🌀 Mood: Frustrated, overlooked

The first time I sought medical help for my back pain, I went to urgent care. The muscle spasms had become unbearable, and I knew something wasn’t right. They took X-rays and told me my spine looked good — no breaks, no damage. Just muscular. The provider was kind and said she could tell I was in real pain, even if it didn’t show on the scan. She prescribed steroids and muscle relaxers and sent me on my way.

The meds helped — for a while. The pain went away for a couple of weeks. But then it came back… in other places. Different parts of my back started spasming, and the relief I’d had didn’t last. Over the next five months, I saw five different doctors. Doctors 1 through 4 all told me the same thing: muscular pain. They upped my medications. More muscle relaxers. More anti-inflammatories. But no one could tell me why it wasn’t getting better.

I asked each one of them if they could draw blood. I just felt like something else might be going on — but none of them thought it was necessary. “It won’t tell us anything,” they said.
Turns out, it would’ve told them everything.

About three weeks before my diagnosis, things took a turn.
I had been walking 2.5 miles around our lake regularly with no issues. But suddenly, walking up the stairs in my house left me winded. Completely out of breath. Then I started noticing other things — food and drinks tasted off. I was unusually tired. Not just tired — drained.

That’s when my husband stepped in. He could tell something had shifted and insisted I go back to the doctor — this time, someone new.

The fifth doctor was different.
Even before she ran any tests, she looked at me and said, “You’re really pale.”
She could see something was off just by being in the room with me. And that moment — that awareness — was the first time I felt like someone truly saw me. She listened. She took my concerns seriously.

“I think you’re anemic,” she said. “Let’s get some bloodwork done and confirm.”

So I did. I went straight to the lab and had my blood drawn. We headed home.
Fifteen minutes after we walked in the door, the results hit my Kaiser app.
Four tests. All abnormal.

And then the phone rang.
It was her. Doctor #5. Her voice was calm but urgent:
“You are incredibly anemic, and you need to go to the hospital immediately to get a blood transfusion.”

I was stunned. I mean, if you’re anemic… don’t you just eat some red meat? Take iron supplements? Get a little IV iron drip and move on? That’s what I thought.

I would later learn that there’s a lot more to anemia than iron.
We’ll get into that later.

But in that moment, all I could think was: I have to go to the hospital… for me?
I’d been in hospitals before — but always for someone else. My mother. My husband. Never for my own care. And now I was being admitted for a blood transfusion.

I didn’t even know what that meant. But I knew it wasn’t normal.
Later, I’d find out that my red blood cell count — which should be between 11 and 15 — was 5.
No wonder she sounded alarmed.

We grabbed a bag.
Got in the car.
And headed to the hospital.