I am sick, three little words that are hard to write but even harder to say. I don't look sick on the outside. When I am around others I know that I look normal enough. But as they say appearances are deceptive. On the outside everything looks fine but inside my body it can be a struggle sometimes. You see I struggle with being highly anemic.
I know that there are others who suffer with worse, who have illnesses that are even more disabling than mine. To those people, I grieve with you, I mourn with you for all that holds you back, and I attempt to do my very best to empathize with you.
I know that I am lucky, my illness only comes in waves and is not constantly holding me back. Yet there are days, days like today, where every detail of life can be a struggle because the fatigue is so great. On days like this I find my heart grieving because there are things I want to do, time I want to spend with my kids, and I just can't get my body to cooperate to do it. I hurt a little more inside every time I have to say no to my children's requests because I don't have the energy to do more than shuffle through the day.
In the midst of the frustration and struggle I am learning grace. I am learning that it's okay to say no to some requests and do my very best to fulfill others. I am learning to adapt and grow. Most of all I am learning to do all of this without bitterness. It's not perfect, I'm not perfect, but I am striving to be better.
I am anemic, that means that my body struggles to produce the adequate amount of red blood cells. I am slowly learning that this isn't an isolated problem and actually affects many areas of my body, no matter how I would like to ignore it.
When I first learned that I had a problem it was easy to dismiss it as being a result of poor diet from attempting to be vegetarian. Naively I thought that if I just adjusted my diet everything would be fine. I was wrong. The problem went deeper, and turned into an issue that my doctors would try to minimize.
I had great doctors, but when test results are routinely compared to textbook "norms" instead of individuals you encounter a problem. I would be tested for my iron levels and anemia only to be told that I was 1 point above the normal levels, and therefore not anemic, despite showing all of the symptoms. It was then that I learned that I would need to be my own advocate and be informed.
At the same time I was trying to get answers and solutions for the anemia that the doctors dismissed I was also coming to terms with the lead poisoning I had from childhood. Little did I know at the time that the 2 would go hand in hand. I soon discovered that the lead poisoning had damaged my liver and was a contributing factor in my anemia. This means that it potentially may never be resolved, but it also means that I am able to understand what exactly is going on in my body.
It would be so easy to point fingers at others and blame anyone and everyone for my illness or try to drag them down because of it. However, this illness is not anyone's fault. There is no way to foresee the future and to be angry at people and the past for lacking the ability to see into the future is unfair and self absorbedly short sighted. There are very, very few people who would intentionally inflict illness on another person, and to harbor the idea within that those people exist within ones life helps no one.
I cannot convey the amount of peace that comes from having answers and explanations for the problem. It may not be a solution but it sure is better than living in a land of mystery wondering what is going on inside me and why it is happening.
Fast forward a couple years and I am still struggling with the anemia. I try to take my supplements every day, and I am getting better at it, but still not perfect yet. I give myself grace when I forget and try to be better the next day. It's easy to dismiss that supplements can help, and in some cases maybe they don't, but in my case they do.
I have also discovered that my Fitbit can be my best friend in living with this. My Fitbit ChargeHR allows me to monitor my heart rate and gives me a glimpse and an early warning system to when I am going to have an episode of fatigue again. You see, every time my anemia rears its head it shows up in my resting heart rate. Normally my resting heart rate is near 65 bpm, but when I'm anemic that can spike up to 80+bpm on a bad day. My Fitbit allows me to see a large picture of where my heart rate is trending and to be able to take measures to care better for myself and more importantly to give myself an extra measure of grace.
I may never get better, but I can get better at living, and that is more important.
