For the entirety of last week I wasn’t feeling very well at all. My seasonal cluster headache episode had started, but it didn’t explain why I had been so wiped out. I barely moved off the sofa except to go to Asda and load the dishwasher. I have been absolutely exhausted and under the weather.

Then on Thursday I had a text message from my GP surgery saying that my recent blood tests showed that my iron and haemoglobin levels were low again. They also said that they, for some reason, hadn’t done all of the blood tests they had intended to do so I needed to book another test. Given they sent this text exactly 6 minutes before they closed, and their phone line takes an ETERNITY to reach the front of the queue I decided I would go and find out what the heck happened on Friday.

So tag along with me as I go to the doctors and find out what sort of ferrous wheel shenanigans are going on with my blood test results.

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My Anxiety vs My Anxiety

I know I could have woken up on Friday and just called the GP surgery and sorted this out. But ever since that time I was in the queue for 10 minutes, then got dressed, left my house, walked to the doctors and actually arrived at the surgery before I had even reached anywhere near the front of the queue, I have decided to just turn up there.

I have anxiety about going there, but I have more INTENSE anxiety about phoning them and being in the queue for a RIDICULOUS amount of time. Dealing with my anxiety is like voting in a General Election – pick whichever option is slightly less unbearable. After all, going there means I also pass a Greggs on the way back, and that means that, not only do I not have to face the queue, I get a Katsu Chicken Bake.

Unfortunately, I slept like absolute trash the night (morning?) before – I could NOT get to sleep until 6.45am thanks to cluster headaches, and I woke up at 12pm. I really wanted to get the doctors sorted, as the text was so ambiguous and I had QUESTIONS about why some of my blood tests weren’t done.

So, instead of trying to get a few more minutes of sleep I got up. While drinking my coffee, I texted my son, who was chilling in his bedroom. We talked about the audacity of Project Hail Mary reviewers, the fact that Crumbl have made a Minecraft Reuben the pig cookie, and the absurdity of the human body. It really helped my anxiety.

I then thought about waiting a few minutes before leaving because it just started raining, but decided I’d quite like to walk in the rain, it feels apt.

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The Ferrous Wheel

Despite the fact it was raining I didn’t get too wet, it was that rubbish spitting rain. Low effort pathetic excuse for rain. I was happy anyway about wearing autumn clothes because it was so much cooler. I LOVE wearing my cosy autumn clothes. I’m VERY excited for hat and Ugg boots weather.

I finally arrived at the doctors which, by the way, feels further away in distance every single time I walk there, as if it is a model of the Universe expanding. There was no queue, which is unsurprising, it’s been quite empty lately. I guess the phone triage system is working so well there’s only ever 3 people in the surgery at any one time. That could either be a very good thing or very bad depending on how you look at it.

I told the receptionist I had received a text about booking an appointment for the blood tests that should have been done before, and she offered me the end of September. They didn’t do the thyroid or vitamin D tests for reasons I couldn’t determine. So, now I have to wait a WHOLE MONTH to get them done again. “Oh well”, I said, “That’s fine, don’t worry about it” because this is just totally familiar NHS stuff, what can I do about it?

I then asked about my iron, “The text said my iron was low, exactly how low are we talking because I was anaemic last time, so is it better than that?”
“Um, no, it’s worse than last time. We’ve sent iron to the chemist for you. I’d pick them up as soon as possible”.
“Oh okay, thanks” I replied before my inside voice went off on one: “HOW DID IT GET EVEN WORSE THAN LAST TIME?”

It’s not really a mystery to me how it got WORSE. I’m in perimenopause for one. Then for two, the iron tablets I took to correct it last time gave me gastritis, caused me to lose weight and almost derailed my entire recovery so I stopped taking it. I treated my gastritis with proton pump inhibitors which took two weeks to work after the iron was discontinued, and then it took me a month and a half after that to gain my weight back.

Normally, yeah, that’s annoying, but during eating disorder recovery it was INTOLERABLE. It really shook me. Losing weight from illness, eating less, finding it incredibly painful to eat, and having low appetite is very triggering to my ED.

Hopefully my stomach reacts less violently to iron this time, now that I’m in a better stage of recovery. If not, and I get gastritis again I’ll just go to the GP instead of GIVING UP.

Well, walking back from the doctors knowing that I’m even more anaemic than last time my brain decided to grace me with its incredibly loud presence.

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I NEED TO CHANGE MY FOOD

As soon as I left the doctors, and continuing all the way to Greggs I was CONSTANTLY thinking NO WONDER I FEEL TERRIBLE, and also how I NEED TO CHANGE MY FOOD. Clearly my diet is completely inefficient in my attempt to become Iron Man. This is a very normal thought when you’ve been told you have a constant iron deficiency. Unfortunately, it is also a thought that my ED, who I call Corrupted Clippy, is very EAGER to latch on to IMMEDIATELY.

“It looks like you’re trying to change your diet, would you like help optimising your intake until there’s no food left and you are a shell of your former self?”
No no, absolutely NOT. I know where this leads, but I do also, at the same time, have to change my diet. I can’t be walking around with a haemoglobin level barely capable of delivering enough oxygen while I do that walking around. *Sighs very inefficently*

I know that it’s not going to do anything to the level of anaemia I have RIGHT NOW. But it does mean that after I fix the deficiency, I don’t want to go straight back to a diet I know isn’t rich in iron. Whatever caused this to get worse, my diet isn’t going to help me maintain my iron afterward because it keeps playing How Low Can You Go. And given my previous TERRIBLE relationship with GENTLE iron supplements, it means I have to eat more iron.

I’d prefer to not touch anything at all because I like what I eat now and that’s so important. But I’m already eating surplus calories. I can’t just add more, I’d have to exchange something. Trying to fit everything in is already a squeeze; the amount I’m currently eating – 1750 calories – is already a surplus and causing weight gain.

I realised my brain had become an absolute mess of all of this optimisation stuff – half completely logical, half my ED – and I couldn’t even tell my internal thoughts from Clippy based intrusions anymore. I decided to get Special K from Asda on the way home and just deal with it later. The Katsu Chicken Bake was calling me. If only a daily Greggs bake could fix me, instead of my meal plan cosplaying as a less extreme version of Special K’s 90’s diet plan.

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Greggs the Keeper of the Sacred Katsu Chicken Bake.

After picking up some bits in Asda, I walked into Greggs VERY EXCITED about eating a Katsu Chicken Bake, only to find it was GONE FOREVER. They no longer had this limited edition PEAK item. Nooooo. BUT IT WAS THE BEST BAKE EVER! Why must the Universe (aka Greggs Head Office) do this to ME PERSONALLY (aka make a completely impersonal menu change that affects everyone).

There was a man in the queue behind me, also very unhappy by the lack of Katsu bake, and then he called his wife and put her on speaker phone. She was NOT HAPPY AT ALL. I don’t know anything about this woman but I’ve decided her taste is impeccable.

The lovely Greggs lady saved my entire day by informing me the sausage rolls would be ready in 5 minutes which meant BOILING HOT sausage rolls. That was the only thing that was even going to remotely compare to the Katsu bake. I also got my son his chicken, and his favourite cloudy lemonade. I felt happy about bringing him home his favourite food but also a bit sad that my sausage roll doesn’t have 14mg of iron in it.

After the expedition to acquire iron information and Greggs, I was absolutely exhausted, and couldn’t wait to get home. When I finally did get home, a bit winded, I saw my son had cleaned the living room and kitchen, plugged my Macbook in, and made the sofa all cosy. I felt so warm and fuzzy inside. He’s so sweet. I issued him his payment of Greggs, and gave him all of the appreciation I could muster.

The VERY hot sausage roll was really nice and it was even nicer eating it in our cosy living room. I wish it was enough to make me feel less depleted and exhausted though. I guess the warm and fuzzies and hot Greggs food can only stabilise me so much.

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FIX IT RIGHT NOW.

I have a terrible and brilliant relationship with what I call the “FIX IT RIGHT NOW” mindset. It’s how I’ve improved so much in my life, so it’s something I never know whether to work on or not. One year I had a lung issue, and a platelet issue at the same time, so my doctor sent me for an X-ray. There was a “shadow” on my lung, and they wanted to repeat it in three months.

Well, as well as UNBEARABLE levels of anxiety EVERY DAY for three months, I had an attack of the FIX IT RIGHT NOW and I quit smoking immediately. I did not want to become the Welsh Walter White. They EVENTUALLY repeated the X-ray and it turned out to be an artefact and not a shadow at all. But I still haven’t smoked since. It’s been over 10 years.

In this recovery, I suddenly got all paranoid about my bone health for the obvious reason that I’ve had an ED for most of my life. Again, I had the FIX IT RIGHT NOW. I have been strength training, eating a LOT of calcium and protein, taking Vitamin D and K2 and doing all of it even with all my conditions ever since. This particular FIX IT RIGHT NOW got FAR worse when I was horrified to learn bodies don’t actually magically heal themselves. EVIDENTLY, or I wouldn’t be sat here with freaking anaemia. I have never craved organ meat, Sharon.

Don’t even ask me why I had an eating disorder for DECADES and then, on a random Tuesday, I suddenly got FIX IT RIGHT NOW about my bones. I do not know. This did NOT happen when I was IN any of these other ED or recovery periods. I don’t make the rules. My brain decides what and when to FIX IT RIGHT NOW. The discipline part is keeping it up after my brain inevitably moves on to something else. FIX IT RIGHT NOW starts the fire.

It can get a bit problematic, though, when I CAN’T do ANYTHING to fix it RIGHT NOW. All I can do is get to the chemist to get the iron tablets and WAIT. I can’t overhaul my diet TONIGHT as much as I feel it NECESSARY and as much as Corrupted Clippy also wants me to. So, instead of Googling how to make organ meat taste less like it’s former occupation, I instead spent the evening with my son. I did have a bowl of Special K though so I felt like I did something, even though that’s as useful to my current haemoglobin level as turning up to the aftermath of a MASSIVE earthquake with a dustpan and brush.

Ahh I really wish bodies did magically heal themselves. Guess that’s why we also have a brain. However, mine has faulty software and a hypothalamus currently raging a war against seasons.

Very apt if you take it very literally. I need to be iron for you :-