Tales of the Not-So-Imaginary Invalid

I've ridden a medical roller coaster of sorts since my last post:

On Saturday I made the interesting choice to take a slow, but two-hour-long, walk to the allotment gardens, since I was feeling better. It was 29°C weather, so warm although still enjoyable, and I was quite happy about finding dried sage and rosemary that a gardener had thoughtfully placed in their fence basket for visitors to take.

At home I was rummaging in the pantry for a container to hold the sage. Then I nudged a glass water bottle.

Whether it was the fall, or the high pressure of the carbon dioxide gas as well as the hot weather, or both, I don't know. But it burst apart at the top, and left a gash in my leg.

I was eager to leave the pantry. But as I stepped back, my foot landed on a few glass shards; fortunately they were convex. Water was splashed everywhere, and I began leaving bloody footprints. And I lost most of my sang-froid.

The gash became longer as my muscles pulled on the skin, and the edges were no longer meeting. I felt like I was going to vomit and started pouring with sweat. My two youngest brothers were nearby and came to help.

Ge. gave me a glass of water, and I felt better. And at least the blood clotted rapidly; blood loss wouldn't have been any concern at all, in fact, if I hadn't already had anaemia.

We disinfected and bandaged the gash. But we didn't have the sterile strips that could have held the edges of it so that it would heal together. Going to the general practitioner wasn't an option, either: they aren't open on Saturdays. Going to the emergency room felt like overkill, and impossible given that walking around so much would split open the cut further. I awkwardly kept the leg elevated as well as I could to immobilize it, for hours...

To 'fast forward,' I asked the doctor about the injury on Tuesday.

She took a look, rinsed it, reapplied iodine salve, and re-bandaged it. I'll have a definite scar because we didn't have the tools to match up the edges of the cut, and she'd have been happier if I'd had an up-to-date tetanus shot. But it's healing.

My battered state began to suggest Oscar Wilde's line in The Importance of Being Earnest: 'To lose one parent may be accounted a misfortune, but to lose two begins to look like carelessness.' I always thought it was brutal in the original context, but as a metaphor for my ailments it's not too callous.

***

Tuesday evening was the next anaemia drama.

I'd been back and forth more than I'd really planned, because the pharmacy had to order in the iron capsules that my doctor had prescribed, so it was two trips.

I was running late to choir practice and walked rather quickly, i.e. my usual pace when not ill, to get there. At the end, of course, I went up four flights of stairs to the correct room. But ... during our warm-up, I began to feel that something was off. I couldn't get much breath, and I stopped singing and start clutching the back of the chair in front of me just in case I started fainting.

At the end, the choirmaster said that we could take a break if we needed, and that he hoped he wasn't pushing us too hard. We started learning our songs. Then we were asked to try singing one standing up. For the first time in all our rehearsals, I kept sitting: when I'd begun to stand, I noticed that my legs felt too noodly to bear my weight.

The lady beside me asked if I was OK, because apparently I looked extremely pale. She offered to open more windows. (But a few were already open, so there was no need.)

After taking it easy during our practice intermission, I fortunately recovered throughout the second half of the practice. Then I went home again extremely carefully and slowly.

It was, at least, a relief to figure out why my vague headachy symptoms before the bicycle accident had been stronger during choir practice: holding my breath while singing a phrase, makes less oxygen available to my blood cells.

And of course the choir ladies were very kind. But from a personal health perspective it was generally perturbing.

*

The next day I was more or less swimming in a jelly-like pool of wooziness. Standing up from a chair made me woozy. Walking briskly from my room to the kitchen made me woozy. Playing a faster Beethoven piece at the piano made me woozy. I saw stars twice when I made a sudden movement.

It was probably also the same yesterday: the two days are melting together. Only today do I feel fitter.

*

It's not like I can't enjoy some of the drama retroactively. Also, it's a valuable if small insight into the coping strategies that elderly people or people with disabilities develop all the time.

But I'm beginning to feel a little defeated.

I dreaded the federal job agency video call today a little bit because I have so little energy.

It feels like I can't make any plans to look for work because what if I faint on the way there, or can't face any other minor physical demands? Fortunately I'm not being paid anything by the job agency right now, so the obligation is lower. But remote work is beginning to look like a more realistic option.

I've been putting off plans with friends because I can't face the logistics of making sure I'm presentably dressed and not taking a nap or floating in a haze the whole time. I think most, but not all, are convinced that I'm not giving empty excuses.

The feeling of being sick extends to sleeping.

It has often been deep, rather like the kind you have after a very long walk.

But one evening I also 'woke up' out of a doze because I felt like a weight was pressing on my chest and I couldn't breathe. I talked myself through it, telling myself that this could be a panic attack symptom rather than a physiological symptom. Right or wrong, it worked, and then I was able to sleep.

And I already hate taking the iron capsules. Each capsule is tiny and sticky, and the first day it was hard to tell if I'd swallowed it down. I do feel mildly nauseated after taking it, as warned. And I have to wait a full hour before eating breakfast. The doctor said that the full effect of taking the iron supplements will only be detectible after 3 months...

And I'm still not sure how to balance exercise with being respectful of my anaemia. My solution for now is to cut down my exercise from at least 30 minutes medium-intensity exercise (or 1-hour low intensity, like a walk) 6 days per week, to an upper limit of 20 minutes and 50 minutes respectively. And I've been doing arm instead of full-body exercises to help my cut leg heal properly.

And this is the kind of thing that I feel ideally I should be figuring out on my own, not something to share with others. But if it's so large a part of my day right now, keeping things to myself is very isolating.

On the positive side, I have sent off a second university application. Besides it's still a consolation to have so much time for reading and studying. Even if I haven't attended protests there are a few that pass under the apartment window and besides I've been watching discussion panels from the Aspen Festival Ideas, as well as following the UK elections and an episode of PBS NewsHour. And watching disappointing Euro Cup matches!