My mom taught me to try to see everything from a positive angle or at least try to take something good with me from every situation. She was probably one of the most positive people I have ever met. And I’ve tried to adopt that attitude throughout my life. Sometimes it works, sometimes I have to fight for it. I really try to think about it and spread some positive vibes to people around me. 

But it’s been really hard lately. For several reasons. Work wise… all health care providers are not only tired but exhausted. We thought this Covid shit was going the right direction and then it does a 180 swing and becomes worse than it ever has. Hospitals are on divert daily. As a patient, you don’t have a choice where to go, we are told by our dispatcher where to take you depending on the rotation. The call volume is beyond the roof. People go to the hospital for things that an Urgent Care is more appropriate for or even the PCP. And now more than ever. 
Rules, directions and guidelines are not changed on a monthly or weekly basis anymore. It’s by the hour. We get texts and alerts with new instructions and we barely know what is right or wrong. It is exhausting. That there is no end or solution to it doesn’t help. 
But we try to fight; together. We try to make the best possible of this awkward and different situation. 

Personal wise… my body is a piece of shit, but that is nothing new. Two years ago I was diagnosed with iron deficiency without anemia (IDWA) and was given iron infusions. It helped a lot! In March of this year my levels were dropping again. It wasn’t too bad but the doctor first wanted me to have another round of infusions since the trend was going the wrong direction. Long story short; Insurance said no since I wasn’t anemic so the doctor said it wasn’t needed after all. To prevent more drop in my iron levels I started on birth control. They couldn’t deny that. At least one source of blood loss was eliminated and I hoped that it would make me stronger both physically and mentally. But the problem is my body doesn’t store the iron I get from food or supplement so I won’t recover without the infusions regardless. 

Now, a year without an infusion I can feel this is certainly not going the way I want. And all my symptoms are pointing towards the iron. Extremely fatigue, dizzy, muscle pain, hair loss, dry mouth, wanting ice in my drinks, etc. I’m still not as pale as I was when I first was diagnosed and my levels were dangerously low.

My Ferritin levels are supposed to be above 50mcg/L but my doctor said that in my case we are happy with 30 mcg/L. When I was diagnosed in 2019 my level was 3mcg/L. My doctor wondered how I could even do the job I do with that low levels and without having low hemoglobin. After two iron infusions it was up to 38mcg/L and I felt marvelous!
In March when I was at my last visit my levels were 13mcg/L so just borderline to stage 3. And at the time I didn’t have much of symptoms either which was good.

But the last month has really been a downward counterclockwise spiral. Symptoms has come back with full force. The tiredness, the muscle pain, the brain fog, dizziness. Everything i do is a fight between my brain and my body. My brain knows what is going on but my body fights my brain because there is not enough oxygen in my blood to make m body function.
Last time it was like I was walking around in a cloud. I couldn’t think straight. This time I have true brain freezes. Tasks I know exactly how to do, I have to think twice about before doing it. People look at me and wonder what the heck is going on. It takes about 10-15 seconds and I’m “back”.
The fatigue. Last weekend was spent mostly in bed. When I was up I was dizzy and tired. Had no energy to do the most simple tasks. Letting the dogs out made me want to go back to bed. So we did. Sometimes we slept for 2-3 hours and sometimes I felt perfectly fine. After 30 minutes I was bored and wanted to get out of bed but it only lasted for an hour and I had to go back to bed again. Same thing at work. As soon as we are at post, I am a sleep. When we have a call or something to do I am focusing 100% on that task or patient so I can ignore all the signals and feelings my body has.

I started to get my suspicions confirmed two weeks ago when I passed out at work. When I woke up I felt drunk. A feeling I have never had before. But with some help from a friend in Sweden whom is a doctor she confirmed to me that is actually another sign of a blood related abnormality. But of course, at the ER they don’t do shit about iron, especially not when you’re not anemic.

Today was a very rough day. Already when I woke up the muscle pain was worse than normal. I couldn’t feel anything in my legs when I was standing up but as soon as I sat down it was like I walked a marathon. I was sitting at post today, woke up from a nap and I could feel my blood pressure being super low and I suspected my oxygen being lower than it should. I have very big lungs and no breathing problems whatsoever. I didn’t have any trouble breathing or any chest pain but there was this special kind of feeling. And sure enough.

My normal is 98% or higher. This was the last proof I needed without doing labs. Now, my Iron is extremely low again. It is most likely below 5mcg/L. I continued checking the oxygen throughout the day and most of the time it was between 92-94%, so not too bad. And I didn’t really have any other symptoms except that I was tired.

Iron deficiency with or without anemia is extremely common, especially among women. And it is an easy fix to it, if you have good insurance. With insurance it will cost me almost $250 for two infusions but it’s worth it. I have an appointment to the hematologist in September but they have changed their routines so instead of coming in a week earlier for labs so that is ready for you when you have your appointment, you do the labs then and has to wait 2 weeks (!!!) for the results and after that deal with insurance. So if I am lucky I may get this resolved beginning of October. Maybe. Until then I will just have to fight it. There is nothing else I can do. There is no reason to call and ask if I can get an earlier appointment because I most likely have to take off work and that’s not possible.

So what is the positive with all this? Absolutely nothing to be honest. I know I can fight this for another 1.5 month. It will be a living hell but I can not let my body win. I will have good days and I will have less good days. I just have to take one of them at a time and fight. My body is screaming bloody murder but I will continue ignore it…