(no subject)

[the_rck]

We got the sheets changed today. I have laundry to sort and put away.

I'm wearing new shoes today which is really nice. I can actually tell the difference. Cordelia looked at them and was dubious that they'd fit because they look tighter than the old ones. She just doesn't remember the last time I got new loafers. They'll stretch. They always look like this at first.

These are a generous gift from a friend (I don't know if they wish to be named here. Let me know).

Cordelia has spent the afternoon with her middle school friends. Scott's gone to bring her home and to take her to the library. I had intended to go, but I got the timing wrong and kind of need to use the heating pad now.

I've got the heating pad across my shoulders and the ceiling fan going overhead. I've been kind of overheated today which is frustrating.

I used the c-PAP last night and the night before. I didn't wake with a headache either morning, but I am really exhausted today in spite of nine hours in bed last night.

I counted up my words of fiction for January, and I'm at about 41K. I'm beyond boggling on that because it's a new high mark. I suspect, though, that the count will come down as I start getting back the ability to do other things and want to spend time on those, too.

I feel like I've been hit with health complication after health complication over the last two to three years. I found the lump in March of 2015 and had it removed that August. I passed the intervening months dealing with a broken foot and badly sprained ankle. Radiation that fall, followed by about fifteen months of Tamoxifen. The side effects from the Tamoxifen left me nearly non-functional from pain and pretty much led to the current anemia situation because, while I thought, when I had the IUD out in June of 2016, that I maybe should go back to the multivitamins with iron, my periods didn't get going until about fourteen months later, some time last summer. I was probably anemic by then because no periods hadn't actually meant that my body wasn't using period amounts of iron.

It's frustrating because I've been so anxious and tired and sick that I didn't even think about changing multivitamins again. Also, during the summer, I wasn't sure the periods were coming back as a regular thing (at this point, I've had four at moderately similar intervals which was what used to be regularity for me).

Comments

[wendelah1]

You have been hit with one health problem after another. I wonder if cooking with the Lucky Iron Fish would help manage your anemia? I don't understand how you'd be losing iron if you weren't bleeding, but then I'm not a gynecologist...

Your word count is awe inspiring.

[the_rck]

With Tamoxifen, the uterine lining can build up and just not get around to sloughing off. Usually, it's time for a period when the lining is about 7 mm thick. I was at 18 mm 2-3 months after stopping the Tamoxifen, so the iron was no longer available for moving stuff around in my body but hadn't actually exited yet.

[the_rck]

Oh, and also, this coincides with Scott's alpha-galactose allergy getting worse so that we no longer have any mammalian meat products in our diet, just white meat chicken and turkey.

[wendelah1]

I wondered if that might be a factor, too. I've been so lucky. Even when I was having really heavy periods from fibroids plus perimenopause, I never got anemic. But I cooked all of the time in cast iron back then and ate more red meat than I do now.

[the_rck]

I can't use cast iron because my hands and wrists aren't strong enough. We got some when we got married, twenty five years ago, but I couldn't lift the skillet even then. Also, Scott didn't like the 'don't put them in the dishwasher' part.

[wendelah1]

Yes. Cast iron is hard for me to lift now, too. The 8" pan is still okay but my 12" skillet is a problem. That's why I wondered if the Lucky Iron Fish might be an option for you?

We don't have an automatic dishwasher so my husband and I take turns being chief cook and bottle washer.