(no subject)

[tylik]

Ugh. First off, I ran out of my anthistamines last yesterday. Well, no big, I can go half a day without. But then when I went in to pick them up, it turns out there's something wrong with our prescription insurance. And while I often can get away without the antihistamine for a while, I'm reacting a lot today. So starting out

a) I feel like I've been hit by a board in my face

b) I really hate the idea of needing to take something every fricking day just to feel halfway decent, and this is rather rubbing my nose in it and

c) So in order to eventually hopefully be able to get off, or at least reduce my antihistamine use (and because my birch pollen allergy was causing me to react to a bunch of foods, too) I've been getting allergy shots. And my plan was to go in and get one today, except I can't until I've taken my antihistamine.

Anyhow, after the first few rounds of calls I had to leave to make it to my appointment to give blood.

Okay, the one non grouchy thing is that they had their best phlebotamist work on me, and while she said by veins were quite challenging, after a bit of messing around, they successfully got blood out of me. Yay! It took an excessive amount of fiddling with things to get the bag full, but at last it was complete. And I went to drink tomato juice and eat cookies until they let me go.

Unfortunately, I owned up to feeling a wee bit light headed before I actually got out of there, so they insisted I lie down with ice packs on my chest and neck, while I sat there and got irritated, thinking "oh for crying out loud, this is pretty tame for a dizzy spell, really, I've had worse". And then since there was nothing to read, I got reflect on the fact that my baseline for my body is so weird at this point, I'm not really sure at what point I should start worrying about something like this. Meanwhile, the people keep asking me if I feel better "yes" say I, mostly because I want to go, and heck, an icepack at the back of my neck was kind of nice. "You're sure?" "Yes!" Say I. So they make me drink some more juice, while I reflect that I feel rather peculiar, but not in imminent danger of passing out. "You're not nauseus, are you?" "No!" "Did you eat before you came?" "Yes, I had breakfast." "But not lunch? You should really eat a proper meal before you donate blood." "I had a bit bowl of granola and yogurt two hours before I came, it wasn't time for lunch! And I drank half a liter of water, too."

Oh, did I mention that my iron level was as low as it could be and still have them draw blood? Crap. That's a new one. I thought I'd been eating so well. Maybe I should start using my cast iron wok more. Maybe I should start eating liver. Then again (ew!) maybe not. I do eat a lot of iron rich vegetables, but looking things up if you're not getting it from animal sources, you really need to eat *gobs* of leafy greens and okra and so on. Vitamin C is supposed to help absorbtion, though. Feh.

So I leave. And then sit in my car and make calls for about 20 minutes, because while I still don't feel like I'm about to faint, I also don't really feel like I'm safe to drive. Oh, and while eventually my head clears a bit, I do start feeling nauseus. I think idly about going upstairs again to tell them that I'm feeling dizzy and nauseus, but my annoyance at the idea outweighs my worry that there might be something wrong. (I mean, something is wrong, but it's not very wrong.) Meanwhile, the most recent number I've been given to call to clear up the insurance snafu doesn't work.

(Keep in mind that I'm really touchy about dealing with medical insurance stuff, after a couple of years of having desperately needed treatment randomly not covered as a cost cutting measure. Pretty much always got it straightened out, but I spent hours and hours on the phone with people, way too often ended up in tears and the whole thing was pretty humiliating and awful. For awhile I got panic attacks if I had to deal with insurance people. Now I just don't like it.)

So I drive home. And spend another couple of hours, much of it on hold with a place that eventually just disconnected me, on the phone. And I still feel like crap. And it's the first day of my period, and I have cramps. (I do wonder if the switcdh over to having normal cycles again after getting off the pill might be why my iron is low, though.) And the insurance thing will probably be straightened out, but I'm still almost certainly going to have to cover the charges out of pocket for the moment and get reimbursed later. And right now I can't even bear to drive over to the pharmacy and pick up my fricking antihistamines.

None of this is terrible. But I feel like crap and I'm grouchy.