Short version: experience not recommended.
About two weeks ago I lost the ability to stand. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to: I did. It was that my muscles were laughing at me when I told them to move. Having been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, this is the sort of thing that happens sometimes—psychomotor retardation being one of MDD’s major symptoms and all.
After a few days I realized I wasn’t getting better. I talked to my friends and we agreed I’d go into the psychiatric ward voluntarily, without fuss. My good friend Eugene stopped by to help clean my place while I couldn’t, and my physical condition scared him to death. He realized, correctly, I was in a major complex medical crisis.
On Memorial Day he and another friend, Chip, woke me up at eight for an intervention. I was still unable to get up, so the fire department took me to the emergency department where it was discovered my blood hemoglobin level was 4.8 grams per decileter.
Hemo is the chemical that carries oxygen to your cells. A “normal” level is hard to define, human variation and all, but most authorities say a 14 g/dL is normal, below 10 is an immediate medical concern, below 7 justification for immediate blood transfusions, and below 5 simply incompatible with life.
I was at a 4.8 and had been crashing for weeks.
So, I’m still in the hospital right now. I won’t be out for another few days. But I am recovering, and I’m grateful. I’m almost certainly going to have a stew of short-term and long-term damage from sustained oxygen starvation, but right now it looks as if I’ve escaped major neurological or cardiac damage.
My psychiatrist has warned me to be careful. Minor brain damage can do anything from destroy your bladder control to remove your ability to rhyme words that end in “-usy”. I’m going to discover the hard way what my new limitations are. He’s urging me to be merciful towards myself. I think that’s a good idea.
No, we don’t know the root cause (yet). And, to be honest, I’m not going to tell you anyway. It’s not important you know.
What’s important you know:
I almost died.
I’m recovering.
Enjoy every sandwich.