My Earlobes Still Feel Fat

Wowwwwww I have owed you all an update on my anemia for a long time, and yet that’s not even what I came here to write about – let’s blame the pandemic/police brutality/election/wildfires/general apocalyptic nature of 2020 for any distraction or slackery on my part.   First, the update: the second round of infusions WORKED and my iron levels are GOOD and I can actually WALK UP A FLIGHT OF STAIRS WITHOUT FEELING DIZZY and if the all-caps don’t express it well enough I’ll just say outright that I AM SO RELIEVED. Of course, it’s not over yet, because we don’t know if/how quickly I’ll drop back into anemia – my levels are already lower by about 2/3 just three months after the initial post-infusion test – but for the moment I’m back to being human, and that is an amazing feeling.   Now, the thing I came here to write about, which is not so good: I’ve been backsliding pretty badly into negative body image, and that’s due in large part to the fact that my body itse...

“Ting, ting,” my husband goofs as he taps my skin. “Do you feel strong from all that iron?” We have to make dorky jokes like this – otherwise we’ll go into a joint fugue state at the understanding of how much my anemia has upended our plans and drained my savings account (because ’murica). I wrote about this back in November , when I thought I just had to get some iron put directly into my blood and that would ‘fix me up for a year or two.’ Ah, my sweet summer child… Not only did the four IV infusions I did (to the tune of $900, for my part after insurance ) not make me feel better, but my next blood test showed my iron levels had dropped even further – I was at 3% saturation in January! All I could think to say when we got the results was “what happens when I get to 0%?” The next thought I had was “what the fuck is going on with my body?” After all, it made sense that I couldn’t absorb enough iron from my ironically super iron-rich diet –  I did have asur...

View this post on Instagram The benefit of being trapped in a chair for an hour while liquid iron drips slowly into my anemic veins: nothing to do but work on my book! #amrevising #forcedwritingtime #mybodyisanoldjalopy A post shared by Anne H. Putnam (@ahputnam) on Nov 8, 2019 at 11:24am PST Even though I warned her, my new doctor was still startled by my iron levels. “The low end of normal is nearly twice this number,” she insisted, educating me even as I nodded along – I knew this already. “Last time it was a point lower,” I told her, but she (like most people) didn’t seem to care how bad it used to be. She cared about getting me healthy now. “People get blood transfusions around these numbers.” I raised my eyebrows in surprise – not mock, but a bit exaggerated, trying to give her the reaction I felt she was after. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, but rather that my anemia had been a concern f...