September 24, 2019 - 11 - "Eat Your Spinach"

     You probably come here looking for a little bit of distraction, maybe even actual entertainment, but this post is really more of a a Public Service Announcement:


     -Check your iron count.

     I tell this to anyone who will listen.  If it's someone who seems tired, I pretty much force them to listen.  If they tell me they want to sleep all the time I'm likely to get in their face about it.

     But I become a boarish bore with good intent.  I was born with anemia, and struggled with it on and off for the first 30 years of my life.  If I can keep just one person from sleepwalking through their days it's worth it to me to get the 'occasional drag' rep.

     I always say I slept through my 20's and it's closer to the truth than I like to remember.  I was constantly tired.  I just didn't know why.  I thought the anemia was a childhood thing only and it took a long to to realize how ongoing it was.

     A friend gave me a care package when I became a flight attendant.  It had stuff like cushy shoe inserts, moisturizer, aspirin, bunion pads...  It also contained a bottle of iron supplement pills.  Since I didn't realize this was my problem, I stuck them in the medicine cabinet and forgot all about them.

     Later when I found myself a few days from payday and short of cash I thought to go give blood.  A fellow flight attendant told me they paid $10 when you gave blood.  Woohoo!   (New-hire pay qualified you for food stamps in the state of New York then, probably still does.  I never knew of anyone who actually signed up for them, but the money struggles were real.)

   Anyway, 10 bucks cash was a big help.  Back then that would buy you 2 subway tokens, a slice of pizza, some fruit, and a small bouquet of flowers. 

 
    Turns out I was denied the privilege of exchanging my blood for cash because my iron count was so dramatically low.

     That's when I dug out that bottle of iron pills.

     I didn't really notice the subtle improvement as I started taking them, but when I ran out it was obvious almost immediately.  It occured to me in retrospect:  'Hey!  I haven't been sleeping 12 hours straight and still waking up tired!'

     I invested in another bottle and have been religious about checking my counts since. 

     If you sleep more than you like, have less energy than you'd like, if you're constantly cold...just consider checking this out.

     ...and now back to our regularly-scheduled programming.

"The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results."

-Anthony Robbins