Thalassemia

...my parents told me that i probably have thalassemia...yup, it's a disease. i wasn't born yesterday or the day before, why am i only now being told this may be a possibility??!! you're probably wondering how this all came about? welllllll,  it all started in january, with all the tons of snow that we got, one morning on my way to work, i fell down the front steps of my house almost killing myself, or so i thought at the time. i really just broke my tailbone (or i seriously thought i broke it, it hurt sooooooo bad!!) i can laugh about it now, but that fall was no joke!! a week later, i felt a small lump above my breast. i called my doctor with the quickness because i didnt know what cancer might feel like and i needed to be sure...by the time i got an appointment, it was 3 weeks after my fall (still in pain, of course) and 2 weeks after i first felt the lump...i was dying to get in there to tell her all my ailments! during the visit, she sent me for a sonography of the lump and a full blood workup... i had to wait a month to get results, this is crazy!! all i could think about was, if this is cancer how fast could it spread in a month???!!!! of course when you want time to fly that when it says, "forget you, i'm going to take my time," haha! it was one of the longest months of my life!! when i finally went back to hear my results 2 weeks ago, my vitamin d levels were super low...low like it should be 50 and mine was 6!!!! my lack of vitamin d was the reason it took almost 2 months to fully heal from the fall. my iron levels were also low (i wasn't really surprised since i've always been told that i was anemic). she asked me if i was taking iron to which i replied that i was taking it last year but it didnt have any effect so i stopped. she then wrote me a presciption for iron (3 times a day) and vitamin d (3 times a week)--who knew doctors could write a prescription for vitamins? anyway, when i told my parents about what the doctor said all they said was ohhh, thats alot of iron. be careful iron tends to back you up if you don't drink alot of water...omgoodness!!!!! gee thanks! i really wanted to hear that (actually, i knew that already though). yesterday they called me to say that they don't think i'm anemic and that i have thalassemia and that is why the iron didn't work when i took it last year... i thought they were making it up 'til i googled it...thalassemia is a blood disorder passed down through families which  causes the body makes an abnormal form of hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. i have a lot of the symptoms: constant fatigue (i could literally sleep allllll day, growth failure (is this why i'm so short??!!!!!!!!!!), shortness of breath when exercising, and yellow skin (i look almost sickly in the wintertime). well i'm off to find a hematologist (blood doctor), to find out if this is all true. wish me luck!!!!!


xo