Testing Testing Testing

When I went to see my general practitioner in August, it was a pretty good day. I was not "bonking," as I'd come to call it. Bonking is a term cyclists use when they have hit the wall and feel they can not pedal one more round on the pedals. All energy is completely depleted. There is nothing left. This is how the fatigue episodes seemed to me.

But on the first day I saw my doctor, I was feeling pretty good. I told him about the fatigue episodes and the mental confusion. I speculated about menopause. He said his immediate suspicion was the same.

But testing to rule out other things was the first step. Thyroid was top on the list. And there were a host of other things he checked for. I don't even remember all of it. I have a history of high cholesterol, for which I take Zocor. And an above-average inflammation number, so that pops me into a slightly elevated risk category for heart conditions. He also checked hormone levels, but those results would only be a snapshot of where things were the day the blood was drawn.

No red flags were raised.

About the time the test results came back, I was bonking again. I was working on an enormous project, organizing a community festival to benefit our library. I was working with a friend on this project, and she and I were also running a separate committee to spearhead a capital campaign. (We were raising funds to build a branch library in our community)

The endless meetings and working with people, organizing an event of that magnitude, was absolutely exhausting and scary. I would receive long emails with so many questions and when I was in this state of fatigue I could not even comprehend what the writer was saying or asking. I had to make many decisions each day about all aspects of the event and each one was seemingly beyond my capacity. I was working with some unusual people, too. There were many days when my friend would just take stuff from me and handle them. Days when I would forward emails to her and ask her to read them and tell me what to do.

She was a life-saver. A mind-saver. A sanity-bringer.

I went back to the doctor in the middle of one of these episodes. He could see by my face and expressions and listlessness that things were not deal-able. And so we discussed options.