Short version: experience not recommended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2014psychomotor retardation being one of MDD’s major symptoms and all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 4.5 grams per deciliter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was at a 4.5 and had been crashing for weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What’s important you know:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I almost died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m recovering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Enjoy every sandwich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2014psychomotor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}