I bet so many of you are wondering lately, where’s @Accio? Why hasn’t she been posting? Did she give up on our beloved blockchain because prices dropped? Whatever shall we do without her?! Haha jk I’m not special. The only people that would think that way are my kids when I try to pee with the door closed.

Well here I am! Ready and prepared to tell you all about my journey the past weekish.

I had mentioned in passing in a previous post that I was experiencing a vitamin crash. Honestly… My levels have dropping for months I’ve just been stubborn about it and attributing symptoms to other things, because this is the first time in a few years that I’ve slipped into this state. We’ll start with last Wednesday because it's the last day I can really remember... because I started taking notes in between passing out.

^source

Wednesday the 23rd went kind of like:

Woke up at 7 am feeling pretty nice actually… wow… nicer than I have in days! This is great! I’m better wooooo! Lets clean some things. Lalala cleaning the thiiiings, oh video call from @Howellogic sweet lets chat! Chatter, chatter, chatter. 11 am and still feeling great… man this is awesome I’m having such a good day! I’ma get this laundry folded and put away!

So I start to fold the laundry, perfectly normal right? It was, until half a basket in my breath caught in my throat and my hands started to shake, because even things as simple as folding laundry can trigger flashbacks, isn’t domestic violence grand? Just fold, just keep folding. All of the old feelings flood to the surface and my Logic-Brain and Anxiety-Brain began the circle game.

^{I can’t breathe!}

^{Yes, you can. You’re fine.}

^{Chest pain! That was a chest pain!}

^{You’re fine, keep folding, don’t stop. Don’t stop.}

This little bit was basically on repeat until I finished the laundry and I kept myself kind of okay through it. Well, the laundry ran out for the first time ever.

^{I’m going to die}

^What?

^{I’m having a heart attack I’m going to die!}

^{You’re just having an anxiety attack.}

^{Well both of my Dads have had heart attacks that they mistook for anxiety attacks and didn’t know until later I'M FUCKING DYING!}

^{Sweep the floors.}

^{Floors are swept, oh God, oh God.}

^{Reach out, call someone.}

^{No one cares.}

^{They can’t care if you don’t tell them.}

^{They’ll tell me I’m being crazy and to knock it off.}

^{You are being crazy. Wash the dishes, don’t stop.}

^{DISHES ARE DONE AND I’M REALLY DYING! I need to call Ski and see when she’ll be home, I can’t drop dead home alone with Rose!}

^Don’t…

^{I HAVE TO I’M DYING, don’t you feel that! I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!}

^{Rose can see you! Clear the counters! Clear the table! Keep moving! DON’T STOP}

^source

“MOMMY?!”

"What?!" She pulled me out of my head for a moment, to ask me for a snack. She brought me back to reality enough that Logic-Brain was able to beat Anxiety-Brain in an argument about sitting down to eat a peanut butter and honey sandwich with her, and lay down with her for rest time. Anxiety attacks are pretty exhausting and I wound up falling asleep with her until 3pm.

Woke up and went about my day generally as normal…

Thursday the 24th:

Wake up at 8 am, wow I feel awesome again! Four and Nine went off to school, and Rose and I cleaned up until 10 am, at which time I was so exhausted I thought I might collapse, so I layed down and fell asleep until about 2 pm while Rose watched videos and played games. She doesn’t really wake me up too much if I’m in a state (I don't just conk out for hours, its more of a fading in and out), she just finds ways to occupy herself and grabs accessible drinks and snacks if she wants them. Aside from when she’s sick she is a fairly independent child, I feel very blessed for that.

So I woke up and flew into a frenzy because SHIT ITS SKI’S BIRTHDAY AND I HAVE TO MAKE HER CAKE AND HER FAKE OUT CAKE BY 6!!! Naturally I can’t just make her a chocolate cake, filled with chocolate pudding, and covered in chocolate frosting with sprinkles in Ski appropriate colors and give it it her, nope I have to hide that one in the fridge and have the kids help me make vanilla ice cream cone cupcakes with vanilla frosting and cutesy fun sprinkles and leave them out on the table for her to see so she gets really disappointed and has to pretend she’s super happy about it because the kids helped.

It worked.

I also made her favorite dinner and passed out at bedtime with the kids. I slept…

Friday 25th:

… and I slept. I was awake for a grand total of four hours during the day, most of which I was hiding from my kids crying about life. The last time I passed out was at 6pm and I kept on sleeping through the night.

^{source on image}

Saturday 26th:

I woke up at 7 am and thought to myself Wow, I have been absolute shit lately. I need to not be shit. I need to do something with the kids. So I go downstairs and mentally prepare myself. A couple of them woke up, so I mixed some salt dough, and well that was just fucking exhausting so I went to lay down for a while, luckily we had a sleepy straggler.

Three woke up and we went to shape our mini volcanoes while on a video chat with Ex. Well he decided to raise his voice at me so I hung up and we text fought. Popped the volcanoes in the oven to dry out and lay back down… By some miracle of chance the kids decided to behave this week and occupied themselves for a bit.

^{Volcano dough that I broke a sweat and lost my breath making}

So, eventually the volcanoes are dry; I haul myself up, fill them with baking soda, dye the vinegar red and suck it up into those little medicine thingies for kids and make the announcement. We did a couple of rounds of eruptions (videos to come in a future post) and now that they were nice and hooked I brought them in to watch educational videos on volcanoes because I was just too damned tired to try and do it myself. I guess YouTube isn’t all bad all the time.

That was followed by them playing their instruments to the super cute Lava Song five times, and me still from the couch mediating a nice game of THE FLOOR IS LAVA!!! And sending them off for quiet time so I could nap. I was awesome from the couch.

^source

Then made frozen corn dogs for dinner and went to my bed almost as soon as Ski got home.

Sunday 26th:

I forgot to take notes on this morning but I’m fairly certain I woke up around noon and sat on the couch like a zombie for a couple of hours. I do not need notes however to remember what happened when Ski left with ALL of the kids and BIL. I decided to go outside and get some vitamin D along with nice bonus tan. I was out for about twenty minutes before I couldn’t handle it.

Just laying out in the sun my heart started to race, I started to sweat like a pig which I don’t normally no matter how hot it is, shaking, trying to catch my breath and finally managed to get up to see…

My legs splotching and my fingers turning white! I wondered for a moment if I was dying, but I they're symptoms I've had before (albeit a long time ago and not as bad), Dr. Man told me it was from the not having enough blood thing. I managed to go 8 years, from my diagnosis until now without letting it get to the point of visible symptoms, I guess I was taking my health for granted.

I got into the house and almost dropped when I caught myself in the mirror, my face was red. RED. My whole face except my lips were pale and under my eyes were almost purple the bags looked so bad. I got in the cool water and passed out, I slept in there for a good couple of hours. I also messaged Ski and told her I needed vitamins (I don’t get paid so I had to ask for her to buy them) because it was no longer ignore-able, I’d gone anemic. Very, very anemic.

Headache and another early bedtime later…

Monday the 27th:

I woke up at around 7 am, smoked a cigarette, and went back to sleep. Ski woke me up at 1 pm, asked me if I was okay. I told her no… this is a very serious issue. She said she’d order the vitamins that day and asked me to watch the kids for a while. Okay. Well long story short when they got back the house was destroyed and I was trying to figure out what planet I was on.

Tuesday the 28th:

Felt slightly better, stayed awake more than not only, had Rose and Three during the day, the house was messy when they got back but not as bad as before, and while my body was awake for most of the day, my brain wasn’t. Still Ski and I went to register The Fours for kindergarten, and I tried to explain to her that I looked half dead for a reason, and I couldn’t even think straight. I did start to have a panic attack in the middle of the night and though I managed myself enough to reach out I didn’t get any answers and wound up sobbing myself to sleep, silently of course so I didn’t bother anyone.

^source

Wednesday the 30th:

Woke up for brief periods until noonish. Tried to clean up, wiped myself out and laid down for a while, until about four I had to get up and get ready for the Steemit meeting that a couple of friends and I decided to start here in Buffalo. Five pounds of make up later I was on my way, got a micro nap in on the car ride there, had a good time though I could have used some clothespins to hold my eye-lids open, got a couple of micro naps in there too… but I was so, so, so tired. I asked to leave early, that is something I’m pretty sure I’ve never done.

TODAY:

Woke up at 6:30 am, took a short walk home from where I had crashed for the night, and went back to sleep until Ski came home with Nine at 11am because he threw up all over the hallway at school. Mostly stayed on the couch in between states of wakefulness and sleep until Four came home at 4pm, right about when I started this. It’s taking me easily twice as long to write as it normally would of course because of the fuzzy brain… but my brain is operational enough to write it at all which I think is a pretty damn good sign!!!

I had to take a small break writing to cook dinner; I asked the Fours what they wanted, Four stared off blankly as if I’d asked him the square root of pie, and Rose chimed in with leftover chicken and mac and cheese and I found myself for the seventeen millionth time this week praying in thanks to whatever is out there for blessing me with such an amazing little creature.

From my brief summary you may have concluded that anemia makes you sleepy. Very astute, there is however much more to it.

My anemia is the most common kind… iron deficiency anemia (Vitamins too).

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So, let’s talk about what anemia IS. Anemia happens when your bone marrow isn’t producing enough good blood (in my case because it doesn’t have the proper nutrients to do so, my body just has a hard time processing them), do we remember our school classes on human biology? Good blood is what brings the oxygen everywhere. Without enough oxygen in your body a whole lot of fun things happen. Extreme fatigue, confusion, dizziness, headaches, irritability, mood swings, increased anxiety and depression, things that aren’t supposed to be heavy feel like a ton of bricks and occasionally you cant even lift a half empty gallon of milk. Walking to the bathroom makes you feel out of breath, and everything hurts. Sore muscles, and an otherwise minor kid elbow to the ribs feels like it was done by an MMA star.

^source

Of course your immune system crashes so you’re much more susceptible to infection and stuff, and your heart is working double time. Extended periods of anemia can lead to an enlarged heart and even heart failure. I was totally having a heart attack.

^{This is all just stuff I know from dealing with it, you can feel free to check my facts on any medical website.}

Basically it feels like I'm slowing to a halt, trapped in this human body. There are moments when people try to wake me up and I surface slightly and fight myself tooth an nail trying to move just to slip back under. Between my symptoms and the kids it's taken me three hours to write this already, and I haven't even begun to proof read and format.

Honestly I'll be really lucky if I get it out tonight at all. I'm trying, I'm really, really trying.

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@seer gave me some really good vitamins to start with until the vitamins my sister has yet to order come in. With the vitamins it should be a few days (probably up to a couple of weeks with how severe I've let it get honestly) to be back to what I consider "functional", and back to 100% in a couple of months.
I will absolutely do my best to post and interact until then.

PS. Here is a completely unrelated picture of my kid because she’s the coolest ever.

(anything not directly sourced is credit moi @accio)