Update 4/13/24
I was born in 1953, and developed asthma shortly after that. Treatment for asthma, back then, consisted of adrenaline injections and oxygen tents. Due to the severity of my asthma, my pediatrician and various hospital docs advised my parents not to spend too much time or money on me, as I wasn’t expected to live much past the age of 12. I was told about this several years later. These expectations were what allowed me to “fall through the cracks”; nobody was concerned about any developmental issues.
Some time around 1st or 2nd grade, I became aware of the fact that I was missing part of my brain. That was the only explanation I could come up with for my observations of other kids interacting; I had no idea how they played together. In third grade, my future looked pretty bleak. I was out sick more days than I was in school (I didn’t miss the awkwardness of only having one friend in school). This, technically, should have prevented me from advancing to 4th grade. However, the school was aware of my short life expectancy, so I went into 4th grade without the ability to legibly write cursive; nobody cared that I was lacking the fine motor control to write.
Early in 4th grade, my pediatrician found a new asthma treatment; desensitization. The theory was that if you give an asthmatic injections with minute amounts of what they are allergic to, the kid’s body becomes less sensitive to the allergens. It was rather expensive, and my father didn’t want to spend the money, but my mother won. Four injections a week for years! It worked. Between my 12th and 13th birthdays, I grew 7½ inches. I was no longer going to be a “sickly little kid”, but it would take years.
While I was in 4th grade, we moved to a different town so that I had to get to know a new teacher, and classmates. My autism really came into play at this point. I was acutely aware of my inability to “fit in” with any of this. There was still a recess in this school, for fourth graders. I missed most of the humiliation and grief that kids this age can give to a sickly, geeky, new kid. All the clicks had already been forged in this class and prior grades. I was helpless and hopeless. My new 4th grade teacher was appalled at my writing inability. So, instead of recess, I had to sit in the classroom practicing making evenly spaced and size circles, forming a horizontal drawing of a spring, on a piece of paper. I sucked at it. Her frustration with my failing to do her practice excercise would almost get her pissed. This continued for the rest of the school year. The only upside to this failure, was the humiliation I experienced was only in front of her, which I knew was much less than I would have experienced on the playground.
While I was not allowed to go outside to play when it was colder, there was nightmare of a timed physical test that all kids were expected to participate in: The 300 Yard Dash! Some genius decided that even the sick kid with “asmar” (most people still didn’t even know what asthma was, much less the kids) should run at least this one, government mandated, test. I remember a starting line, and we went one-at-a-time. I tried to run the course, that was outlined by orange cones, as fast as I could. As I slowed down, because I wasn’t breathing very well, as I got to the finish line, and the teacher yelled “Keep going! You need to go around twice!”; the “course” was only 150 yards. I didn’t even make it halfway through the second lap. I remember stumbling, and that was it… I passed out from lack of oxygen. When I woke up I was being wheeled somewhere on an ambulance stretcher, there were a lot of adults yelling, and my MOTHER was there! That was the last school excercise or gym class I ever took. I was officially excused from JFK’s Youth Fitness program.
Fifth and 6th grades were relatively uneventful. Teachers, appalled at my cursive gave up, and allowed me to “block print” my work, which wasn’t a whole lot more legible than my cursive. Writing anything still took me forever. Everybody just let it slide.
In 6th grade, instead of recess we started having an official “gym” period. Now we had a problem. Because of my poor health, I was not allowed to take gym. This really pissed off the gym teacher (who was also my math teacher), because he didn’t know what asthma was, and he didn’t care. I can still remember the stupid little finger excercise he had me do, while the other kids beat themselves senseless with games like “Dodge Ball”. He sat me down in a chair over in the corner of the gym, showed what he wanted me to do, and said “You can do that, can’t you?!??”. Just a little more humiliation for the soul. He was relentless on me in math class. Fortunately, I don’t remember much of it. I just remember being hated and picked on by an adult.