Some years ago, I wrote a book about my ten days in an eating disorder treatment center. It was never published, but now I feel like sharing some of it. I’m going to post random chapters to be enjoyed in little servings like this. –Juliana
I have always wanted to donate blood but for many years I have either hovered right around or dipped below the required minimum blood-giving weight of 110 pounds. And now, at my present weight, I am well below the cut-off point.
I guess they think people like me don’t have any blood to spare.
My doctor recommended I have some tests done a few weeks before I checked into the treatment center (and before I had mentioned to her or even contemplated my going into treatment). We wanted to find out why I was waking up in the middle of the night, every night- and then again in the mornings- completely drenched in sweat. Wet pajamas, wet sheets, wet hair, wet head-shaped spot on my pillow. And why I was so tired all the time.
A few vials of blood were drawn at the scheduled appointment time. When I sat down and presented my open arm to the bored-looking medical technician, who sticks needles in arms all day long, she instantly perked up and said,” Oh! You have big veins!” This was going to make her job very easy.
The skin in the crook of my arm was ivory-colored and seemed paper-thin, practically transparent, and one thick, juicy, earthworm-like blue vein was clearly visible just beneath the surface. It bulged, surged, full of blood, and life.
My gaunt appearance and slow-moving limbs do not tell the whole story; inside, things are still working properly. I may feel like dead weight, but the inner physical processes are pulling me along, the life-force is holding me up (against my will).
“Well,” my doctor said to me, a week later, reading the test results off her computer screen as I sat on the table in the little examining room, “You don’t have lymphoma!” She sounded cheerful.
“Well…good,” I said, bemused, and a little shocked, and extremely relieved. I had no idea that cancer was even a possibility. The doctor had never mentioned it before. “Was that something you were thinking it might be?” I asked.
“The night sweats can be a symptom of lymphoma, so I first wanted to rule that out. Everything else is fine,” she said, as she scrolled down my file, scanning all my copious blood test results.
“So, there’s nothing else? No other physical reason for the sweating?” I said, wishing she could give me some simple explanations and simple remedies for my worrisome, lingering symptoms.
“We did see some inflammation but normally that wouldn’t cause a person to have night sweats.”
“Inflammation?”
“Yes. Technically, cardiac inflammation. I wouldn’t worry about it, though. It’s vague and these things tend to go away.”
Cardiac inflammation. Of course. That was exactly what was wrong with me. My heart was on fire.
This was the same doctor who, a few years ago, correctly diagnosed my numb, achy lower legs as a vitamin B12 deficiency- the probable result of my then-vegan and very spartan diet. She prescribed large doses of a B12 supplement, which quickly fixed the problem. Now if she said that my “cardiac inflammation” (which sounds so ominous and potentially deadly to me) was no big deal and would eventually clear up on its own, I must trust her and try not to worry about it.
“I’d like to see you put on some weight. Look…” and she swiveled her computer screen so it faced me. “This is the graph showing all of your weight measurements over the years, from each of your checkups. You can see that right now your weight is way below the average.”
I looked at the line, which was all peaks and valleys like a mountain range. At the end, at the right side of the page, the line dipped way below the middle horizontal median. This was as low as I’d ever been since I’d first signed up for health insurance in my early twenties.
The doctor continued, “And let’s try you on the Celexa, and see if that helps your depression and anxiety, okay?”
“Okay.”
Thank you for being so candid about your experiences in the treatment center. You are very courageous for doing this, and you probably are helping others in the process.
+1 Randy Atlas's comment. You've given thousands of us sustenance and life-sustaining energy in forms other than blood.