To: the bored people of this world that read my blog for entertainment and find that they were better off not to:
Yes I went vegan…for a day and failed. Literally! I’m not talking about the urge to eat ice cream, chocolate or what not. My body literally failed. Before I started this endevor I knew I was anemia and considering i’m studying to become a nurse I should have seen this coming.
I collapsed today at school in cry of an epigastic abdomnal pain. Embarassingly, it was after i just came out of the bathroom, and i collapsed in front of the sinks on the bathroom floor. Luckily the other person in the bathroom with me wasn’t someone from the unemployment center because they would have thought i died. Instead it was another nursing student who promtly ran grabbed a BP cuff, teacher, towels etc. They did my blood pressure, at first the poor teacher almost had a heart attack because it was 90/60 but then i reasured her my BP usually is low. Respirations were good. Radial pulse was the thing to worry it was 48. I was pale, diaphoretic. They put me into the nursing lab to lie down. After the abd. pain i somehow got back pain. And as I laid there all i could think about was "Damn why couldn’t it have been the thorasic area. Too many organs in the abd. area. Why the heck today anyways? Why couldn’t it have been friday when we actually have lab day and i could have had my stethescope." Nurses tend to be a different species from the world. They like to diagnoses. They want to know everything. A nurse never trusts anyone else to do a good enough job and they always want to check for themselves. I called my aunt. Told her i was sick. She said just come home (considering i drove). All i said was "that could be a problem" (considering the passing out the sudden urge to vomit). She came to pick me up, but not until she interrogated me with questions related to cramps, eating disorders, ulcers, kidney problems and just plain asking me what the heck i ate (like i said a nurse never lets anyone else do a job including interrogating the poor patient). I suddenly have a new empathy towards patients…
I was happy that by the time my aunt got there my blood pressure was back up, radial pulse was 63 and the pain almost subsided. Went to the doctors which is the second time this week, sixth time this year. One would assume that when one takes nursing one wouldn’t have to visit the doctor. Obviously i don’t follow the status quo (nor do i intend to). So I went to the doctors and saw the self automatic BP, curious since at the school i wasn’t allowed to take my own BP. I checked it. Happily it was up and ready, also decided i should check my blood sugar (it was 5). Satisfied, I went to the waiting room where i proceeded to rip out recipes out of the magazines (don’t tell anyone).
As for the results…….oh you want them? Everything is fine. It’s NOT: kidney stones, gallbladder stones, appendix or PMS cramps. Honestly I still don’t know what it was, could have been either an ulcer or my colon seized up. My doctor favors the colon seizure, he also said that the fainting is probably due to a vaso vagal nerve that i stimulated (u can look that up, don’t want to explain) and from the severe lack of oxygen due to the vegan diet and the persistent anemia that I have. The back pain is from either the ulcer or the colon seizing up since the pain would obviously radiate to the back.
As for the vegan thing he, (along with my teachers who are RN’s, and my aunt) think the vegan idea was not so smart. I have very low hemoglobin (Hbg) from my anemia this means I actually have less oxygen in the body. My O2 Sat would probably be 92% which is quite low. Without eating eggs, cheese or meat I increase the change of pernicious anemia by almost 70%. Even with iron pills i could end up still low of iron. So yup I was vegan all right…for a day and a half! As they say, "Do or die."
