As an African American kid growing up on the east coast of America, in some of the nation’s most well-known cities, I’ve always suffered with asthma all my life. My earliest known case was when I was two years old. My mother had told me the story; how I had an allergic reaction to pollen while playing outside at a daycare. The facility had called my parents at the time and it was evident that I had trouble breathing. That day became the start of it all. Since then, I’ve had numerous encounters with battling serious cases of asthma. Even to this day as an adult, I still have challenges dealing with the disease.

 

Symptoms of asthma include trouble breathing, wheezing, coughing, and tightness of the chest. In some situations, it can even be deadly to one’s health. Personally, all of these symptoms have come up in one way or another, leading me to seek medical help. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I recall having trouble breathing again while traveling to a local Wal-Mart. My skin was red hot from the Sun and I began coughing up mucus from my lungs. This instance was the first time I could remember having problems with asthma as a kid. My mother drove me home, gave me medicine and nursed me back to health. It was clear that this disease I had was recurring in unknown patterns from time to time. Records show that boys are more than likely to have asthma than girls, but girls are still likely to develop asthma when they become women.  As I grew older, I was told that I would outgrow my asthma, however, that wasn’t the case. When I was 10, I remember spending 3 days in a hospital, with a needle in my left arm, placed gently on a hospital bed. I received an inhaler, a few breathing treatments and other forms of medicine to help relieve the pain. African Americans are three times more likely to stay in a hospital because of asthma or asthma related illnesses. From that moment going forward, I took my asthma more seriously and tried to find ways to combat it so that I could outgrow this illness.

 

Historically, my asthma has occurred within the summer months, but as of recent, it’s occurred in the winter months as well. This is due to the allergens that cause my asthma to flare up whenever I get near to any of them. Pollen is a big source to triggering my asthma, but other allergens, such as dust, ragweed (which generates a lot of pollen) and other forms of debri. Because of this, the spring and summer months cause the most problems for me. As a kid, I would take precautions when necessary. This included staying indoors during recess, carrying my inhaler with me at all times, and even wearing a mask if pollen levels were dangerously high. Other more recent sources include air quality and temperature. Having a cold or the flu could also trigger my asthma, especially if I was walking outside while the temperature was low. My grandmother always told me to wear a hat (and now I see why) so that I wouldn’t get sick. I remember the feeling I had when I had asthma in the winter for the first time. A bewildered, older, more angsty teen version of myself couldn’t imagine having asthma during this time of the year. Back in 2014, I had to use a breathalyzer that I received from a doctor prescription that same year. I had missed some school days and took various amounts of medicine. In 2013, over 13.8 missed days were recorded across the country due to asthma related illnesses. Around this time in my teen years, I started to spit out the mucus inflaming my lungs. As nasty as it sounds, and as weary as I am to doing it, it helped more so in the long run when dealing with this disease later on in the future.

 

The air quality of the various cities I’ve lived in never made things any better for my health. Within the city, amongst the high carbon levels and cigarette smokers, it can become a challenge just breathing at times. Asthma has been connected to poverty and poor air quality for years, especially in more city-centric and ethnic areas. When the quality of life is poor and most people can’t rely on fresh air to breath, many health-risks can become involved within that struggle to survive from a day-to-day basis. As I lived in the outskirts of the D.C population in Temple Hills, Maryland, life became more difficult growing up with asthma as an African American kid. The summers became hotter, air pollution from cars, cigarettes, and public transit increased and the lack of trees (three giant trees were cut down in front and behind my house) made the pollution even worse. Combined with the disparity of hospitals near my hometown, my parents had to travel a long way to take me to a doctor so that I could be treated for my condition. The average annual cost of asthma related expenses in the United States, accounting for medical costs, missed work and school days is $81.3 billion, costing parents a fortune every year or so. Moving up to Wilmington, another city in Northern Delaware, also didn’t yield any improvements. Since 2015, I’ve had about 5 asthma attacks, with the first one being more fatal than the others. At this point, I thought that I was starting to outgrow my illness, but I saw that it had come back unexpectedly once again. It’s been shown that African American children have the highest prevalence of asthma in the United States. African Americans are also more likely to die as a result from asthma or asthma related illnesses. Even with this in mind, I’d never want to leave the city-life. It may have its share of problems, but I’ll take the highly dense, congested air and street traffic than the emptiness of the rural farms or comfort of the suburbs. Having asthma as a kid was a hard-fought battle I wouldn’t imagine other kids having, butas an adult, it’s a trade-off that I’m willing to live with for now.

 

I remember as a kid that my father told me he had asthma growing up. He said that he had it in the winter months, something he described as “the most dangerous time to have asthma”, compared to when I had asthma in the summer. This led me to believe that my asthma was inherited, in some way, from him. It made me think that this disease was a hereditary curse that I couldn’t escape; that my future children probably wouldn’t escape. He showed me a picture of my grandmother smoking a cigarette while she was conceived with my father. Back in the 60’s, the dangers of smoking weren’t as well known as they are today. My child-like brain couldn’t believe the image I saw. I thought to myself that the cigarettes my grandmother smoked was the probable cause for my father having asthma and passing it onto me. Whether it’s true or not, it’s a likely factor that played a role in my father’s development, and in turn, my development as a child.

 

My sister was the lucky one though. She’s been free from the hospital visits, inhaler prescriptions, wheezing, coughing, sudden heaviness of the chest and overall pain that comes with being asthmatic. As stated before, girls are less likely to develop asthma than their boy counterparts, and my sister was the embodiment of that. There were many things she could take advantage of that I simply couldn’t, such as running outside in the summer Sun, singing without running out of breath, or sniffing in the freshly made scent of grass or morning dew without worry of getting sick. Though she’s not as strong or physically fit as me, I imagine if she worked at becoming more active, she could surpass me in some ways, as I become hindered by my ability to breath in and out. My cousins who were more fit than me were also lucky in many instances. African American boys, now men, growing up as athletes in various sports, such as football, basketball, baseball, and everything else under the Sun, worried little about their health, let alone their breathing. A part of me was jealous but a part of me was hopeful that I could break this disease and join their ranks in society. During sleepover or family day games in the summer, I had to withhold myself from exerting too much of my energy when I was outside. I would play, workout, or exercise with them as much as I could, but I had to limit myself in what I could do. Sometimes I would even keep myself back completely from any given outdoor situation. I’d stay inside and find peace with any television show or video game I could lay my eyes one. The fear I had getting sick from asthma controlled every action I did as a child, and honestly, I’m not sure if not taking some of the risks I did were for better or worse.

 

The stigma of being asthmatic often came with embarrassment and degradation. I didn’t exactly identify myself as an asthmatic, only when I saw it to be necessary to a given situation. Having asthma wasn’t something I was proud of. If anything, I wanted to get rid of my asthma and the problems that came with them whenever and however I could. The feeling I had when I looked at the morning forecast and saw a high pollen count or an 80 degree temperature day frightened me. The fear of going back to the hospital and being bed-ridden with medicine and albuterol (the medicine used for breathing treatments) kept me from living unburdened as a child. The shame of having to announce to a class that I had asthma when it came to recess or P.E. made me feel abnormal or inhuman. I imagine other kids such as myself growing up and feeling the emotional pain of having a disease like asthma. Within the media, the “asthmatic kid”, I feel, is not represented in a way that is realistic or feasible. Many kids around the country share their stories of how they deal with their own asthmatic problems. Many of them look, talk, act, speak and perform in a similar manner to people without asthma or symptoms of the disease. They carry themselves in a way where their asthma does not define them or characterize them into a special kind of person. I remember having a friend in the 7th grade who also had asthma. He told me that his asthma was so severe, he needed surgery to get his lungs replaced. From getting to know him and his situation, I never saw him as the “asthmatic kid”, nor did anyone identify him as such either. He didn’t align with this philosophy either, and went around acting like a normal kid. Television can sometimes paint the asthmatic child as weak, scrawny, disabled or weary, but a lot of the kids I met with asthma growing up were strong, confident and able to do anything they put their mind to. I think that out of the struggle, people with asthma have a sense of resilience and fortitude that is unrivaled by people who may not understand the difficulties of being asthmatic.

 

Asthma has killed many in its wake, but in America, across cities and shores, over 3500 a year die from it. With over 25 million Americans diagnosed with the disease, there are more stories that need to be told and addressed for others to hear. Being the leading cause of chronic disease, asthma has tried time and time again to claim more lives as the years go by. I believe that asthma and all of its illnesses is a great danger and problem in American society. It’s affected kids and adults that grew up with asthma, looking and searching for a cure to end it all. From my own personal life, I still deal with it today as a 21 year old male. As I go over into adulthood, I’ll probably face more encounters with the disease until I can overcome it in the near future. I hope that others that share similar stories like mine can find peace and happiness in a world that condemns their body to breath easily. I’m thankful for my experience with the disease, as it has taught me to be strong and resilient when it comes to obstacles I face in life. I hope that others with asthma will discover both the good and bad from the disease and use it to their advantage. If the ones who aren’t lucky enough to make it from the deadly clutches of asthma make it to the other side, I wish them nothing but peace and space to breath.