Family Stories - Me and the Big Three

Family Stories

Me and the Big Three

I'm going to do something different this time and write about myself.  This is a part of me that I usually don't tell people about.  Don't know why really.

  When I was born I was apparently "normal."  I was cute and seemingly healthy.  When I was around 6 months old my mom felt that I was not being satisfied with her breastfeeding.  That I wasn't "thriving."  The doctor probably agreed with her, medical science being what it was at the time.  So I was switched to formula and my problems began.

   My parents tried many different kinds of formula until they finally found one that I could tolerate.  Apparently soy based formula was disliked by all of us.  It was in the middle of all that when I started getting sick.  It was finally diagnosed as a combination of asthma, allergies, and eczema.

   I caught colds easily and they quickly went into bronchitis.  I had problems breathing.  My parents took me to the ER many times, but never seriously enough to stay.  I usually responded to treatment.  I remember driving home from visiting relatives in San Diego one Easter.  I was having problems breathing (probably because I had been playing with their dog, one of my allergy triggers).  I had a basket of Easter chocolate that I couldn't eat because it was felt that chocolate was bad for my allergies.  It was a hot day and I had to watch my chocolate melting on the long trip home.

   Slowly I learned how to cope.  I was allergic to most animals, so no pets and I kept away from the pets of others.  I was allergic to trees, weeds, and grasses, so my parents sold our house and moved us to an apartment.  Always, always, I had my asthma inhaler on me.  When I started to get a cold it was treated right away.  Even if I didn't avoid bronchitis, I did avoid pneumonia (the next progression) and had milder bouts of bronchitis.

   But the big thing I had to learn was to control my emotions.  Strong emotions are a trigger for my asthma.  I don't think this was something my parents deliberately taught me.  I think it was something I worked out for myself.  This control of my emotions, to force myself to internalize what I was feeling has had strong effect on me.  In effect, I learned to compartmentalize many of my emotions.  That helped the asthma, but the internalization worsened my eczema.

   I should explain here that eczema is a skin disease.  It starts as a red patch, easily irritated by sweat and heat (which is why it is most often found in folds of skin).  When it's bad the skin looks raw and crusts over.  It's not pretty.  As it dries it will stick to clothes like socks.  And then break open again, painfully when you have to move again.

   

Despite all that, I survived.  I developed a very strong will.  My parents never treated me like I was anything other than "Normal."  When I was sick, I was sick, but otherwise, keep moving with life.  As an adult I am impressed with how my parents handled my illnesses.  They took me to so many doctors and specialists, trying to get me the help I needed.  I have no idea how much money they spent on my health, but I know it was a lot.  And the little stuff.  One of the better skin doctors told my parents that salt water was a great thing for me-ocean water.  So as soon as summer hit (and the ocean water was almost warm enough to get into), my dad would take a half day off from the family business to take me to the beach.  It apparently helped.  Many happy memories for me from those trips.  But mostly my parents did not treat me like a sick kid.

   And so, I tried to do sports.  My eczema and asthma didn't help, but I tried.  Basketball was not my friend, nor was running, but there were other things I could do.  I loved baseball until my vision got bad.  I got involved in Girl Scouting.  My day camp experience with Girl Scouts was pretty awful (a really steep hill to climb back up at the end of the day!", but they sent me to a 10 day residence camp anyway, which turned out to be one of the joys of my life.  I was always pushing myself to be as normal as possible.  I was not going to let my unholy trio of medical problems rule my life!

I lived in a time of increasing medical knowledge.  As I was growing up better and better drugs were being developed for my conditions.  My asthma came under control.  It was only a problem if I developed a cold or was over exerting myself physically.  There weren't good drugs for my allergies until I was into my adult years.  But there were new drugs, creams mostly, for my eczema.  Slowly my skin began to heal.  By the time I reached high school, I looked normal.

   However, with this new medicine there were new problems.  One of the best drugs also encouraged weight gain, a fact we didn't find out about for several years.  I look back now and I really wasn't that heavy, but due to school induced self esteem issues, I saw myself as fat and unlikeable due to my skin disease.

  In my grade school years I developed a rather splintered life.  At home, with family, and even with neighbors (I lived outside my neighborhood school area), I was fine.  Everyone liked me for who I was.

   School was a nightmare for my self esteem.  In second grade the red headed boy with the big ears and freckles decided that I was the one with the "cooties."  In retrospect, this was a survival move by him, since his physical attributes made him a logical target.  So instead, I became the odd one, the child to avoid.  Children are very cruel.  It made no sense to me why this bunch of kids was mean and the rest were fine.  So I decided the fault must be mine.  My self esteem dropped.  Eventually, when my skin started to clear, I became more known as "the smart one", but the damage had been done.

   What was really a salvation for my self esteem was Girl Scouting, especially resident camping.  When my school based troop folded (very common at that point), I wanted to continue camping, so I found myself a new troop, made up of girls from several other former troops.  They didn't know what my supposed reputation was.  So I had new friends.  In fact, most of those girls were my closest friends for many years.

   But resident camp was my favorite.  Ten days away from home in a pace where I had carved my own, new reputation.  I had friends.  I did stuff I liked.  It was a happy dream.

The splintering effect of my life continued through high school.  I barely spoke to the people from my own school.  I had met Monique through my scout troop and we had a circle of friends.  I joined the school newspaper and had friends I respected (and who respected me).  I'm still in touch with some of them.  I still had self esteem issues.  I still saw myself as fat and not date worthy.  My one attempt at dating my freshman year ended disastrously.  We broke up and he decided that he was gay.  So I didn't date after that.   I felt like the different parts of me were just not whole yet.

   It wasn't until I started college and moved out from home that I was able to put the pieces back together and found out that I was an interesting person.  And not bad looking.  The males of the species now had me to deal with.