Ferrous musings from the CABG patch

Just over a fortnight ago I had a two vessel coronary artery bypass graft. I was back home on the sixth day after the operation, and the community cardiac nurse visited six days later. Among other things, she took a blood sample because she thought I looked anaemic. This was not a surprise, because my wife had commented for a few days on my pallor, and I had that very morning checked my conjunctivas and found them pale. My haemoglobin concentration came back at 86 g/l, while red cell volume was in the normal range. The community nurse duly asked my general practitioner to prescribe iron supplementation, my GP did so (as I would have done in her …