My Battle

Welcome

I have IgG2 Subclass Deficiency. This is one of many different kinds of Immune Deficiency. I want an awareness to be reached because I do not want other people to go thru trial and error to be healthy.

It is believed that I have had this deficiency ever since I was born, however, a proper diagnosis was not given until 1987. This is about 15 years of pure guessing. People were unknowingly treating the symptoms and not the cause of the problem.

BACKGROUND:

When I was between the ages of 2 to 5, I was given allergy shots every Saturday for about 2 years. The doctors, told my family that I was allergic to cherries, onions, and cats. Well, we had to give the cat away, but the problem was still there. I guess that I should clear up a bit to what was wrong with me. I had several different series of colds that sometimes ended in bronchitis and other respiratory illnesses. At the age of 5, I weighed about 25 pounds. My eyes looked like they were sunk in, and my skin was often a pale color. My mother used to tell that a house plant had more exercise than I did. The shots did not help at all, and it seemed like that we were back to square one.

Sometimes during a cold, I would cough so hard that I would lose my breath. So the doctors later determine that I had asthma. I took a few class on how to live with asthma, but the problems were still there.

It was when I went to go to Children's Memorial Hospital, for further testing, that it was concluded that I had (and still do) Primary Immune Deficiency.

During all of this, I did not feel like I was a "normal kid." There were somethings that I felt I could not do. A list of instructions usually followed me wherever I went. For the longest time, I felt like I was the only one.

I started theater in Seventh grade. To me, it was (and still is) a chance to be someone different and to experience new events in my life. In high school, I did not talk too much about the deficiency. I always felt like people would think that it was "just like AIDS." I guess at that age(at least it was for me) you cared about what people thought. Once I got into Community College, I found out people liked me for me. I think that the people you have in your life help you tremendously.

Shortly after my treatments started, there was a positive change in my health and appearance. I started to gain weight, color, and develop more energy to do the things that I had always wanted to do. I cannot tell you how good the feeling was to put a name with a disorder. That is what it was. It wasn't some "freak" of nature. It was something that I had always had, but never could figure out what to call it.

When I was young, doctors gave me all different types of labels, just to tack on a solution to the problem that was so new in so many lives. So as it turns out, I never had asthma. They were linking me with asthma just because my coughing spells were so intense, that I would lose my breath and become sick. The only problem that I have with my lungs lies in the upper right lobe of the lung. I have had so many respiratory infections that there is permeant lung damage. As to the allergies, I still have them, but not the ones I was labeled with when I was little. Grass pollens and every different kind of mold is what I am allergic to now.

There is one more label that it (PID) has been rumored (incorrectly I might add) to be associated with. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) sounds kind of like Primary Immune Deficiency (PID) right? Wrong! I had mention this earlier in my story, but it used to feel like a constant battle with the media and people who did not know the differences between the two . I t made me afraid that people (who didn't know) would think that I had AIDS and I would feel like an outcast. I can understand the frustration that people with AIDS feel, but feel MY frustration in to trying to explain to people that this is something that I have had since the day I was born, and I am NOT dying from it.

During my collage years, thanks to acting, I became less afraid of telling my friends about the deficiency because they believed that it had nothing to do with the type of person I am.

There is so much more that I feel we need to learn about PID, but I do know now that I am not a freak and I don't feel like a "freak" anymore. I feel strongly that we need to increase more public awareness , so that more research can be done.

        More to come...............