It's in my blood

 The line between your physical and your mental health can be quite fuzzy at times. And people attempting to quantify how much of each effects the other and vice versa usually miss the point in my opinion. 

I can think of times where subjective symptoms made me question whether they were real or not. Pain, nausea, weakness, fatigue, vertigo. You can’t see it. You can’t truly demonstrate that it’s happening. And if people don’t believe you it can be hard to deal with. You can truly question your experience. 

That’s been me lately. I had been more exhausted than I have ever been. I chalked it up to burning the candle at all ends. It was 2020. It was a busy time. It still is in 2021.

So I kept pushing on. And more symptoms started happening.

First my migraines kept increasing in frequency and intensity. On top of the fatigue it was too much. I started missing work. 

And I'm still struggling.

I wound up in an urgent care telling a Doc I work with that I felt like I had concussion but didn't remember hitting my head. That was the culmination. The highest point of pain, up to that point at least. It had been 3 days of pressure in my head, vertigo, some mild nausea. It was horrible. A CT of my head was immediately ordered. That was my greatest concern. I've had my fair share of concussions and other knocks to the head over the years. I’ve worked as an Army medic, civilian EMT, a tech in ER and ICU settings. I thought I knew what I was dealing with.

But ears were fine. Head CT was clear. The only issue a plethora of labs found was some elevated liver enzymes. That was it. A follow up was scheduled.

The next week I was interrogated about my reported lack of drinking habits (spoiler alert I've never drank). And concern over my liver increased. A look back revealed a lot of liver enzyme elevation over the past five years. A couple iron studies later and we could see a lot of elevation of iron in my blood and a lot of saturation of the elevated iron. 

That led to an MRI. First I was told it would be without contrast. Then contrast happened. I hated every second of it. My big butt in an MRI, being told to hold still and breathe, and hold my breath. But I survived. Just to wait a week.

So there I was waiting for a week with no answers on the effect of the iron on my liver. See most people when they talk about iron level refer to anemia. People never have enough iron. Well, some of us have too much. We live in a state of iron overload, or hemochromatosis. It's either a genetic issue or secondary to other issues. And it can impact the liver. So I waited with that much knowledge for a week. Knowing I'd had labs for 5 years showing some damage to the liver, and no imaging to tell me what was going on.

I got scheduled for an appointment with a gastroenterologist and the nurse practitioner in the hematology department. Right after that I got the results, iron and fatty deposits in the liver. I waited a long weekend for my appointments. 

I went to them this past Monday and Tuesday. I got told it was a form of hemochromatosis. But we can't know for sure the cause, is it genetic or secondary. Labs were drawn for the genetic markers on Monday. I'm still waiting for them. I also have a plan to evaluate other markers and assess my liver as we move forward. 

But Thursday I started treatment in earnest.

See when it comes to iron there is one way to get rid of it. Bleeding. Literally. It has to leave in the blood. So the treatment is therapeutic phlebotomy. I give a pint every two weeks for a while til my levels are normal. Then every two months thereafter to keep my levels where they need to be. Bloodletting is still a viable treatment for some conditions. 

I'm lucky. I know what's wrong. I know how to treat it. My care is covered in a way that won't financially cripple me. I have an invested care team that is easy to get ahold of. I'm lucky. 

I have some treatment and healing to do. I have my own work to do on my weight and diet. I still have answers and I'll be making this face every two weeks. But I have a path forward. For that. I'm happy. Even if I'm currently exhausted. 

This magnet will be ok. And if you feel off, or wrong. It might not be in your head. Something may be wrong. Keep pushing. Get answers. You may learn something you can do better.