Know Your Stats

As strange as this may or may not sound to you, it’s true, your body talks to you. Living with a chronic illness, one of the most important things you can do is listen to your body and know what it’s telling you.

When it comes to the human body, doctors are full of knowledge, and sometimes full of themselves as well. It’s up to you, however, to be an expert about your own body. After all, you have lived with it your entire life, and nobody knows your body better than you.

An important part of knowing your body is being aware of your vital information. Know what your temperature normally when you are and aren’t having a crisis. For instance, I typically run a temperature of 99.9˚ to 101˚ when in crisis. I know if it remains any higher than 101˚ for more than a couple of days I need to see my doctor. A prolonged temperature can be a sign of infection.

Being informed about where your heart rate and blood pressure normally register allow you to monitor your heart function. My blood pressure often hovers around 118 over 60. When the nurses take my blood pressure, they often ask if that’s normal for me. For most people, those numbers would be abnormally low. Because I’m informed about my vital stats, I’m able to keep an over eager nurse from socking me with the defibrillator paddles when she sees how low heart rate is.

When you’re familiar about where your hemoglobin level typically rests, you can prevent a doctor, who’s unfamiliar with your case, from treating you incorrectly. This has happened to me on occasion when I’ve visited a doctor or hospital that was unacquainted with my medical history. Upon seeing my hemoglobin was at 6.2, it was their insistence that I be admitted to receive immediate blood transfusion. Since I knew my hemoglobin at the time hovered around 6.2-6.8, I was able to avoid unnecessary blood transfusion and hospitalization.

Hopefully, from these examples, you can see how important it is to know your vital stats. If you don’t know what yours are, ask your doctor or nurse when you see him/her again. If you’re unsure what those numbers mean, have your doctor explain them to you.

Understand Your Pain

This is another key point to knowing your body. Doctors gain insights about your health when you are able to tell them where your pain is located and what it feels like. For example, it’s important to be able to explain to your doctor how a pain in your stomach is unlike your typical Sickle Cell pain. This will help him/her correctly diagnose if you’re having gallstones or simply ate too much junk food.

If, for example, you are having pain in your hip or back that feels different than a pain crisis, it’s wise to inform your doctor and describe the discomfort. Pain in those areas could be a sign of Avascular Necrosis. Early detection and cautious activity can prevent bigger problems down the road. Learn to understand what your body is trying to communicate to you through your pain.

Admittedly, sometimes it can be difficult to get a doctor to properly understand the pain you are describing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the following conversation when admitted to the ER:

“Are you having chest pains?” The nurse will ask.

“I’m having Sickle Cell pain, which is in my chest, but I’m not having chest pains in the way you mean.”

“So you’re having chest pain?”

“No. I’m having Sickle Cell pain, which happens to be located in my chest at this time,” and round and round we go with that. Typically, they hook me up to an EKG to make certain I’m not having a heart attack. My heart has hurt at times in the past, and that’s a very different feeling pain than Sickle Cell pain. But getting a medical professional to understand that I am able to tell the difference, is sometimes a challenge.

So, know your pain, and do you best to describe it to your doctors and nurses.

Remember How Your Body Reacts

In addition to the things I’ve already discussed, you should also know how your body responds to medications and treatments you’ve had in the past. Perhaps you have a certain vein in your left arm that is easier to draw blood from than any other place. Maybe you’re like I am, and they have to use a baby butterfly to get blood out of you. Whatever the key is to drawing your blood on the first try, know what it is and speak up. Tell them what does and doesn’t work for you. But be polite.

From your visits to the hospital, you may have learned one kind of pain medication works better for you than another. Remember what that is and keep your doctors informed. Allergies to food or medications and sensitivities to latex or other products are information doctors and hospitals need to have. It’s your responsibility to make sure they are aware of your needs.

It’s import to know and remember all you can about how your body responds to...well, everything. While in the hospital as a teenager, I had a scary reaction to a certain medication that caused me to lose control of my facial muscles. The more time passed, the more I looked like Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. A doctor was called into my room. He quickly recognized the problem and was able to correct it with another medication. Needless to say, I have always remembered the name of the drug that caused that scary reaction and make sure my doctors know I have an allergy to it.

Listen to Your Intuition

As you learn to listen to what your body is telling you, also learn to pay attention to your intuition. Whether you call it, God, your inner voice, spirit guide, intuition, or simply good judgment, often it will be your own personal insights that will give you the best direction. In order to live a healthy life you need to listen to your inner voice. I learned this lesson well when I was about twenty-five years old.

It was Valentine’s Day, so that meant it was winter and cold outside. I had been fighting a cold and I knew I shouldn’t go out, but it was Valentine’s Day and I didn’t want to disappoint my lady friend. Despite the warning I had from my body and going against my common sense, I went out that evening anyway. I of course had an enjoyable time with my friends, but the next day I was more ill than the day before. The night after Valentine’s Day, a friend called asking for a ride to some social event taking place that night. I told him I was ill and couldn’t do it. After pressuring me, I caved. I left my warm home and gave this person the ride he guilt-tripped me into. By the next morning I was in the hospital and stayed there for nearly a week.

I knew I shouldn’t have gone out those two nights. My body told me so. Wisdom told me so. But I didn’t listen and paid the consequences. I had forgotten a personal truth that my friend—now ex-friend—was ignorant to. That was, because I live with Sickle Cell Anemia, the smallest action can have the greatest of consequences to my health. Of course this is true for everybody, but it’s especially true for those of us living with a chronic illness.

So the moral of the story is, break your special friend’s heart on Valentine’s Day and tell your other friend to find another taxi service. Seriously, listen to what your body and your own good judgment is telling you. Doing so may keep you out of the hospital.