Depressing Weather and the B12 Issue.

There are four things which make my old house cold: low outside temperature, lack of sunshine, rain, and wind – especially an east wind. Today was cold, wet, windy (from the east) and very dark. How do you think the house feels?

The temperature in my office is 16.5°C at the moment, which is apparently 1.5° below the tipping point at which the cardiovascular system begins to operate less effectively and affect the whole body, especially brain function. It’s said to cause particular problems for those with cardiovascular issues, which I have. So how do you think I feel?

This afternoon I had a call from an admin person at the GP surgery. She said I needed to make an appointment to go in for another blood test. I had the last one less than a week ago, so my suspicions were raised. And when my suspicions are raised vis-à-vis a health issue, the stress levels go up again. The caller could give me no more information, so I had to leave it at that.

But I wasn’t prepared to leave it at that. I called the surgery back and asked to speak to someone who could tell me what was going on. Was there a problem with my liver or kidney (I only have one), or was my red corpuscle count down, or had some other serious issue been picked up from last week’s test? ‘No,’ said my informant, ‘nothing serious at all. It’s just that your vitamin B12 looks low and we want to double check it.’ I know nothing about vitamins so I naturally enquired as to the deleterious consequences of a lack of vitamin B12. ‘Oh, tiredness, lack of energy, possibly depression, that sort of thing.’

Tiredness? Lack of energy? Depression? Ha! My life in less than a line of type, and possibly all due to B12 deficiency. I’ll go for the test. Here’s hoping.