As the dusks settles into night

Computer dies in the silence

In the brightness of July, I sit in my darkened room as the apartment building creeks around me. The loudness of the intake and the coldness of the outake vents vibrates in my ears and shivers my bones. By the end of day my joints hurt. It was about two weeks ago that my doctors found out the my red blood cells were not working properly.

I have gotten so much helpful advice from people I see in the lounges or in the halls.

“I had that before,” the old man wobbled towards me. “The doctor gave me iron and it cleared up quickly.”

I thanked him even though he was the twelfth person to give me that same suggestion. What can you do?

I’ve been hoping that when they took me off Valcyte, CMV virus medication, that I would get stronger immediately. It hasn’t happened. The fatigue is slightly less, but I still wake up with a headache and I still get tired enough that I need naps.

So when no one, especially my doctors don’t give me useful information except that it is anemia, I go looking myself. I look at google and then I take that information of names and words to the hospital sites—

I won’t be able to see the hemotologist until July 31st. The week before his office will take my blood. I’ll get real answers then. I’ve gone to this hemotologist for awhile now.

Red Blood CellsPhoto by ANIRUDH on Unsplash

Until then I scare the sh-t from myself. There seems to be at least three types of anemia. Most people now of the one that most people get when their iron is low. My iron is too high, my B vitamins are way too high, and etc. All of the markers except for the low RBCs are high. So no, I don’t have that one. That would be the easy one to treat.

I don’t remember the next one, but according to the write-up, I don’t have that on either.

So the only one that even ticks the boxes is aplastic anemia. This is the one that can be caused by failing kidneys, medications, etc.

This is the definition from Dr. Sumit Kapoor:

Aplastic anemia is a disease in which the body fails to produce blood cells in sufficient numbers. All type of blood cells are affected including red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets. Blood cells are produced in the bone marrow by stem cells that reside there. Thus their production is affected. It is more common in teens and in elderly.

This is the kind of anemia that sometimes need a blood transfusion and at the worst a marrow transplant. So enough scaring for today. I’m hoping that whatever I must do will help what is happening now.

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In my daze I’ve been playing a few games to keep myself awake. The game computer which I put mostly puzzle and merge games died yesterday at seven+ years old. It was the only computer I had that had a touch screen.

The power connector died and I couldn’t charge it anymore. I used to be a computer hardware tech, but when a chrome dies, unless you have a lot of the expensive parts, trying to fix it is expensive and in my case not worth it.

So it is going to that computer heap in the sky.

Coffin carried by New Orlean male dancers through the streets

RIP Chrome.