MISDIAGNOSED: Book One

Chapter Nine - Healthy Mindset

We are now set in February 2023 and honestly it seemed like everything was going to be alright for once. We all know how that had gone over the years. A few moments of things seeming as if everything had finally been going the best way and a huge slap in the face changes all of it. I had not been having any spasms which I was thoroughly grateful for because it was the most peaceful time of my entire health journey. There were no pains, no signs of low blood, no fatigue, and I actually felt as if things would be better for me. I had finally been accepted into a course at university that had been rejected since my first application in late 2020 before matriculating. My mindset was healing from the trauma because I was doing my best in order to gain control over my mental health for once. Doing positive affirmations during the day helped me gain a bigger perspective on life. I would do at least one meditation video a day in order to remind myself to slow down, take in the moment, and be grateful for everything that was going on in my life. This was tough to do considering that the relationship I was in for almost three years was also detrimental to my mental health as there were several people determined to tear me down. Unfortunately for them, I was finding my peace whilst they tore themselves to pieces. I had been told by my doctor at the time that my blood had improved in the blood tests and that my iron had improved as well so there was no reason for me to continue with taking iron supplements. Well In his words, he said that I should go off of the iron supplements for about three months in order to see what happens and if my body will stay the same. Whether my iron will remain stable and there would be nothing causing any issues since everything seemed normal in the tests. This freaked me out a bit because when you have been taking something for your health for over several years and a doctor suddenly says to stop taking it, it makes you panic about what the consequences of that change will be. There was a lot of thoughts going through my mind about how I could possibly do this and how to prepare for worst-case scenarios. If you have been reading up until this point, you would understand why I was paranoid about the entire idea. Due to the fact that even when I was taking the iron tablets every day, incorporating iron into my diet by using spinach in my food four times a week, drinking the juices that have greens etc. which all had iron in, etc. I was eating it in my nutrition and taking the supplements, yet my iron still dropped insanely low in that time. This is what made me wonder whether going off of the iron supplements would be a good idea because in the last five years, I never took the chance to stop them for the duration of three months. Although, we learned the tough way, thanks to my former General Practitioner, may he rest in peace, that if I quadrupled the dosage it pretty much almost killed me. So doing more of it was a definite no but we never tried the exact opposite. University had already started and I was busy in the second week of my studies at the University of the Western Cape. Walking around in order to get myself registered took a lot of energy out of me and this was all before I went off of the tablets. The day I was getting registered, running from the hall to the admin building, then to a different building, then back to the hall, then back to the car took almost eight thousand steps alone. In the days that I had been on campus for my classes, I had averaged about five thousand steps a day. This was considering that I had maybe three classes a day. Now imagine what it would be like for somebody who has an iron deficiency. You walk all these steps, up several flights of stairs, from hot weather in the outside areas, to cold air-conditioned air on the inside of the buildings, etc. It eventually makes you feel exhausted, my chest hurts, your heart is constantly beating rapidly, you need to catch you breath, your body is overheating, your back aches from supporting the bag on your back, your head hurts from the heat and the long lecture classes in between, and you are feeling uncomfortable going from hot temperatures to cold temperatures several times within a day. This is all what you have to take into consideration whilst still taking the iron supplements that are supposed to help the body prevent these things from happening in order to strengthen the person by supplying the body with iron. Now can you imagine what went down when I finally took the Doctors advice for the hopes of finding positive results, and stopped taking the iron supplements completely? Can you guess? None of us expected what actually happened to happen and boy, if I could go back in time, I would not take that advice for a second.