There are times when I feel that our bodies should have come with owner’s manuals. If mine did, I’d have been sifting through the pages for the list of warning signs and their meanings. Instead, I was left to my deductive reasoning.
The issue started so subtly that it could have easily gone unnoticed. It was one of those, something-is-different sort of things. However slowly, it grew in intensity over the a couple of weeks…until it finally became obvious that I had a big problem on my hand. In my quest to pull together the chain of events, I’d been searching my emails, tweets, receipts, and text messages for days trying to piece together hints on what happened when. Initially sure that one of the newly added nutritional supplements was the cause of the subtle changes (which were not thought to be bad, just different), my focus was on when I’d started each one (in staggered-like fashion), when frequency of each had been increased, and see if there was a correlation to the growing intensity of my body’s messages. I then searched the internet for side effects (good, bad, and indifferent) previously observed. There was nothing noted quite like what I’d been experiencing.
I was perplexed. What else could it be?
I will not go into details here. Suffice to say that I had no idea of potential seriousness of my symptoms until I discovered the reason for them. It was something that is apparently not all that uncommon — but beyond comprehension in my world. I was aghast and filled with worry once I uncovered the reason behind the noted changes. I left work immediately, called my advice line, and a “clinically urgent” message was sent to my doctor’s office. Three hours of pacing the floor later, I still had not heard. I called again.
Apparently, or so I was told, policy allowed healthcare providers 24 working hours to return calls for these messages from member patients — even “clinically urgent” messages. And seeing as how there was a 3-day weekend ahead, my call might not be returned until Tuesday.
As you might imagine, that did not go over well with me. I’m a nurse. I know too much of the worst-case-scenarios, and very little normal outcomes. I told the advice nurse that I could not wait and would, therefore, be driving down to the clinic to demand that I be seen. I then packed it up and left.
I arrived quite tense, my blood pressure of 150/100 conveyed this well. Tests and an exam were done. Thankfully, there was no treatment warranted as my search and rescue efforts were timely enough to catch the issue before I was in any real danger. Now that I am safely out of the woods, I will stop beating myself up for misreading the signals.
Owner’s manual, I tell you. It would’ve been so helpful.
I’m baffled by what happened to you, but equally baffled why it took so long to stop taking the so-called supplement your body obviously rejected, and apparently in a most dramatic way. Unfortunately, I’m not at all surprised at the long telephone cue for advice from your health care provider. Glad you got seen in time.
Oh no, it was not that at all. That was the distraction that lead me off in the wrong direction. This was something that could happen to any woman – whether taking supplements or not.