is this some sort of Halloween prank?

"I could easily see that she was somewhat bloodless, but I could not see the usual anemic signs, and by the chance, I was able to test the actual quality of her blood... and obtained a few drops of her blood and have analysed them. The qualitative analysis give a quite normal condition, and shows, I should infer, in itself a vigorous state of health. In other physical matter I was quite satisfied that there is no need for anxiety, but as there must be a cause somewhere, I have come to the conclusion that it must be something mental. She complains of difficulty breathing satisfactorily at times..." Dracula by Bram Stoker.

After yet another visit to the ER this week-- Tuesday night-- and a visit to a cardiologist Wednesday, this is how I felt everyone was looking at me.

Just like in Dracula, I was examined they discovered that "there has been much blood lost" and "she has gone ghastly, chalkily pale... her breathing was painful to see or hear."


Thursday, I got in to see my primary care physician who re-looked at the test results from vials and vials of blood that were coerced from me this week, and realized that I am actually short two pints of blood. That's right, two pints.

She looked at me and said, "I'm surprise those doctors didn't see this. But they just assume that most women are anemic and probably didn't think to really look at the numbers. You poor thing. If those doctors were short this much blood, they would be tired, too."

Thankfully, she didn't immediately jump to the conclusion of Dr. Van Helsing in the book who said, "This is dreadful! There is no time to be lost. She will die for sheer want of blood to keep the heart's action as it should be. There must be a transfusion of blood at once. Is it you or me?"

My doctor decided against a blood transfusion just because of the risks involved and I must have made a face when she suggested it because when I told her I'd seen my mom get a couple, she asked if Mom had had reactions to them, and I had to say, "Yes." It's pretty ugly when someone has a bad reaction to getting blood.

So, the course of action for now is that I am on a strict vitamin regimen for now: iron, vitamin B complex, multi-vitamin, calcium. All the pills twice a day for now and once a day in a week or so. She says it will take about two months to build up that much blood this way.

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I'm sort of frustrated that it took so long to get to this point, when Sunday night the insta-care doc told me my iron was at 9.1 and my hemocrit was at 30- both low and of concern.  (iron levels should be about 12 and hemocrit should be around 40 for women)

But, when asked directly about these numbers, the ER doc, less than two hours later, told me to not worry about them because they didn't really matter. He told me my breathing issues would probably resolve in a couple of days and not to worry.

Tuesday at the ER, the nurse (a guy from Cameron, Africa and in the military) told me my iron and hemocrit levels were low and were probably the cause of my breathing issues and heart pressure, but that the doctor would address them.

The ER doc that night didn't think these levels were a problem and thought that despite another clear echocardiogram on my heart, it must be my heart. He hooked me up to what's called a halter monitor for 24 hours and arranged for me to visit with a cardiologist.

The cardiologist told me I was fine and that my heart rate was normal and that my issues would probably go away. But, to make me feel better, he personally called my primary care doctor and got me set up with an appointment the following day.

In spite of what all the doctors thought, it did end up being those two numbers causing my problems.

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Here's the other thing that bugs me: my heart rate. My average heart rate both nights was in the 40's. But, because I'd told everyone that I started running again (I'm signed up to do the Moab Run in the Sun Dec. 3) they just thought that my heart rate should be low. But, when I feel like my heart is racing and the cardiologist checks and finds that it's in the 70s, which is normal, he must be right and I'm just over reacting apparently. Thankfully, when I told my primary care doc this story, she believed me and actually listened to my heart and checked my pulse and told me that my heart was racing. The nurses in the ER both nights thought it was odd is was so low but the doctors thought I was fine. Tuesday night in the ER, they actually set the monitor to only beep if my heart rate went below 45, instead of 50. I don't believe that having a resting heart rate that low can possibly be normal.

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I am really, really grateful my doctor took time to listen to me, take notes, and look at the data (not just the notes) from the blood work. She asked me what I thought was wrong and actually listened to me. She told me that anemia, being stressed at work, grieving, working out everyday, and just being female finally added up and created the perfect storm; my body finally just couldn't take it anymore and started freaking out on me. She wrote me a note for missing school all week and told me to stay home Friday to get more rest and get started on all the vitamins.

It's nice to know what's wrong, but I still have a hard time breathing and I'm exhausted!

Thursday, the only thing I did was drive downtown to the doctor's office, stopped at the hospital to drop off the halter monitor, spent 15 min at the store picking up the vitamins and came home. I took a nap. The boyfriend made me dinner again and we took a field trip to Best Buy. By the time we'd been at the store for about 10 min, I was done. We came home and I went to bed at like 9pm, completely exhausted. It's so weird. Yesterday, I did some laundry. I talked to the heater repair guy when he came. I helped the boyfriend drop off and pick up his car. I went to a dinner with some work friends. I was in bed by 8:30, completely and utterly exhausted. Normally, I'm at school by 7:20, teach all day long, come home and go running or work out, make dinner, clean up the kitchen, play with the boyfriend's kids, and go to bed around 11pm and I'm tired, but fine. So weird.

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I will say that all the experience with my mom in hospitals and doctor's offices paid off this week. I understood the talk about blood cells. I knew what all the lines and numbers on the monitor at the ER meant. All the lines and tubes I was connected to made sense. All in all, I was pretty calm about the whole "hospital experience."

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An irony of this week is that I'd just downloaded Dracula onto my iPod's Kindle app and have been reading it as I've waited for doctors all week. Hence, all the Dracula references! If you've never read the original, you should! It's not graphic at all- as the whole story is told through clues that build on each other and it's fascinating.