Am I Making Myself Sick?

My doctor called me a few days ago, and while it wasn't with news that I was going to die, it wasn't great.

He'd received the results from my blood test, a follow-up to a similar 'check all vitamins and minerals' test about ten months ago. I'd asked for that first test because I've been a vegetarian for 26 years and thought it might be worth a once-over. I felt pretty rundown, and knew that over the years I'd probably done too little exercise, taken on too many energy-sapping jobs, and had gone through two pregnancies, two bouts of breastfeeding, a divorce and a fair bit of stress, all meat-free.

Suffice to say, doctors don't initiate calls when things are going well. My iron, zinc and magnesium were lower than they were last time. My vitamin D levels were dangerously low. My doctor sternly told me I needed to get a handle on this. I told him I'd been taking vitamins almost daily. In fact, for a good three months I had taken them daily along with tonics supplied by a naturopath and had been convinced I was on the road to robust good health. Evidently not.

So I put down the phone and wept. I know what these deficiencies do. I know I'm very tired and often struggle to get through the day (iron), making it hard for me to do my job, care for my children and stay on top of all the other stuff of life. I know I am prone to catching whatever ailment people around me have (zinc). I know what's causing my swinging appetite and fatigue (magnesium). And I know that vitamin D deficiency is serious because lately I seem to hear about it on the radio every day. I know it's often a deficiency shown in patients who have cancer, MS, and depression. It's enough to make you weep for days...and then wonder whether your emotions are real or the result of a random vitamin which one would think was common as muck since it comes from the sun for god's sake!

Can it be that my no smoking, no drugs, light drinking, fresh food yadda yadda vegetarian diet is bad for me?

The crappest thing about this is that I honestly thought I was 'handling' it. I thought I was boringly healthy. I see a naturopath, swallow all the goop she gives me, go out into the sunshine, eat tofu/tempeh/beans and take vitamins when I remember. But it's not enough, evidently, and his phone call, which also included the words 'serious', 'immediately' and 'every single day' brought up a whle lot of unpleasant issues for me.

I don't want to eat meat at all, ever. I eat fish every now and then, having reintroduced it to my diet some years back, under duress (breastfeeding second time and chronically exhausted) and knowing how hypocritical it is since, no matter how smelly or stupid, fish are living things. And I don't want to eat living things. Now, both naturopath and doctor tell me I should eat fish three times a week - or more! - or I'm going to get very sick.

I've long wondered if my diet had some connection to my insomnia - and believe me, I'm aware of what a whining hypercondriac I'm sounding like right now - and I think it might. A lot of the women I know who are vegetarian suffer from sleep disorders. My doctor tells me there's no link but I'm not convinced. Especially knowing I'm not giving my body a lot of what it needs to function well in other areas.

But If I have to choose between being tired and weepy and keeping true to what I believe, I'm opting for an ethical life. I'm not being perverse - I just don't think I could face myself if I decided to fang into a T-bone so that I had more pep in my step, or so that I could make it to the top of the steps...

Starting yesterday, I have a daily schedule for my pill-taking. No more half-assed occasional vitamin taking; I'm treating them as essential. I'm acting like a drug addict or some crazed evangelical health nut. And I've marked a date, three months from now, for another blood test. It better be better.