My disease

Well, it turns out there is a reason for my profound fatigue, difficulty concentration, body aches and pains and generally feeling lousy.  I've tried to fight it - but did find out something that was wrong.  The good news is, it's treatable.  We'll get this under control and hopefully I'll be able to give a much better battle and I can stop complaining!!  No more excuses!!

To let you know how it feels, think of one of those days where you had a long day at work.  Then you came home and you found that the dog threw up on the floor so you had to clean it up.  Then the phone rang and it was your child, stranded at a friend's house and you had to go pick them up.  THEN, throughout the evening, one thing after another until late in the evening... you're so exhausted, you simply can't wait to go to bed....  you go to bed, and an hour later, you awaken because some idiot neighbors think it's fun to set off firecrackers for no reason.  You can't get back to sleep for two hours then you have to wake up at 5:00 am to go to work.

Remember how awful that feels?  That is how tired I feel ALL THE TIME.  I am out of breath after a half flight of stairs.  Taking a shower exhausts me.  And sometimes on weekends, I lie in bed for hours, just trying to get up the energy to go to the bathroom to brush my teeth.   Not only that, I'm always freezing, even if it's 82 degrees F (27.7 degrees C).  I finally went to the doctor, had some blood tests done, and was found to be severely anemic with a hemoglobin level of 7.4.   Different labs have different values, but for the sake of argument, let's say that a normal hemoglobin for a female should be somewhere around the 12 level.   A level of 7.4 is unfortuntely critically low.  

At any rate, I'm being treated by a lovely hematologist with something called INFeD.   (my insurance won't pay for Venofer which I would have preferred.... oh well).    I'm told that I should start feeling better after the third or fourth treatment so this means that within a month, I'll probably be feeling a LOT better.  I can't wait.  I'm so tired of being TIRED!