It’s crazy how one thing being wrong can throw everything out of whack.

At the end of

December in 2021 I started getting out of breath easily, and more tired. This made it really hard

to participate in dance, because I wanted to practice to my full extent but I would get dizzy and

wouldn’t be able to breathe. Gradually I got worse and soon it was the middle of January and I

was out of breath and from doing simple things, like going up the steps or walking. My mom

scheduled me a doctors appointment at Rejuv, a functional medicine clinic.

I had two weeks until the appointment but I was almost always dizzy, so it made things

difficult. On Monday, January 31, I had my appointment so I was getting ready. I went upstairs

and had to stop to breathe when I got to the kitchen. My body got super tingly, I could barely

hear, and my vision went blurry. I ended up passing out, and I don’t remember a lot but it was

really scary. I remember being on the floor, then on the couch next to my mom. After a while I

was able to finish getting ready and we left. When I got there they asked a lot of questions and

took vitals, just like any other appointment. At the end I had to get a blood draw so they could

check some of my vitamin, hormone, and other levels to try to figure out why I was not feeling

good. The doctor recommended I have an ultrasound done to make sure that everything looked

how it was supposed to on the inside.

So the next morning, at 7am, I had an appointment at a different hospital and during it my

mom got a call from Rejuv. They told her to take me to the ER right away because my

hemoglobin levels were critically low, 6.3 instead of the average 13. We ended up walking across

the clinic to the ER and waited for hours before I was taken into another room to get more labs

done. These ones showed my hemoglobin even lower, 5.9, and the doctor recommended I get a

blood transfusion. We agreed and a nurse prepped an IV and took me upstairs to another room
where I ended up getting two units of blood. It was a long day, over 10 hours, and I felt a lot

better when I went home that night.

When I went back to Rejuv for a lab review a week later, she told me that I had iron

deficient anemia. The root of all my problems was low progesterone levels which cause me to

have heavy periods, one lasting over two months. This caused me to lose too much blood, which

has hemoglobin and iron. This caused me to be dizzy, breathless, tired, pale, crabby, and more,

that I didn’t even realize until I got better. I ended up getting iron and progesterone supplements

which solved the roots of my problems instead of just covering it up.

This experience helped me discover that I want to be a pharmacist, and work with

medicine, especially natural and personalized ones. I want to be able to help other people feel

better, and learn how to help their body in the best way possible. I learned how different

hormones and vitamins can affect the body in different ways, depending on if they are too high,

too low, or normal. How one simple thing messed up, even just a little, can throw off others and

change so much.