An Excuse

I am not one of those people who is overly concerned with my health. Except, of course, on the odd sleepless night, when some funny twinge or cramp turns into a terminal condition. I call this my ‘night terrors’. Come morning, I chide myself for being silly and try to get on with my day.

This being so, I barely listened to my GP when he said I should come in for a blood test. Which was in June. And then never got round to phoning up for the result. I know, very tardy and foolish of me. Then, I was called in about two weeks ago for another one and by now I had literally no idea what it was all about. I asked the nurse and she told me it was something to do with B12 levels, that I’d never followed up on my previous test, and that I’d been called in again. I thought this was very nice of the doctor and said so to the nurse, also promised her I’d definitely follow up on this one.

Then I forgot all about it. Until speaking with Jazzer and she mentioned she was awaiting the results of a blood test. The minute I got off that call I rang the surgery and heard all this palaver about course of injections, three times a week, for two weeks then every three months after. I was astounded. I thought the test would come back showing no issues, as my blood tests always do.

The thing is, I had no idea there was anything going on with me. I didn’t think I had any symptoms. So I googled it, went down the list of symptoms and found that I’ve had two of them for months now. Tingling hands which only bother me in bed and occasional dizziness and being a bit off balance. I thought the hands might be to do with my arthritis and the dizziness with my BP. I’d been meaning to take these symptoms to the doctor but it didn’t feel urgent. Tiredness? Not really…

Until I thought about it. Then I realised I’d been feeling low-energy for most of this year. And extra grumpy too. I’ve not been walking or gardening as much and household tasks were wearing me out. Even grumpier then.

Sara and Ben came round that evening and I told them about it. Sara knew all about the condition, told me it was very common and easily treated and that afterwards I’d feel much better. Hannah came in later and she knew loads of people that were deficient in B12 and said much the same as Sara. I wondered at first how people much younger than me knew this then I realised. Through their respective jobs, Hannah and Sara know far more old people than I do.

It’s been two days now since I got the results of that blood test and I’ve been yawning a lot, and realising I am tired. I even took a nap this afternoon. But perhaps that’s just the power of suggestion. The injections start on Monday and I’m looking forward to perking up a bit.

And the point of this post? It’s a big fat excuse for why I haven’t been blogging so much recently.

Meanwhile, Bert grew these huge dahlias. Glad someone is keeping up with the garden.