Revisiting Childhood, But Not in a Good Way

I was a lonely, sick child. And if this statement (mis)leads you into the conclusion that my childhood was bad, you'll be very mistaken, because it was a wonderful, almost picture-perfect childhood, loneliness and sickness notwithstanding. I'll talk about the former some other time and shall address the latter in this post. As for the "picture perfect" aspect of my childhood, I haven't found the words to write about it just yet ;-). So, you've been warned, if you don't like health related conversations, this post is not for you.

After my parents returned from their three and a half years of life in Central Europe (France, in the border with Geneva, Switzerland, where I was accidentally born, you can read more in the link above) and I was nearly two, we went to live in a small town in the North of Paraná (Brazilian Southern state). My brother was born when I was 2.5 and around this time I began to have really bad asthma attacks. There were countless nights when my parents had to rush me to the ER in the middle of the night because I couldn't breathe and the small town doctors would give me steroids and nebulizer treatments so I could get better.

When I was four my parents moved to the state capital, Curitiba, and there, also in one of their middle of the night trips to the ER, my mom found out, to her utter dismay, that here in the big city they didn't recommend using steroids because of their evil side-effects on little ones. She regretted with all her might what was done to me during the previous two years and I can even remember her and the doctors talking about that "evil cortisone." I didn't get any better, quite the contrary, and had several bronco-pneumonia cases before they decided to remove my tonsils, which would get badly inflamed and led to pneumonia. I remember the surgery, although I was only 4.5-5 years old, and also countless boring hours doing nebulizer treatments at a clinic, as well as physical therapy (the therapists would work on my back, hitting it rhythmically, so the phlegm could loosen up).

When I was 6.5 my mom was so fed up with doctors that she decided to take matters into her own hands and follow more holistic methods. She had me undergo a juice fast/detox for about a week (in bedrest) followed by three weeks eating only raw fruit and vegetables. I remember that really well... I think it was at that time, when was I so hungry for anything, that I really leaned to LOVE eating salads. The taste of juicy, sweet red bell peppers always brings me back to that year. I felt way better immediately and sneezed for the first time (allergic rhinitis was another lifelong problem) only after I began eating bread and other grains again.

At 8.5 years old we moved to the countryside -- the idyllic part of my childhood, the five years in which my parents worked at a boarding academy -- and I continued to be sick, on and off. More natural treatments followed, particularly hydrotherapy (hot baths, icy water in arms in the summer, etc). I also spent years drinking bitter teas and taking different types of medication, so I don't mind those things to this day, my mom says that I was infinitely patient, the model patient. In addition to those approaches, my mom relentlessly sought doctor after doctor, even this horrible charlatan guy who made us travel to São Paulo (a state to the North of Paraná) every month for about a year to see him! Good thing our health insurance covered all that... (the charlatan endocrinologist sting, though, was mostly because I'm too thin, and her too, the guy diagnosed us with hyperthyroidism and gave us medication that neutralized each other! All bunk).

I went to several allergists, did allergy testing and immunotherapy for a couple of years with daily subcutaneous injections... THE WORKS! But nothing really made me get better.

When I was 13 we moved to São Paulo where the asthma wasn't that bad anymore. But the allergic rhinitis, oh man! I was always sneezing and sniffling, with a runny nose/post nasal drip. My mom took me again to this crazy allergist who told people they were allergic to nearly every food they ate and treated them with sub lingual drops, but I quickly figured out that it wasn't making me better at all, so I just quit. My allergies were going from bad to worse and on the day before my high school graduation (or perhaps on the very day, the ceremony was in the evening) my mom had to quickly take me to the ENT (Ear nose throat doctor, in Brazil we call them "Otorrinolaringologista" -- otorhinolaryngologist) because my rhinitis had gotten so bad that it had turned into sinusitis and I had a low fever and a constant headache (I still have sinusitis on occasion... sigh). Thankfully the medication kicked in and I got to (barely) enjoy my graduation.

Then... only a month later in January 1990 my life suddenly and unexpectedly changed. And I cannot tell this story without feeling bad that after all these years I have been "backsliding" and that that's why I still get sick sometimes. The featured speaker to a pastors' family retreat that we attended was a (South) Korean allergist (who lived here in the U.S. at the time). He gave several wonderful lecturers explaining that a healthy lifestyle, particularly a plant-based (vegan) diet are the only "cure" (actually, prevention) to allergies, diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions. So I went home and, from one day to the next, became vegan. And healthy again.

I was relatively strict for nearly ten years (with occasional relapses, always for ice-cream or Brazilian desserts, most of which are based on sweetened condensed milk), but my husband, who is ovo-lacto vegetarian, still used eggs and dairy products. Then I started using eggs and gradually began to consume more dairy products. One of the problems with being vegan for me is that I never ever liked soymilk (nor rice and neither the nut milks, the only one I think is OK is the recent and super pricey "So Delicious" coconut milk beverage) and I really missed plain yogurt, my favorite dairy food. In addition, contrary to cheese or condensed milk, I never seemed to suffer any recurring allergies (mostly runny nose) when eating yogurt, so I began to eat it again. Then, in the past two years I began to eat and cook with cheese regularly and I haven't really felt sicker. Maybe I overgrew most of my allergies.

And now, I come to the reason of this post. My history with asthma -- a disease the I probably genetically "inherited" from my paternal grandfather and which might have been triggered by the fact that I was given tons of allergenic cheese as an infant in France/Switzerland -- has always made me fear that my sons could have the disease too.

A week after Kelvin's first birthday he started wheezing and we ended up spending an unforgettably long night at the hospital (where we were transported in an ambulance from the university clinic, since the hospital with pediatric care was 20 miles away). Then, he had another wheezing episode when he was 21 months (that's when we got our nebulizer). He's been mostly OK, except for another episode last year. Linton had been fine (although we had him use the nebulizer 3 or 4 times between the ages of 2 and 4 when he was coughing a bit). Even last year, when I took him to the doctor because he seemed to be "wheezing" they told me it was only a "croupy" type of wheeze and cough. They still gave him steroids and told us to use the nebulizer.

Last April things took a turn to the worse, however. One terrible night when we were in Massachusetts his ever worsening cough still sounded like a croupy cough (upper respiratory tract ailment as opposed to lung constriction), but got terribly worse during the night until his breathing was really shallow and frequent. I ended up not going to the ER and only using our friends' nebulizer (I didn't have the boys' new insurance cards, only the info), but after that day, every single time he got a cold (sniffles, runny nose) he started coughing and kind of wheezing. The last time was three weeks ago and this time the pediatrician scolded me for not having gone to the allergist yet and prescribed steroids again and albuterol in the nebulizer.

Tomorrow morning I'll take both boys to the allergist/asthma doctor and I'm not very happy about that. The prospect of having my "baby" diagnosed with the same disease I grew up with is heartbreaking. My husband has been considering going fully vegan for a while now, he thinks it's the most healthful diet, and now he's been saying that we should do it sooner rather than later for the sake of the boys' health and I agree. I'll write more about this because I know it's a really hard change to undergo, particularly because it's more time consuming to prepare and much more costly to eat healthier.

Meanwhile, I'm just not looking forward to tomorrow... the allergy skin testing, lung function, the surprises that may come up (what if they test allergic to cats? or wheat? or soy? I already don't think dairy is good for one's immune system anyway, so that would be ok...). Most of all, though, I don't want my boys to have the burden of the "asthma label." I'm already trying my best not to tell them things such as "Hey, Kelvin, don't make Linton laugh, because he's going to start wheezing." I spent my whole childhood knowing that there were many things (such as running and playing most sports) that I simply couldn't do or I'd get sick. I hope that this won't be the case with them. And I really don't want the doctor to prescribe daily steroids... I know that's what they do nowadays, and the pediatrician explained that it's better than having to take steroids each time they have an attack, but, hopefully, we can try to make the boys healthier and avoid those in the first place.

P.S.
Curious fact: There's an interesting "side effect" of growing up as an asthmatic that stays with me to this day. I spent countless days and nights in my childhood hugging my knees against my chest, either crouching on the ground, sitting, or laying in bed on multiple pillows at night. Because of that, I still spend most days with my legs folded up on chairs, sofas, even at the table when I'm eating. When I did figure skating for two semesters during grad school, I was one of the few who could skate fully crouched and extend one leg above the ice. No wonder I feel really comfortable crouching (a common position for me) after so many years of "forced conditioning."