Ok, so bear with me if I'm overly hyper-excited...So, I'm eight treatments into my iron now (of a total 15) and they wanted to do a CBC (complete blood count) to see how things were progressing. I reported that I've been waking up on my own-something that never happens-after only eight hours of sleep. (where previously, I could sleep 10, 11, 12 or more if something didn't wake me up) It's working!
I went from a count of 6.8 to 9.0 in a week and a half-half way through my treatment. !!! For those of you who don't realize the importance of this, basically, I was a walking corpse-no iron, no hemoglobin, no oxygen in my blood to keep me functioning. I've been this way for at least four years that I know of and it's kept me sick and weak and made me lose more jobs to drop-dead-fatigue and sickness then I care to count. A normal woman should be no lower then 12. At 6.8 the doctors didn't know how I was able to function at all-let alone try to live through a normal life. They pressed me to do a transfusion-something I was very hesitant about especially considering it was a bandage treatment to cover up but in no way correct the problem. It was also a very temporary solution, offering me at best a month or two of feeling better. The iron injections on the other hand, are just replacing what is missing from my body and allowing my bone marrow to start producing healthy, fat, red blood cells naturally-something they couldn't do without the presence of iron in my system.
So...in short, what this means is, it's working The problem was simply a lack of iron deposits in my body. There's nothing wrong with my bone marrow or genes, there's nothing wrong with my cell production, or my body in a whole-I was just starved for iron. Now that I'm getting it, my body is eating it up-and fast. Red blood cell maturity takes about three weeks, but in under two, there's already a marked increase in my blood counts and red blood cell size. Yeah!!!! The doctor says by the end I should be between 12-14. I can't even fathom.
Anyway, I'm so super thrilled. It's nice that for once SOMETHING is working. That I'm not just completly fucked up and that my body is responding so well to the treatments. It's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful!
~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream
at 3/7/2001 05:11:32 PM ~
~
