A Doctor Calls

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I had a call from a doctor this morning. They were following up on a letter about my blood test results and wanted to discuss things I had already spoken to someone about on Friday. I manged to work this subtly into the conversation and things became a little more productive when they read the notes of my last three visits.

Long-tailed tit – the bumbarrel of John Clare’s poetry

They were worried about my low iron levels. This is the second conversation I have had on my iron levels, so I’m beginning to worry about them too. The problem isn’t the actual iron levels, it’s that I don’t actually know what they do. They might be very important. In fact, as I’ve had two phone calls about them, they probably are.

Symptoms include –

  • tiredness and lack of energy (which I already have – I’ve been poorly)
  • shortness of breath (ditto)
  • noticeable heartbeats (heart palpitations) (this is why I take Warfarin)
  • pale skin (I’m white English, I work indoors, it’s winter)

All in all, not a very impressive bunch of symptoms, and not very distinctive. Fortunately I was able to isolate the likely cause by reference to my notes (which the doctor opened up when I explained what was happening). When I originally had the cough that started all the problems, I was aware that the violence of the coughing could cause pulled muscles, so I was very careful. Unfortunately I seem to have done a lot of coughing at night and tore some abdominal muscles, which hurt quite badly for several days. In this time, partly due to my ingestion of Warfarin, my torso turned into one big bruise. It’s fading now, but it must have taken quite a lot of blood to make it. And with that blood, is a lot of iron.

Fortunately the underlying levels of iron in my body seem fine. This is probably due to high levels of sprouts during Christmas and broccoli at all times because Julia likes it. When I go for blood tests in about a month they will test again.

I had overnight oats for lunch, because i got up so slowly, and am now looking at my list of jobs. Several of them involve using the phone. One of them involves using the phone and being able to take an incoming call. This means once I do that one I can’t ring out again until I have the answering call. That was another thing I didn’t think of when I decided to have the landline taken out.

Merganser – a winter visitor to our southern levels

The header picture is a male gadwall – our dullest, greyest duck.

11 thoughts on “A Doctor Calls”

  1. Pingback: The Second Post | quercuscommunity

  2. Clare Pooley

    It would be good to get all your medical issues sorted out especially as you are to retire in a few months time.
    I have never knowingly seen a gadwall. Despite its drab colouring it does look a very attractive duck. Nice to see a bumbarrel on your blog!

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    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      🙂 I had been seeing Gadwall for years before I realised what I was seeing – it’s a duck that merges well. You are right thought, it is quite handsome in the right context. TP has bumbarrels today too. I will be living in John Clare country once I move, so I should adopt the names he used.

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    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      It was only a phone call. 🙂 I did have a house call once when I did my back so badly I couldn’t move. It was about 30 years ago though.
      They do seem to phone more these days, though it is not consistent.

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