Hypochondriac’s daughter
I have a diagnosis. It wasn’t the one I was expecting – Coeliac disease cannot be detected in the blood in the absence of around six weeks’ worth of gluten in the diet. There is NO WAY I am reintroducing wheat products for six weeks to obtain a positive test result (so I already know, don’t I?) Bread, pastry, pasta are POISON, although I do indulge once in a while to inflict the short sharp shock that gets me back on the straight and narrow. So: I might be wheat intolerant. I may have Coeliac disease. The symptoms point strongly to one or the other (both?). I’m not sure about the spelt - I can eat it in small amounts. It’s bloody confusing. The GP doesn’t recommend a biopsy, which is the only diagnostic test that delivers positives rather than indicators. His more pressing concern - and now mine - is that my iron levels are shockingly low (this could be a symptom of Coeliac disease – isn’t medicine bloody baffling? Why anyone would want to study the human body and all its brittle, gory and squishy bits and pathways flowing with icky fluids I don’t know). Colour me surprised. Being the moderate pessimist I am, I dialled the phone number and braced myself for a litany of vitamin and mineral deficiencies (nope) and possibly something moderately scary like a worn-out liver (unlikely, but sod’s law!), high cholesterol (nope). Or possibly something leading to the diagnosis of a syndrome so rare they’d name it after the eminent specialist who would sweep in, gaggle of medical students in tow, prod at me and confer with his colleagues in hushed tones (silly woman!).
My iron levels are almost as low as they were in my second pregnancy, when I ran out of breath just waddling up the cobbled street leading from the main road to the house. It isn’t steep. You’re eight months pregnant - it must be those extra 12kgs, I thought. Errr… no. Gynae got in a bit of a flap – my c-section was scheduled for two weeks thence and my iron levels needed to come up, fast. Post partum, the nice midwife recommended I top up the supplements with pears soaked in red wine. That seemed like a bit of a faff so I just quaffed the wine. (This was nine years ago so my memory’s a little hazy.) It must have worked.
I honestly didn’t expect to be a candidate for this. I bleed regularly but not copiously, I eat red meat. Well done, medium, rare and raw. My diet doesn’t lack iron. But… everything makes sense now! Hurrah! Now I know why I’ve been fishing too many hairs out of the plughole in the shower… at a ratio of roughly 90% brunette to 10% blond (you’re getting old, I rationalised). I have a feasible explanation for why I’ve been taking until lunchtime to creak into gear (you’re lazy; you don’t know when you’ve got it good) and going for clandestine little naps in the afternoon (you’re pathetic).
I wouldn’t have been diagnosed if I hadn’t gone to the doctor to flash a mole (“you should have it checked out,” my mother said; “it’s nothing,” my husband said; “is there anything else?” the GP asked). I’ve learned to see doctors as Bearers of Bad News. The four-year-old who saw her mother become ill, decline and die within six months wasn’t too impressed by the accumulated knowledge and skills of the medical profession. The daughter of the hypochondriac has always had this niggling fear that it might be catching should she cross the GP’s threshold. That said, I am reasonably good: the lady bits get checked out once yearly by the gynae. And I don’t have a high-maintenance, high-performance bod like the LDR, who gets his bloods ‘done’ once a year.
Maybe it’s time I grew up.
