A lot of the time I'm frustrated that the people in our house leave the door to the living room unlocked, but tonight I was glad since there was no one home, it was raining, I had no keys, and one of the boys next door climbed up on to the balcony to let me in. Far be it for me to be security conscious.

Anyway, it was brought to my attention, that the last post I made was about the fairly dramatic fainting-at-work episode, and that I haven't posted for a while since then, and that the reason for that might be that I had died. Clearly that isn't the case.

But I did find out the cause of the fainting: I really tried to put it down to not eating enough that day etc, but I did go to the doctor the next day because I still felt awful, and she made me have some blood tests. Turns out I'm severly anaemic, not just the kind where your haemoglobin is a bit low, but so bad that my iron storage level, which for most people is in the range 15-200, was 4, and my serum level, which is supposed to be 15-25, was 3. My red blood cells had gone pale because they had so little haemoglobin in them, and some were turning elliptical and staining the wrong colour when they tested them. Still, the doctor reassured me that it's only the second lowest she's ever seen.

So, the reason I was fainting was because I was getting no oxygen to my brain. Some of you may know that haemoglobin is a red iron-containing pigment that allows your red blood cells to bind oxygen molecules with high affinity. If you don't have enough iron, you can't make enough haemo, and you have not enough oxygen getting to important places. It actually explains a lot though, like the way my fingers and toes are always cold, to the point where they go white and numb; the splitting fingernails; the general feeling shit and tired all the time; and most strangely, my obsession with eating ice. Apparently, people with a nutritional deficieny sometimes develop a fixation for eating non-food substances like chalk, dirt, and ice. Laundry powder is another, and sometimes when I do the washing, the smell of it makes my mouth water. Mmmn.

Anyway, I'm on these really huge amounts of iron per day and I have to go and have some more blood tests in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime I can't tell if I really feel any better because I have exams at the moment and I'm stressed and feel like shit anyway. Oh well.

Also, we have a new possum in the bathroom cupboard. We named him Jim in honour of The Doors (well, to be honest, Robert named him and didn't give anyone else much of a choice: Simone wanted to call him Luciano). He's very cute.