Hi
I'm popping in with an update, in the hope that now I'm making it 'dramatic', it will all calm down and go away.
I've been travelling really well to be honest, and have had decent results to go with that. I'd been making the most of it, loving life, being active, until April when it started to cool down here, and my fatigue levels started rising. I'd been taking myself rather seriously as an old yogini, and noticed that I just couldn't practice as I was just months earlier. I'd already decreased my morning hour power yoga to 45 minutes, but I thought that was because my husband had been dealing with the illness, then later passing of his mother, so had been interstate on and off, and I had a bit more manual workload than usual. We also had some house renovations happening, and we all know how draining that is. So, I cut that back to a strength yoga, and as life settled, I focused on slowing down a little. Come May, my troubled finger that started all of this blew up again, as did the top of the middle finger beside it. I had chilblains and sensitive skin (like blisters) for the entire winter (and beyond, I'm only just healing from a mid spring one). At the end of June, my husband and I both finally caught covid for the first time. On the surface, it looked like I was coping better than he was. He had the terrible cough and was really ill with it, and I don't know if it was my chronic post nasal drip saying 'pullease' to covid or what, but I escaped the cough, and apart from a few rough days I did fairly well. I had high fevers longer than he did though, and chills that would rattle any old cage in those few days, but I didn't need any sort of hospital visit or antivirals.
I had my annual haem appointment 3 and a half weeks after our covid symptoms had surpassed, and didn't have high expectations. There was a lot of red markers in those results. Everything was low, except my haemoglobin, which was normalish and my mean reticulocytes were down to 13. She also noted that I'd lost weight. I knew I'd lost a little with covid, but it was 3kgs since my last appointment, which surprised me. She said that the bone marrow can shut down during an infection, and requested a checkup in 3 months. No problem we said, and we went home and started watching my weight. It has been an interesting few months. Since covid, I have been so weak and fatigued - like just exhausted at the end of the day. You know that fatigue where it's hard to lift your legs, let alone walk? I can't stand for too long, or lift my arms for too long, but I can walk long distances just fine. My connective tissue pain is next level, especially in my hips, knees, and my right big toe! That pain has been increasing since April, as has the fatigue, so I don't want to give covid all of the credit. As of today, I'd say I'm at about 80% of my usual capacity, but when I reflect on where I was at this time last year, I'd bring that back to 60%. I've had to dump light weights, cut my yoga back even further to baby beginners, and poor old husband is doing more chores. Life has changed.
By the end of September, with this weird weight/energy/meh going on, we decided that I'll harass my dr. and check on the old thyroid, and see how she's going. She'd been normal for ages now, but it would explain the weight loss. I was skeptical because I've always been able to easily put on weight when she's been out of whack. He did the CBC, thyroid, and also tested my ferritin. My blood test was 'amazing'. It's hasn't been this good in years. Things are low normal, but normal. Even my MCV was more normal than normal at 96! My whites were low, but higher than when I saw her in July, and my globulins were low, but no one was talking about them so, no problem. My ferritin was pretty good for a vegetarian, and my tsh was .1, so could definitely be the reason for my weight loss. My t4's and t3's are all normal, and my tsh has been lower than this at .02, so we're not worried about it.
I had my 3 month check-in with her today, and haem is good, whites are still low but higher than when I saw her last, platelets are normal, but my reticulocytes were down to 10! As I said to my husband, that result does match how I feel physically, because I've been saying that these amazing results just don't lol. I mentioned that my thyroid was a bit wonky, but she didn't seem interested. She said that if my reds go down, that will be a problem, and asked me to go back in 3 months.
I was going to go back to the dr about my fatigue issue, because I was ridiculously exhausted last night on a great night sleep, but I will just plod on and wait and see.
Ok, so that's where I am at, and when I press submit reply, I will now jinx my reticulocytes into a better number!!!!!