This Again (Friday)

It's back to the grind for my next pathophysiology exam. I've go so much material to cover, it's insane. I sit down to study and it's like demons chasing me, nipping at my heels, reminding me that I'm never going to learn it all. I study for 30 minutes, then take a 10 minute break. Then I study for 32 minutes with a ten minute break. Then 35 minutes. Then 38 minutes, then 40 minutes. I up my breaks to 12 minutes, but no more. During my breaks, I do squats. I do pushups against the counter. I wash dishes. I make coffee. I get extra time for lunch, so I check Twitter while I eat. This is how we do.

While reviewing the chapter on anemia, I run into the information that certain types of anemia (those associated with vitamin B12 and folate deficiencies) can produce paranoid ideation. I've had this type of anemia and these symptoms. It's freaky. I start to feel like I'm being watched--or listened to--when I'm alone. I double check locked doors. I refuse to go outside where something bad will surely happen to me. When it starts up, I have to remind myself to take my supplements. I take them and the paranoia goes away. Magic.

It's a well-known symptom, this paranoid ideation, but I would never, ever bring it up to a doctor. Why? Well for example, my old doctor was convinced that my extreme lethargy and malaise should be treated by talking to a therapist--until she went on vacation and another doctor checked my vitamin D levels and found them to be in the toilet, the true cause of my symptoms. I took massive doses of vitamin D for awhile and my lethargy and malaise went away. Surprise!

My current doctor is well-nigh useless, but harmless--or mostly harmless--though I would never some to him and say, "I'm experiencing paranoid ideation," because god knows what he'd do with that admission. I doubt he'd check for pernicious anemia. And since it's not uncommon for women who complain about anything to be branded troublesome patients, I tend not to complain about vague symptoms or symptoms that might be attributed to psychological problems rather than physical ones.

So there's that.

I'm on a break now--a longer one, since it's nearly time for Dave to come home and so nearly dinner time--but after dinner, I go right back to studying.

Poetry Wins

El Olvido By Judith Ortiz Cofer

It is a dangerous thing

to forget the climate of your birthplace,

to choke out the voices of dead relatives

when in dreams they call you

by your secret name.

It is dangerous

to spurn the clothes you were born to wear

for the sake of fashion; dangerous

to use weapons and sharp instruments

you are not familiar with; dangerous

to disdain the plaster saints

before which your mother kneels

praying with embarrassing fervor

that you survive in the place you have chosen to live:

a bare, cold room with no pictures on the walls,

a forgetting place where she fears you will die

of loneliness and exposure.

Jesús, María, y José, she says,

el olvido is a dangerous thing.