I have a pretty good life.  Sure, I’ve dealt with some pain and possible fertility issues and making big decisions about relocating.  But.  I’m married to a wonderful man, I don’t have to work right now and I have plenty of time to not only heal from surgery and whatnot, but to do all those things I wish I had the time to do when I was working 50 hours a week.  I can read books, read magazines, write, watch TV, take 2 hours to cook a complicated recipe for dinner, play on the internet, learn to sew.

I’m lucky.  Damn lucky.  So why the long face? And why the constant physical symptoms when I was doing everything “right”? That was the question driving me (and probably my husband) almost insane with worry.

When I met with the surgeon, I told him all these things.  Then he pointed out how pale I looked and agreed that it would be a good idea to order “some tests”.

So, four vials of blood later, guess what you guys? It turns out that I’m anemic.

Like really super bad my iron level was 3 anemic.  I’ve likely been anemic, maybe this severely so, for a while now.

But, yeah, that’s it. Just little old anemia.

That is likely the underlying cause of it all. Turns out your blood not circulating through your body the way it should can really fuck your shit up.  Like, all your shit.  Your stomach, your skin, your brain, your joints, your endocrine system.

Here’s a symptom list I found on yahoo that I like to call, Cathy is NOT losing her mind, nor is she going to be on the next episode of one of those medical mystery shows.

The best part? The cure is so easy.  I just take iron twice a day with food.

The worst part? It could take six months or longer to feel “normal” again.

Always with the waiting.

Very funny, universe.  Very funny.