“Did your mom come with you?” asked my family doctor as he stepped into the office. I nodded. “Go get her” he told me. My family got lots of test results from our family doc: everything from my lactose intolerance to my mother’s pregnancy (all those years ago) – he had was always the one giving us the news. This was the first time he asked me to call in someone else into the room….
Full medical disclosure and my reaction after the jump…
After I got my mother into the room, she was already prematurely shaking nervously, my doctor looked at my chart and chuckled a bit. “Your an interesting guy Shawn… I’ve never seen this before”. He paused for a second as if trying to figure out how to explain it to me – as if he was trying to find a way to explain it to himself first. After a moment’s pause, he just tossed the chart to me and started pointing at some numbers.
As he explained it, the human body has a normal level of iron within the blood. If it’s under 120 – you’re anemic. If it’s above that (but under 300) you’re either in the normal or in the excessive range. The doctor pointed to the top of the chart (as high as the scale went) “300 is considered excessive” he explained. He then looked at me and said “Your level is 812″.
I’ve actually know this news for months now. But I held off releasing this information to all but my closest friends because I didn’t want to sound alarmist (many of whom have dubbed me “iron man” now). How did this happen? The fact that my iron levels seem to be lowering considerably since returning home from Bangladesh suggests that it is most likely caused by the food and water (most likely water) that I drank in Bangladesh as opposed to any medical condition that I have inherited.
It seemed surreal to me: I had taken every precaution I could in Bangladesh – buying bottled water when possible to using LifeStraw to filter water when it wasn’t. But unfortunately, metals like arsenic and iron are one of those things you can’t get rid of from water without expensive distillation – the kind you can’t get in Bangladesh. Even boiling the water – which kills bacteria – actually just concentrates metal content.
So what does this mean for my health? For starters, according to the specialist I saw (and seen in one of my previous videos), I have abnormal liver function test results from this iron poisoning. If I can’t keep the levels down – something which will be tough to do if I return to Bangladesh – I can be at risk of organ failure in the liver, kidneys, or heart.
This has also got me thinking. I had the luxury of modern Western medical technology to learn about this problem. What about the countless people in Bangladesh drinking the same metal heavy water? This has got me thinking. Remember the story of the young widow who I helped in Tangail district? I thought it odd her young husband would die of organ failure at such a young age. And, whenever I visited that area, I would always complain about how the water there (I would often drink from tube wells there) tasted like licking a rusty pipe. Maybe what doctors over there calling appendicitis or heart disease is actually due to the water?
As the personal, medical, and financial cost of this project continues to rise, I feel even more compelled to keep on doing this. Afterall, the people I’m trying to help don’t have the luxury of flying away on a jetplane…
