{"id":37,"date":"2025-07-13T05:09:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T09:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/?p=37"},"modified":"2026-03-30T03:55:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:55:28","slug":"so-what-happened-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/?p=37","title":{"rendered":"So, What Happened Was\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>1990:<\/strong> I begin to show signs of major depressive disorder. I was fifteen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1995:<\/strong> I&#8217;m certain I have major depressive disorder, and like an utter moron, <em>did nothing about it.<\/em> If you learn nothing else from my saga, try this: don&#8217;t do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About <strong>2000:<\/strong> I develop adult-onset chronic iron deficiency anemia. In one of life&#8217;s cruelties, the symptoms exactly mimic MDD. Am I tired? Yes. Damn depressive disorder. Am I easily fatigued? Yes. Damn depressive disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2000\u20132025:<\/strong> My anemia gradually worsens until my normal daily hemoglobin level is so low I have to massively curtail physical activities. I continue to blame MDD, of which I&#8217;m in an especially bad spot. (As a psychiatrist told me, &#8220;your brain was chronically starved of oxygen: were you expecting your MDD to get <em>better?&#8221;<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2025:<\/strong> I develop a spontaneous hernia and don&#8217;t notice it\u2026 but my upper intestinal tract sure does. I develop an internal bleed. I lose even more hemoglobin that way. Further, iron deficiency anemia can \u2014 in severe cases \u2014 affect blood clotting (hemostasis), so it&#8217;s quite possible this bleeder bled for \u2026 a really long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Memorial Day, 2025:<\/strong> I present to the emergency department with a blood hemoglobin of 4.5 grams per deciliter (below 6.5 is generally considered &#8220;inconsistent with life&#8221;), a spontaneous hernia, and a massive blockage in my upper intestine composed of fecal matter, bile, and coagulated blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Surgical intervention was necessary, as was massive amounts of transfused blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Prognosis:<\/strong> recovering from long term oxygen deprivation is hard. When your blood O2 is at levels &#8220;incompatible with life&#8221;, to use the gloriously anodyne phrase I heard in the hospital, you begin to accumulate damage <em>throughout your entire body at once.<\/em> I&#8217;m fortunate to have dodged brain or cardiac damage, but my body is still weak as a kitten. I have a lot of rehab ahead of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The MDD is noticeably improving as my hemoglobin levels rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There you go. That&#8217;s all of the story I&#8217;m making public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1990: I begin to show signs of major depressive disorder. I was fifteen. 1995: I&#8217;m certain I have major depressive disorder, and like an utter moron, did nothing about it. If you learn nothing else from my saga, try this: don&#8217;t do that. About 2000: I develop adult-onset chronic iron deficiency anemia. In one of [&hellip;]<\/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-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","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=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99,"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixdemonbag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}