real sick looking blood

So how about the time I was a 1st year medical student in Histology class. Well I will tell you. The entire class of 97 students is studying the microscopic appearance of human blood cells. Sounds innocuous enough as it was only the 1st week of school and we are all just getting to begin to know each other. We have no clue what we are doing so each group of 4 students shares a microscope and the Professor roams around helping out the helpless.
This is where the story gets crazy because I was the one who volunteers to have my finger stuck and my blood was smeared onto my groups slide for examination. We have the ability to review slides on an overhead projector(I am dating myself) to see what normal blood cells look like. Well much to my dismay the cells under our scope look nothing like normal cells. As a matter of fact they look very sick indeed. They are super small and all fragmented looking and I immediately think I am dying. My classmates are all crowding around to see my sick looking blood. Well, I gotta tell you I am not feeling real good at about this point and decide to call over the professor to come see and tell me that I am going to survive-I hope.
He immediately,upon seeing my cells, asks if the name Caralis is of Greek or Italian decent. I tell him of my Greek ancestry and tells me that I have a blood trait called Thalessemia Minor. So he also tells me I am fine and am going to live. What a relief. He tells me it is only a problem if I marry another carrier or if someone tries to fix it by giving oral iron supplements. That night I called my Mom and told her that her internist should stop killing her with iron for her anemia that cannot be fixed with iron replacement. She did not believe me of course because I was no doctor yet. I still don't think she thinks I am a doctor to this day. So I married a non-greek with good looking blood and lived happily ever after.