An Athlete with Asthma
by Caroline Hellman

Some of the readers out there in cyberspace may be familiar with another column I write on the web called Ethereal Cereal. Usually, it consists of me ruminating about some current event-say, the upcoming Presidential election, or stem cell research. But this column, "An Athlete with Asthma," is often going to be more personal.

By way of introduction, I can tell you about my asthma. Since this is the first installment of one of many articles to come, I'll start at the beginning, and stop at the end, as the Mad Hatter articulates so subtly in Alice in Wonderland.

I've had asthma all of my life; how much it's affected my existence has fluctuated. I know that when I was little it was a constant problem. I was almost hospitalized numerous times because of asthma attacks that flared up unexpectedly and seemed unable to control. I remember taking two medicines every morning and evening. I don't even know the true names of these medicines, as I only remember saying, "oh no, not the naldy!" concerning one of them ("Naldy" was certainly not its given name) and calling the other medicine "sprinkles." The Naldy was a distasteful syrup meant to calm down my bronchi, while the sprinkles were indeed little sprinkles that tasted awful. My father would often put my dose in a spoonful of yogurt or apple sauce. This was mildly successful.

I grew up outside of New York City, but my asthma attacks meant that we were often traveling into the city to see various doctors. I remember having one attack on a Sunday evening as my mother prepared dinner. My father, a doctor himself, was pacing in the kitchen, trying to decide what to do. As a child, I think it was sometimes hard for me to understand the severity of the condition. Afterall, I reasoned, I wasn't as bad off as some of my classmates, who couldn't even run in gym class. I could run, I declared. I had no wheezing problem when I ran, I declared. But every time I ran, I disproved this fantastical notion by wheezing and having to slow down and walk. This was especially traumatizing during the annual mile run for time in gym class. Before about sixth grade, I never finished under 11 minutes. I was always embarrassed, because while there were the kids who purposely walked the entire thing and explicitly didn't care about their times, I did care about my time, and I was always the last person to finish who actually made an effort.

Yet all of these experiences were in my pre-athletic years. Stay tuned for how my asthma evolved as I matured.