On Recovery & Denial

So here's the thing - I'm going through both.

Still recovering from my abdominal myomectomy, which was exactly a month ago today. And in many, many ways I've been in denial about it - even before the operation.

My bleeding was alleviated greatly after my first surgery in August, but the relief wasnt total, and its effects were not permanent. I bled. A lot. Extremely anemic, I experienced dizzy spells, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, and so on... just from the anemia. My concentration levels sucked, and instead of being an active participant in my life and what was going on around me, I mostly just floated in a haze from day to day. Things were bad, and deep down, I knew it, but I was in denial. And denial was an effective coping mechanism for some time. I knew I'd need this second surgery - my Dr & I talked about it in September. I told him I absolutely needed to put it off until graduation, and he said that would be fine.

And so it began. But things got worse for me. My dizzy spells & heart palpitations grew more frequent. I truly worried getting behind the wheel - afraid i might hurt someone if I passed out or got too dizzy. So, I went to my primary doctor about my dizzy spells & fatigue. We already knew I was anemic, as my GYN regularly checks my HgB levels. The thing we didn't know was how anemic I was... My ferritin levels were ZERO. I had no iron reserves in my body whatsoever. I'd been bleeding so much for so long that all of my reserves were depleted, and any iron I took in was used right away in making new red blood cells.

I was immediately put on large iron supplementation, and told to return for regular blood draws to check for improvement. My next visit, a few weeks later, I felt a little better but still pretty awful. My ferritin was like 7 by then. (Normal is 20-150, and even on the low end of normal, you're considered anemic!) My Dr decided I needed to double the iron I was already taking, because though there was improvement, it wasn't enough to keep me out of the red zone. I asked her, concerned, about iron toxicity. She chuckled and said that for me, it'd be practically impossible.

Things got better, but still not good. Of course, I continued to tell myself I was "better". I was juggling work, classes, school clinical rotations, and my volunteer hours. The heart palpitations and shortness of breath were less frequent (The extreme fatigue always remained)

*A reader's digest lesson in physiology for those that aren't "in the know":
Your red blood cells are responsible for carrying oxygen through your blood to your tissues, organs, etc. So, not having enough RBC's means your body is deprived of the oxygen it needs.. even if you are taking nice deep breaths, your body can't use the O2 because it has no way of getting it to the tissues! Iron is a key ingredient needed to create RBC's, which is why iron levels are so vital to check in anemic patients.