HEALTH AND SCIENCE

What We Learned When My Fiancée Was Hospitalised for Life-Threatening Anaemia

What is anaemia, what causes it, and how can we prevent it?

Ilayda two days before she was taken to hospital

My fiancée Ilayda was at work when our doctor called. “Stay calm and don’t rush”, Dr. Su said, “but you need to go straight to the hospital, because you’re severely anaemic and in danger of heart failure.”

After a few weeks of feeling fatigued, out of breath, unusually cold, occasionally dizzy, and having an elevated heart rate, we already knew something was wrong, but we weren’t prepared for such shocking news.

She had dangerously low levels of haemoglobin and red blood cells, and needed emergency blood transfusions.

For a young, healthy 26-year-old woman, the normal range of haemoglobin is around 119–160. Ilayda’s haemoglobin count was 54.

Her red blood cells told the same story. The healthy range is 3.8–5.8, and her red blood cell count was 2.5.

Ilayda still in good spirits during a heart test known as an electrocardiogram (ECG)

Our local doctor and the staff at the hospital were shocked by the numbers, the lowest they’d ever seen. It was scary to…