I’ve known for a long time that I’m not the healthiest guy around. I’ve been a Type II diabetic – afflicted with what we used to call Adult Onset Diabetes, and before that, Senile Diabetes – for the past twenty years, and I started insulin earlier this year. I have a couple of conditions consequent on that, such as high blood pressure and minor tingling in my fingers and toes. I’ve also picked up a mild case of lymphedema, so I wear compression stockings to keep my ankles down to a reasonable size. Even so, I’ve always thought of myself as being in reasonable condition otherwise.

So, when my family doctor asked me to go in to repeat a couple of blood tests I didn’t attach too much importance to it. And this morning when she called me up to ask how I was feeling, I blithely answered “OK, pretty good, I guess.” Which turns out to be somewhat incorrect.

It seems I’m severely anemic, to the extent that, if I should feel a little dizzy, I should hie myself off to a hospital rather than book an appointment to see her. And in the meantime, stop drinking coffee or tea, start taking as much iron as I can, and get ready to see a couple of specialists lest I bleed out where I sit, because with numbers from the tests, it looks as though I’m leaking internally, even if I thought I was ok a few minutes ago.

“You’re sure you haven’t been dizzy? Or fatigued?” Well, not to speak of. I mean, I don’t sleep much – it cuts into my reading – so of course I occasionally nod off. And that’s part of being diabetic anyway, isn’t it? And dizzy? Isn’t that what I can expect, given that I take meds to control high blood pressure caused by diabetes? Apparently, “No,” to both questions.

So now I’m taking another set of pills, and I’m going to get poked and probed by another set of gloomy haruspicers. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.