It was a year-and-a-half since I last saw the cardiologist who tended to me six years ago when I presented at the Ottawa General Hospital in a state of profound collapse due to a plunging hemoglobin level caused by a bleeding stomach ulcer caused by the daily intake of low-dose aspirin as a prophylactic against stroke or heart disease. This was a long-scheduled appointment. When the cardiologist greeted us in the examining room he took a second look at my husband and asked why he was wearing his jacket, hat and gloves in the warm interior of the hospital.

My husband explained he had undergone open heart surgery two months previously and since then felt continually chilled. Due, we had understood, to a side effect of the Coumadin he was taking to prevent a blot clot from forming post-surgery that also replaced his mitral valve. The doctor said that it was likelier that it was a low hemoglobin count that was the culprit and mentioned that at one time it was common procedure at such surgical undertakings to transfuse blood.

A few days later as it happened, we had an appointment with our family doctor who had ordered a blood test for my husband to determine whether his medication was causing any irregularities; it's a standing joke with him that the Heart Institute only looks after the heart; for them all the peripherals in association with heart surgery are the bailiwick of the patient's family physician. Well, this family physician informed us that my husband's hemoglobin levels are indeed at an alarmingly reduced level.

He is, emphasized the doctor, in such a state of anemia that it's bordering on a need for blood transfusion. So he wrote a prescription for iron supplements and another blood test in a month's time to determine the progress but said that this is the reason for my husband's lack of energy, general inertia and constant need for warmth. I've been beefing up our daily diet with foods high in iron, but presumably it will take some time before  his iron stores become normalized and the state of anemia adequately tackled and solved.

For someone recovering from open heart surgery and feeling particularly vulnerable to the cold and labouring under a condition of low energy and general torpor, it's amazing to me what my husband has been accomplishing, from vigorous exercises, to shovelling out the walkway from accumulated snow in the backyard for our little dogs.

Amazingly, for him, he was agreeable to my shovelling the front walkways and the remainder of the snow, heavily infused with water now that it's gradually melting given a day of milder temperatures, just below the tipping point of freezing. While I feel energized doing things like that, under normal circumstances the labour-intensive work falls to him. And he wouldn't hear of my making such a physical effort under any other circumstances.

Both of us are eager to have his condition normalized so we can resume our daily walks together as is our routine taking our little dogs out for long forested ravine walks. Without him beside me those daily forays lack an ingredient vital to my pleasure and enjoyment, which I am anxious to have fully restored. Perhaps another month or so.