Woe is Me
by Caroline Hellman

Growing up, my asthma presented continuous challenges and various letdowns. As I grew older, I gained some perspective on these experiences and realized that I was pretty lucky to not have a more severe problem. As a child, however, I just wanted to be like every other kid.

I couldn't really run during recess at school, because I would always start wheezing and my puffer didn't always help enough. Other kids would play tag, the boys and girls flirting back and forth, but after a quick round I would have to sit things out. At times I wasn't allowed to run the mile in gym (a debacle introduced in my last missive), and that made me feel like a wimp. Some of my classmates made up ailments, and I felt that I was grouped with them in my all too salubrious gym teacher's eyes.

I could not have a dog, or anything with fur or hair for that matter. I settled on turtles, which I still love, but a red-eared slider is not really analogous to a yellow Labrador. Many of my friends had dogs, unfortunately, and that was a problem when I was younger. I remember sleeping over at my friend Lauren's house and having to be picked up at 3 am by my father because Lauren's dog, running around and shedding hair everywhere, had tortured my asthma. I was a mess when he came to pick me up--I had great difficulty breathing, my nose was completely stuffed up and my eyes were red and streamed tears. Daddy, I said, I think I'm getting sick. It's not the dog! But my father, who happens to be a doctor, didn't really buy that, for some reason.

I also remember my brother and me going to the allergist, who told my parents they should take the carpets out of our bedrooms and that we couldn't have any stuffed animals, as they merely acquired dust left and right. Fortunately my parents thought that taking away our stuffed animals would leave us with a rather depressing and sterile environment. Anyway, I reasoned, my brother had it worse: while I was deathly allergic to nuts and had bad asthma, his asthma was worse as a child, and he was allergic to dairy, citrus, and wheat products, in addition to all legumes. Not fun.

How does this story end? On the bright side. Stay tuned next time for the optimistic continuation.