One of the scariest things we dealt with, with any of our 4 kids, was a serious bout of anemia with our youngest. At 13 months, she'd just had a check-up, and they told us that everything was fine. We'd been noticing that her color was off - she looked orange - so they did all the tests for jaundice and liver function (which were normal) and told us that she was probably eating too many carrots and sweet potatoes.
A friend, who's a nurse, saw her at church that weekend and said, "Do me a favor, and go back and ask for a blood test tomorrow." We did, and we got a panicked call from the lab that night at 9 p.m., asking us to get her to the ER right away. At the ER, they tested her again, and said, "This doesn't make sense. With levels like these, we'd expect her to be unconscious. Take her back to her regular doctor in the morning." She was happy, alert and playing, even though we'd had to wake her to bring her down. We discovered later that they'd privately decided that she wouldn't survive the night, and thought it was best if we were in our own home.
The next day, we took her to her dr first thing. He looked at the paperwork they'd faxed to him, and said, "This can't be right," and did another blood test. He finally said the word "anemia" after that test came back. He sent us immediately to the hospital for a transfusion. "Don't even go home to pack," he said. "Get anything you need later."
At the hospital, they did another blood test! (By then, we were thinking, "She's anemic, and you're taking MORE blood?") They hooked her up to the transfusion apparatus, and told us they had to do the procedure very slowly, over at least 14 hours, to prevent heart failure. I was thinking, "Heart failure? She's a happy, energetic 1 year old!" We were starting to freak out.
Then someone finally sat down and gave us some details. They kept doing the test over and over because they couldn't believe the results. Her iron was so low that they thought the level would automatically be fatal, that her blood simply couldn't carry oxygen any more. "Normally, you see levels like this in elderly patients, and it almost always results in coma and death," they told us. "In order for her to be awake and functioning, this has been going on slowly for a long, long time, giving her body time to adjust to the decreased oxygen." The next symptom, since she hadn't shown any others (aside from her color) so far, would be that she'd simply stop breathing, they told us. "And what if that happened while she was asleep?" I asked, and the answer was, "It's unlikely that she could be revived." They had no idea what had caused it or what would happen now. I'd never had a child hospitalized before, and I was pretty much losing my mind.
The nurses weren't quite sure how to keep her down and quiet for 14+ hours with a tube in her arm. "I've never done this procedure when the patient's awake," they told us. They did not want to sedate her. Finally, they wrapped a small board around her arm to keep it straight, and wrapped that in so much gauze that it looked mummified, so she couldn't pull out the tube.
The nutritionist went over her diet, and couldn't see a problem. We were still giving her formula instead of milk, and the nutritionist said, "This is what I gave my own kids." They tested her for human parvovirus, a relative of the parvo disease dogs get, since that was their best guess, but it came back negative. They called in a specialist from a hospital hundreds of miles away, and the specialist couldn't find the cause, either. They still, 10 years later, have no idea what caused it.
She went through the transfusion like a champ, and has never had any ill effects from the whole nightmare. She's extremely energetic and very bright. (When I took her out of public school to being homeschooling, they were preparing to test her for the "gifted and talented" program. Her teacher said, "I've never seen a stronger candidate for the program.")
She's 11 now, and has never had a recurrance. She's strong, healthy and happy, loves dancing, singing, horseback riding, pretty clothes/hairstyles/shoes/makeup, just like any typical girl.
I know you're probably terrified, but don't feel guilty!!
Your son should respond to the supplements. Ask his dr if anything occurs to you, enjoy him, and keep positive! :)