personal

T'Pring from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Pertains to answer to #6

Answer’s to Jo’s weekly questions over at Dreamwidth.

1. Is it more or less difficult to be successful in the modern world than it was in the past (10, 50, 100, or 1,000 years ago)?

Successful in what sense? Sheer survival? Much easier now. Being happy? Probably about the same.

2. What do you like to do in the spring?

Go into hiding. The sun is too bright!

3. Is teaching a skill that can be taught?

Yes, I think for most people. Some people are too badly organized, or too bad at being logical to teach, but most people can learn, I believe. I also believe that some people are more naturally talented at it, but they too need practising to get really good.

4. May 4 is "Bike to School Day". Is that something you did when you were in school?

Yeah, years 1-3 I didn't in the fall and spring. Years 4-6 my school was practically next door, only had to go through a tiny bit of forest to get there on a foot path, biking would've taken longer than walking. Years 7-9 I could have biked in the fall and spring, but we had to apply for school bus ticket for the entire year anyway so there was no point in not taking the bus all through the year. And I didn't/don't bike unless I have to. Later schools (vocational) was too far to bike, I had to take a bus to the first one, and a train to the other.

5. Do you always have to have the latest phone?

Nope, smartphones I've gotten a new one every three years (when Android security updates stop coming, usually). Before smartphones I would have a mobile phone for about 5 years before getting a new one. Usually the battery died.

6. What is something you are obsessed with?

Very recently - as of yesterday, I've been obsessed with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and especially T'Pring and Spock. I've always loved T'Pring and I liked the glimpse we got of her in the pilot. I hope as we explore Spock, we'll get to know her better too. The seeds that lead to Amok Time were already there, and I hope we'll learn more of the Vulcan people and society as that relationship progresses.

But the whole pilot episode, and all the characters, I LOVED them all so much and thought the episode was very good fun! It made me laugh outloud a few times which none of the other new shows have managed. I think it's the best Star Trek pilot ever, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE that's the adventures are episodic but the relationships seem to have more continuity than TNG, more in the DS9 vein. Love that there' so much colors on the ship (the uniforms!), and that it felt future is hopeful :D I've enjoyed Picard, and Discovery to lesser extent, but the first episode of Strange New Worlds felt very much more trek to me than anything since the end of Voyager. I think maybe they got the spirit right!

It helps that I consider each property it's own thing: TOS is its own contained thing, and SNW is it's own independent contained AU, completely separate from TOS, never mind what TPTB say. I think that's the only way to look at the new shows Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds and remain sane and feel good about them. But I do think SNW, based on the pilot, has kept the spirit and love of Trek alive right from the start, it feels right in a way that the others don't to me. I'm very excited for the season :lol: 

7. Is there something that a ton of people are obsessed with but you just don't the point of?

Sports. Any and all! Just incomprehensible.

Image from Pixabay. Because I have a sudden ice cream craving after #28.

Answer's to Jo's weekly questions over at Dreamwidth.

24. Do you prefer popular music or relatively unknown music?

I don't care about that at all, except for the fact that more unknown music can be difficult to find to buy/borrow/download. Otherwise it makes no difference to me.

25. If you were given the ability to reform how your country’s leaders were chosen and how they serve, what would you change?

I'm not familiar enough with the minutiae of the voting systems to overhaul completely. But I would certainly want to make it so that people convicted of certain crimes (violent crimes, domestic violence, fraud, tax fraud/evasion, corruption, abuse of office, theft etc. where the sentence is jail time or probation, and also in all cases of ethnic agitation even when the sentence is a fine) are ineligible in future elections and if serving in a government/local government position currently, must be fired from said position. I'd also make it an issue to be pondered whether politicians who keep getting involved in matters that result in fines such as fights, ethnic agitation, drunk driving, harassing women in a provable way etc. multiple times because that shows bad judgement and according to our law, elected officials must be "known to be honest and skilled" and all the afore mentioned crimes prove something other than that. We have have too many politicians guilty to above things.

26. Records, tapes, CDs, MP3s, streaming: which did you grow up with? What is good and bad about each?

Records and tapes. CDs came along just when I turned 20, I never got into MP3 players or streaming music. Records could get scratches, tapes had a tendency to wear out or be cut in half by the cassette players.I much prefer CDs and being able to buy & download stuff from iTunes etc. I really like that now I can get only the good songs from an album - I never enjoy the all the tracks, so now I don't have to waste money or space on tracks I don't like.

I don't like streaming music. If it's free subscription, there's ads (shudder) and they won't let me play my songs when I want them but force other music on me. If it's pay subscription, I feel like I'm paying for the same music over and over again. And it's too easy for the service to delete my favorites off their service for whatever reason, and then I feel like I've been paying for nothing. I much rather pay and own a copy and download it to my hard drive.

Nowadays my music is mp3 or flac formats, on my hard drive and I use Winamp to play it. I get most of my music from Youtube now, but also buy from iTunes and borrow CDs from the library and rip them to my hard drive.

27. If everyone said what they were actually thinking, what would happen to society?

I'd like to think that things would get better, problems sorted out when people are honest with each other, and awful people wouldn't get power because everyone would literally see and hear how awful they are, so everything would get better for regular people. But I think just as easily awful people could band together and create a dystopia for everyone.

28. Did (or does) your family take seasonal vacations?

We did in the 1970s/mid-80s when I was a kid, until my Dad got sick. We went camping at my Dad's Union's camping area every summer every weekend and when one or both my parents were on summer leave. They didn't always have full 4 weeks off at the same time, so often one or the other would commute to work from the camp for a week. My Dad had the car (my Mom didn't have a driver's license at the time) and my Mom would bike (she always biked non-winter months, and it was about the same length trip whether she biked from home, or the camp, although from entirely different directions). My best fried of the time also often stayed with us for a week, and then after the summer leave, for a weekend. She and I had our own little tent beside our family tent that we'd sleep in just the two of us. I loved those summers! It was by the sea and surrounded by woods and hills, and mostly the same people were there camping every year with their tents or caravans.

As an adult I've only ever had one (1) honest-to-god summer leave. That was when I was in occupational rehabilitation in 2017, and only because the rehabilitation company's staff had their annual summer leave for four weeks in July as normal. Otherwise I've either been working (temping for the permanent employees so they can have their summer leave) or I've been unemployed which, trust me, doesn't feel like you're on leave even if it's a pretty summer because you have all the same duties and obligations as an unemployed person during winter, and you can be called up at anytime without warning. Not to mention, living alone and being first unemployed and then ill, I never have had money for a proper holiday or even for a "staycation" because even if I had some savings, being unemployed and know knowledge when the next job would be, the last thing I could do was using it for something frivolous like a holiday. So mostly I just enjoy strawberries and ice cream and my Mom's dog (when the dog was alive) and garden, and try to avoid people's questions of "What are you doing on your summer holiday?" and "Where are you traveling on your holiday?".

29. What technology from a science fiction movie or TV show would you most love to have?

Any science from any scifi movie and TV that would cure my chronic migraine as well as migraines. And it'd be a real bonus, if they had the cure for Crohn's Disease as well.

30. April 30 is "Hairstyle Appreciation Day". How would you describe your hairstyle?

Short but overgrown. That'll be fixed next week!

Picture from Pixabay, because cool car is cool.

Answers to today's questions at f.riday.com.

1. This week, when was good enough good enough?

Insomnia has been rearing it's ugly head the last several weeks. This week it's progressed into sleeping only every other day, and doesn't care about what time of day it is when sleep arrives. So, every other day, more often during the day than not, has been good enough because any sleep at all is good enough.

2. What are a few songs you’d include in a middle-of-the-road playlist?

My mind went completely black at this question! Not sure if there's a specific meaning, and can't be arsed to google it and so I'm choosing to answer as if it meant the sort of music you don't much pay attention to and acts more as just background noise, or waiting music... I can't name any music because none of it sticks in my mind after! It's always something so mediocre and boring I can't remember, or a weird, awful rendition of a popular piece of music that I hope to never hear again. All my own music has meaning to me, and I choose what I listen to according to my mood, never to just fill in silence. I have no middle-of-the-road playlist at all!

3. What is the most ordinary thing about you?

This should propably be asked from somebody who knows me... I'm quiet, bookish, nerdish person who prefers to go about her day without attracting undue attention and I think that's pretty ordinary. When I was still working, I was what is (or at least was at the time) considered a typical librarian.

4. What do you like most about an average day?

I guess the freedom I have in doing things at my own space. But there are also bad sides to this freedom because it's brought on by illness, and not having ability to work/hold a job anymore.

5. What do people seem to think is wonderful while you think it’s just okay?

Bright summer sun and heat! The brightness is at "okay" for me, but the warm very easily crosses into "heat" and "horrible".

Today's been a lousy day :cry: And I also had a scare.

Migraine attack slowly started during the night, and trying to sleep it away didn't work this time. It has eased up, but head feels nasty and like it would start again at any moment. I'm also sweating, sort of out of breath and feeling like I've been wrung inside out. Really fun because I had to go grocery shopping and the pharmacist today. It's weird that several times now when I'm having a migraine attack, my body seems to go weird: feeling hot and sweaty, feeling out of breath and breathing a little heavily/panting lightly. And often my it seems to my bowels activate and I have to go to the toilet several times. I can't tell if that last one is actually because of Crohn's Disease - it could very well be! But I've read that migraine is a whole systemic thing, so maybe it can trigger bowels to go often too, I don't know. Either way, it's bothersome.

Rambling about the scare bodily functions caused me today and the toll daily taking of pills cause. And how the body seems to go out of whack only at inconvenient times. All behind the cut.

My pee has also been an unusually bright yellow today, like it was back in 2008 three weeks before all this sickliness started. That quite scared me today. When I had the liver and other problems in 2014 and was hospitalized for a week, I can't remember if my pee was yellow (I think it was) then but my poo sure was, and although the liver problems were able to be resolved at the time, there's a danger of them renewing so I've been told to keep an eye on poo and call in if poo goes yellow again, in addition to having to take bloodwork every three months to check on the liver. But I can't remember if I'm supposed to keep an eye on pee too! Other than to make sure I drink enough. Some of those liver bloodwork numbers have been a little elevated (but "tolerated"), except at the end of February they had switched around - AFOS is usually normal but now it was elevated, and ALAT which is usually elevated was now normal. The Doctor couldn't say why, but that we need to keep an eye on it and it continues, do some MRI I think it was. And now today the yellow pee thing. I've also had to poop four times today which is within my normal range, and I checked the color and so far it hasn't been yellow but also within my normal range. Which is a relief. But it's a scare and a source of stress because now I have to keep checking how this develops and try to decide if/when to contact my hospital.

Also, it's Easter starting tomorrow and until Tuesday so a bad time as far as healthcare goes. And the nurses have been on strike since April 1 - that ends today at midnight, but the strike will continue again next week if employer and employees can't come to an agreement. I'm all for the nurses on strike - their paychecks are bad, working conditions poor and they're always understaffed - but at the same time for me as a patient is a really bad time to have to go the hospital if that becomes necessary for me. I'm mad at the employers for making the strike necessary. Fingers crossed pee/poo doesn't develop into anything and I won't have to go to the hospital. My next bloodwork should be in middle-to-late May but so far I haven't gotten the letter. Usually I get it right after the previous one, but now there's the strike and COVID-19's been fucking hospitals up so everything's delayed, I understand that and there's no hurry because the lab visit is at least a month away still. But still!

Why is it that every damn time my body decides to go out of whack it's always on early morning before busses run, or on the weekend, or during some holiday or a strike?? Why can't you do it on a nice working Monday, body? Outside of holiday season and when there isn't anything out of the ordinary going on?? Must you be so inconvenient?

I'm so tired of having a nice, steady little stretch of time where my symptoms are steady and managed and I only have to think about them a little - and then suddenly having a scare because some lab work is alarming, or symptoms freak out. I know it's all part and parcel of having Crohn's and other chronic illnesses, and actually everything's been pretty steady for about a year. Except that I've been exhausted (but that's nothing odd - I've been exhausted for a decade now), and then getting to try out Ajovy and given an iron infusion - both of which are good things, but not exactly restful because with all new drugs you take you have to keep an eye on any side effects they might cause and that might require action, and what, if any, good effects they have on my health problems. So there's always something going on, you can never just rest and go about without care.

People who don't have to take pills every day, often don't realize how much mental effort and energy just that takes. You have to remember to take the correct pills at correct times: I have to take pills three times a day, every day at certain times. Then there is also the medicinal fiber supplement I have to take at a certain time each evening. Then there are also the optional, additional pills that I take only as needed when my symptoms indicate it - so I have to realize in time that pooing is going towards diarrhea, and I need to take Lopex to prevent that from happening. And that yes, this headache is actually worsening into a migraine, instead of my normal background headache, so that I may the migraine pills early enough for them to do what little good they do. So I have learn my symptoms, how they develop, how long it'll take for a said medication to take effect so I can time it correctly. I do all this every day, almost instinctually now and as long as symptoms are steady, I don't actively think about it much, it's just in the back of my mind because if it isn't, I'll find myself on the toilet for hours or in the middle of an horrible migraine attack. Getting to this state took several years of trial and error, and paying very close attention to my body and it's behaviour. And even though it's easier now because of all the work me and my doctors have done to get my symptoms under control as well as possible, a lot of my energy goes into maintaining that. There's also the guilt of needing to take so many pills for my migraine - Crohn's and migraine are very bad things to have in the same person, because Crohn's makes it so that the bowels don't like NSAIDs or a lot of other medications, and chronic migraine means taking a lot of pills. I'm allowed NSAIDs by my gastro doctors because triptans and other migraine attacks meds don't do anything for me, so it's NSAIDs or nothing for me and when I try to cope without NSAIDs, the migraine attacks don't go away at all even with preventives I'm on. So all the various medications I use takes a lot of energy and worry and balancing things.

That got more rambly than I meant to be. Guess I had things to say, usually it helps to write and post them out to get them off my mind. I'll stop now!

Answers to this week's questions at TheFridayFive@Dreamwidth.

1. Do you like children?

I suppose they're okay in very small doses if needs must, but I don't really like children.

2. How many children would you like to have in the future?

I'm child-free so zero.

3. What if you were expecting sextuplets?

This is unlikely to happen because I'd be on birth control. But if it did, abortion most likely. The thought of one child is unattractive, sextuplets go right into nightmare realm.

4. If TLC offered to share your life on TV, would you accept the offer?

I don't know what TLC is, but I don't want my life on TV, so the answer is no, I would not.

5. What would you name the sextuplets?

If for some reason I was forced to carry the pregnancy to term and birth them, I'd give them out for adoption. I doubt I'd give them names.

Answers to this week's questions at https://thefridayfive.livejournal.com/201437.html

1. What does the outside of your house look like?

It's a four story apartment building, in a circle with 3 row/terraced houses, of the type where the hallways are open and unheated, and the front doors opens directly to outside. It's red and white and there's a tower housing the lift and stairs to stories 2-4.

2. Which room do you spend the least time in?

Technically: the sauna (I only go there to vacuum).

3. Which room do you spend the most time in?

But I guess these two questions mean "living space" in which case my answer is I spend roughly 50% in the bedroom and 50% in the kitchen/living room. I have a small apartment with only the bedroom, bathroom and the sauna as their own rooms (they have doors). The kitchen and the living room are one continuous space with the entry to the apartment along with a tiny foyer/hallway with just enough for shoes and outdoor clothes rack and two tall cabinets to the side. My kitchen table is a meter from from my living room couch. So I don't have choice where to spend time in, especially since I try to dedicate the bedroom only for sleeping (and reading real books).

4. Is your home in a convenient location?

Yes, very.

It's only 15 minutes (25 minutes during rush hour) to the city center by a bus that goes by every 7 minutes during work days for most of the entire day, and in addition there's also three other useful-to-me bus lines going past my building every hour - one of which is a service line directed especially to older people and those the sick or have challenges in moving, but everyone is welcome to use it. It's just slow. It goes to a on hospital on top of a big hill, a couple of different department stores at opposite sites of the city and goes through many smaller streets that normal bus lines don't, and it also picks up and lets out people between stops unlike the normal busses. It takes an hour to get to the city center using this bus, versus the 15-25 minutes on the normal bus. It's usually less crowded than normal busses, and drivers drive much more gently and smoothly, and are more quick to help if you need help getting say, a wheelchair inside or off.  And also there's also a school bus line for those who have young children that goes by my building but not having kids I obviously don't have experience about that. And the bus stops going both directions are literally in front of my building!

There's a small shopping center a 5 minute bus ride away (15 minute walking distance for me) with a good shop for everyday groceries and such, as well as a post office and pharmacy which I'm real happy about because I have to get things from the pharmacy several times a month, and my packages arrive to that post office so it's easy for me to pick them up whenever I'm doing my regular shopping. I mainly use this small shopping center for all my needs.

There's two big department stores by different chains 5-8 minute car or bus drive away, and the only negative thing is that the big department store I prefer (because it's cheaper than the other one) isn't reachable by one bus but needs three and takes half an hour one way even though by car it's only 8 minutes away. Back when I had a car I shopped there 2-3 times a month  - it was nice to do the big weekly shop there, and then do small additional shops/pharmacy runs in the small shopping center near me. Now that I don't have a car and depend on the busses I use the other more expensive one, but luckily it's in a bigger shopping centre with a satellite library, pharmacy, SpecSavers and other eye glass shops, many shoes and clothing shops, and shops like Clas Olsson, and smaller specialty shops like a shoemaker who fixes old shoes and bags and things and cafes and restaurants so usually if I'm shopping for those things, that's where I go.

The city library has two mobile libraries which drive around all around the city every day. One of them stops 2 minutes away from me on Thursdays. The only down side of the mobile library is that if you have books on-hold waiting to be picked you can only do it on Thursdays for 30 minutes, so at some point I switched mostly using the main library in the city centre where I can pick them up at any day and which is open from 9am to 8pm on work days, and less but still 6 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. But I could get by only by using the mobile library if I wanted to!

It's also convenient that my GP and laboratory and one of the hospitals (there's two hospitals I need to go to both of which are easy to get to without needing to go through the city center) are on the route to the city centre, along with my hair dresser and the art supplies store where I buy acrylic paints etc.

My Mom also lives fairly close to me - when I was healthy, I'd always walk to her place and that'd take me about 35 minutes. I've always walked rather slow, and when my Mom, whose always walked fast (except those years when her Beagle was still alive when she walked her pace and that was slow because you, Beagle and her nose), walks over to my place, she takes about 20 minutes. So at a normal walking pace it'd probably take somewhere between those times. Maybe someday I can go back to walking to Mom's again. Now I take the bus, and so have to go through the city center.

So yes, my home is located very conveniently! Everything I need frequently is at most 30 minutes away by bus. It's such a good location that every time I've thought of moving, none of the apartments I've looked at have come to even close to being as conveniently located as this. I'm really spoiled as far as access to busses and convenient shopping/pharmacy/post office goes! And I didn't even plan this when I moved - I only checked that a bus went by three times an hour and that there was a shop close by, and that this was close enough but not too close to my Mom's. It's been very pleasing to realize once I got ill and need for all the hospitals and labs and doctors came into the picture, that I could get to them easily and quickly.

All this and I don't even live in the city center, but in one of the suburbs with greenery around me, and even a couple of working fields.

5. What is the color of your front door?

It's white.

Today's questions over at f.riday5.com. Image from Pixabay.

1. When did you most recently swing on a swing?

A few years ago, before my Mom and her SO sold their summer place. Before they sold it, they had a three-seater swing and Mom and me would sit in it swinging for hours and talk about anything and everything. But they're both getting old and don't want to have as much things that need moving/putting together/big storage space anymore, and that swing was cumbersome to move and store so they sold it with their summer place because it was an easy way to get rid of it. I've personally never had a backyard big enough for any kind of swing, and even if I did, there's nowhere to store it for winter in an apartment building.

2. On what issue have you teeter-tottered?

Whether we (Finland) should join NATO or remain neutral. Especially since Russia's war on Ukraine but also before the war. (I'm not sure... Did I understand teeter-tottering correctly?)

3. How close is your residence to a park, and when did you last visit?

Parks are not really a thing in our family. So much so that I don't actually know which park is the closest - there aren't any that I can think of within walking distance even though I've lived here 20+ years. We have smaller and bigger woodsy areas all around with smaller as well as bigger walking/running/skiing paths and glades, just not parks that I can think of. I also can't think of when I last visited a park - probably when I was a kid? I've gone through while walking or cycling, but we've never really gone for parks for outdoor activities/to spend time in my family. Our trips have been usually to beach, or to the castle ruins, or back when I was a kid, to our camping area. Some of them might be in a park/adjacent to a park, I guess, or the trip there takes us a through a park, but it never really registers as such for me because the park isn't the destination. It's just grass and green and maybe some flowerbeds and benches somewhere.

4. How capable are you with a charcoal grill?

Not at all. I've never used a grill - have never owned one, charcoal or otherwise. It's not allowed in my apartment complex.

5. With what are you playing hide-and-seek?

Hmm, I'm going to say creative energy... some days it's just gone, while other days I'm happy to play in Photoshop or physical drawing/painting for hours. Really, just energy in general...

I was given the iron infusion yesterday :-D It went well, no allergic reaction or anything! The only problem was the nurse had trouble finding a vein (which has been happening more and more for the last year) and the first vein she did find "broke". It took her a little over 15 minutes to find a vein that worked, at the back of my right hand. But then it all went well! The infusion itself took 35 minutes, and after I had to stay in for observation for half an hour... the whole thing took 1,5 hours all in all.

Now I'm just waiting to see what effect the iron infusion has one - so far no change in head ache, exhaustion or anything else. But the nurse did say that it might take a couple of days before I'll feel any change, and I've also read many, many accounts of other people's experiences and know that there might a big change, a little change or no change at all. And that things like fever, even worse exhaustion and headache are all possible in addition to good changes while the body processes the wow, there's suddenly lots of iron! I also know that many people have also needed more than one infusion because their iron deficency is so deep and has lasted a long time (years/decades). So I'm watching with an open mind and cautious optimism :-) 

Image from Pixabay. Because I love Beagles and there's very few things sweeter than a sleeping Beagle.

Answers today's The Friday Five questions over at Dreamwidth.

1. How many hours a day/night do you usually sleep?

This wildly varies... 0-18 hours. I have waves of insomnia when I don't sleep at all for up to four days, and then when I can sleep, I'll sleep for close to 20 hours straight only getting up to take my meds and use the toilet. My sleep quality is bad; a lot of the time I have trouble falling asleep. And in any case, whether I do have trouble or not, I keep waking up at least every few hours, sometimes even twice an hour. I don't ever wake up refreshed and rested. Sometimes it's all due to Crohn's Disease symptoms, other times due to migraine/head pain, and yet other times there doesn't seem to be any reason that I can tell. I'm always exhausted.

I do know that I need 12 hours of okay sleep to feel somewhat rested and human. If I get less, I feel like a corpse. Also, when I sleep very poorly, I see lots of dreams and feel like I've lived another life in my dreams instead of rested. The dreams are always the kind I like to watch as tv shows and movies: action, adventure, scifi so at leas they're fun to have.

I was tested for sleep apnea and I don't have it, although the test was done during my worst time of insomnia and I felt like I maybe sort of slept for three hours that night, so I'm not sure how they could tell. But that's what they told me.

I so miss the years (before I got sick) when I had no trouble sleeping, and always slept well! It's been bad for more than a decade now. I've read that iron deficiency can cause sleeping problems, so I'm cautiously hoping the the infusion next week will help with this!

2. What do you do when you can't sleep?

Depends - is it my first night? I might read or watch tv, maybe write thought dumps in my journal or paint with watercolors, or color in coloring books. If it's been going on for a while already, I lay in my bed in the dark and quiet, and just rest. I've found if I do this, even if I can't actually sleep, I'll feel better the next day.

3. How often do you devote time to just thinking about something?

I suppose this happens naturally at some point every week. I don't usually have to plan it since I'm just at home and can do whatever I want whenever I want to/need to. If it's something with external pressure, like filling in a complex application for rehabilitation or something else that requires thinking of all the reasons why I should be approved, and how to word them most effectively, and how to show my motivation... those are the times I devote special times to think about and plan, to make a draft. I always try to do it with time to spare, so I don't have to rush and because these days, due to the exhaustion, I often can concentrate on intense thinking only for a short time, like 30 min, before I'm wiped out. So I do it over several sittings.

4. If you had to choose one person to never talk to again, who would you choose?

There's no one I know I'd be okay never talking to again without a reason for a break-up in the relationship. So it'd have to be someone I talk casually to but don't know personally. Maybe a cashier in the shop?

5. If you had to choose one person, NOT your significant other, who you would speak to every day for the rest of your life, who would you choose?

My Mom!

Image from Pixabay.

Had my yearly check-up with my gastroenterologist yesterday, and he finally decided, after personally following my struggle with iron deficiency for about three years, that an an iron infusion is indicated in my case, even though technically I don't fulfill the requirements of VSSHP (my hospital region) My hemoglobin is ok right now (six months ago I had anemia), but my iron is currently 38  (30 is empty/no iron in cells at all so 38 is really bad) and it took me over a year to get get to that from 9 (normal rate is 5-10 a month with oral supplements, if it worked like it should, it'd be 60 at minimun. And it keeps plummeting immediately if I pause the supplements). I've been hoping for an iron infusion for at least five years!

IBD patients are recommended to have at least 100 even in literature, but talking to other Crohn's patients here, it's like that ruling doesn't exist and majority seem to have levels between 2-50 and doctors say it's okay and normal :-|  It's also notable that practically every one of these patients I've talked to is a woman - there's been like 2 men, and dozens of women.

I've personally been struggling with low iron/hemoglobin levels for 20 years now... and probably long before because I would faint/almost faint during my period despite not having that much pain, and my periods used to be heavy, but I didn't know anything about anemia or iron deficiency until 20 years ago when I first had to take an oral iron supplement for more than a year because of iron deficiency. Then after, I kept having to take courses of them every year, and still my hemoglobin would plummet. I was even admitted into hospital in 2008 because my hemoglobin was dangerously low (the nurse who called the lab results said that I must to come to the hospital right now at 8pm, because if I got into an accident I might bleed to death just because my hemoglobin was so bad). That hospital trip is the time from which all my health problems started one by one.

Iron deficiency is a very controversial medical issue here, with general consensus among doctors basically being that it doesn't matter, only anemia matters. Only  a few doctors think good iron levels are important in general, and even fewer think that good iron levels are possible for IBD patients, and if necessary,  to treat IBD patients with infusions regularly if they are not. To tell the truth, I'm not even sure my gastroenterologists would have paid as much attention to my iron levels if I didn't always bring it up with them in each yearly check-up and complain about the exhaustion, headaches, brain fog etc. So now that I'm going to get an iron infusion "to see what it does" and "if your levels get better/stay up", I feel like I've won a small battle! He said that it's going to be a small infusion (which I guess is better for in case there's side effects, but may not be enough if the iron deficiency is serious and/or has continued for years). But small is better than none, so I'm happy! And very curious if it'll do anything to my daily background headache.

Otherwise, other labs are mostly okay - AFOS is a tiny bit elevated and needs to be followed to see how it develops, but he said there's no reason for alarm yet.  ALAT and AFOS (both labs are to do with the liver) are checked every three months anyway, and we'll keep doing that. ALAT has been acting weirdly the last year or so - it used to be elevated (but tolerated because of the meds I'm on) but suddenly the last year it's been anything from 25 to 72. So it's been going up and down a lot. He couldn't really explain it. Just that if AFOS stays elevated, then MRI needs to be done because liver related diseases are relatively common in IBD patients.

But the really big thing yesterday was the iron infusion news :-D They should send the invitation letter for the infusion inside the month. I'm happy and excited and also a little anxious because anaphylactic shock is always possible... but mostly I'm excited! This has the possibility to improve my quality of life a lot, if it helps with the exhaustion!

Oh, and wanted also to mention - I only had two actual migraine attacks in February! Ajovy does seem to be working!!! :-D