Why am I so tired?
The saga of my never-ending naps will hopefully soon be over! For over 2 years now I’ve been having no choice but to take a nap during the day at least 4 days a week. And I don’t mean just a 20-minute cat nap, they usually end up being 1 – 3 hours long. And I go into a deep sleep, deeper than when I sleep in my bed at night. I’ve mentioned this to my primary doctor off and on since they started with nothing being done about it. I thought maybe either my Vitamin D or B12 levels were low and causing the issue, but I had my labs done in mid-February and my D3 was in the normal range and my B12 was actually above the normal range by a bit. However, the levels of my hemoglobin, hematocrit and a few others were low. And all which could mean I have anemia. So because of those results, my doctor ordered labs for my Iron levels and those were also low, which more confirms I may have anemia.
I’m able to see a copy of my lab results about 1-2 weeks after they’ve been sent to my doctor. When I saw these last results I was surprised I hadn’t heard from her first, so I called her office to talk to her and was told she’d give me a call at the end of the day (which is normal as she returns calls after the office is closed), but she didn’t call that day. I called back a couple days later when I still had not heard from her and the line was busy or just no answer. When I finally got a hold of the office again it was now about 4 weeks since I had received the results, so about 6 weeks since I had the labs drawn. And I was told that since it had been so long (because they dropped the ball on returning my call), I had to get my labs done again. That was told to me about 3 weeks ago. The doctor’s office originally said they were going to mail me the lab sheet (because going to them to pick it up is difficult for me). I waited a week, it never came, so I called them. The office manager said that she thought maybe she faxed it to the home health agency I use (I have a nurse that comes out to do wound care twice a week and instead of me going to the lab, they have nurses who can come to me to take my blood). I call the agency, nope they don’t have it. I call back my doctor’s office to confirm to her they don’t have it and she says they will refax it. I called the agency last Friday and they said they have the lab sheet, it’s in my file and my nurse has been notified about it. Through this agency I have a case manager (who only has to come out every 2 weeks and then the regular nurse), both nurses got the lab sheet, but the case manager is the who one is supposed to inform the lab nurse I like that she needs to come out. My case manager could do it, but the one and only time she came out, she tried 4 times, twice on each arm and failed all 4 times. I had bruises for 2+ weeks from it too. That was the only time in all my years of getting poked that I’ve ended up with bruises. I’ve always gotten really lucky in that I’ve barely felt the needle go in and if I wasn’t looking I’d barely know it was happening. So yeah, this other nurse has to be the one to come out instead when I need blood drawn. Anyway, that was last Thursday, so yesterday when my regular nurse came out I happened to mention to her that I was waiting to get my labs redone to figure out the whole anemia or not thing and she messaged the nurse I like about coming this Friday. So yeah for that, but that still means I’m about 2-4 weeks out from getting the results. And sorry if that was TMI or ick for anyone.
Below is a pic of those bruises, if you’re interested.
The ones near my wrists? I couldn’t even see those bruises except in pictures. It all looks a lot worse than it was too, but they were slightly sore if I ran my finger over them. Luckily they didn’t bother me when I slept.
