A+ to B12, F- to Medicine

So thumbs up on the B12 shots. I just did the second one and there's definitely less razor-blades-slicing-muscle-fibers pain in my legs. And I've doubled my mileage in some of my biking sessions. I'm still slower than a dead turtle, but maybe there's hope.

It's been tough to gauge their effect because I've had issues after each shot. The first one, my husband gave me a horrible cold so there was never any energy boost.

The second one, the puppy kept us up for 2 nights in a row (and puked in our bed at 3am the one night because this is my life) and then the kiddo had one of her prolonged night terrors...so sleep deprivation killed any immediate energy buzz.

Point to the patient though for finding a way to make things better.

I saw a new primary doc who was fine. My blood test results just aren't showing up in my medical record though, which is frustrating. I hope the new primary isn't refusing to release them or something weird like that. (Can they even do that for regular blood work???)

The nurse did call me and say my iron had improved, my cholesterol had improved, fasting glucose was its usual high normal and said nothing about my thyroid (so I assume it was also normal).

But I want to know how much my iron has improved because I've been suffering through the process of getting it back up. I've been doing all the work. I want the payoff of seeing the damn number.  And I want to know how normal my thyroid is.

Because it is always the case that I pay more attention than the medical system does. I am the quality check. So give me data, please.

As for the iron...The iron supplements I've found that I can tolerate (in lower than recommended doses, I've never hit the 18mg they said I should take) are a dessicated cow liver pill (that could be filled with anything) and a liquid supplement called Floradix from Europe. I did a month of cow liver and am now on the Floradix which seems to be better regulated than the liver pills.

Again, point to the patient for not giving up and sticking with it to find something that worked.

In other news...

Publishing is going down the tubes for authors. The system serves Amazon's hegemony alone. I suspect I am going to go out of business. And I say this as someone who has built a great marketing coop with an annual advertising budget of $30,000. If the coop can't make a difference, there's not much else that will.

So I need to figure something out. The top earners in publishing are spammers and those few authors that break out in a big way. If I'm going to keep writing, I've got to pick one....and find another job to pay for the marketing.

Sigh. I'm working on a really cool series right now. I'm bummed that unless I come up with five figures in marketing money, it won't even have a chance.