They Say Immunity Starts In the Gut...

Well if that’s true, I was doomed from the start. I don’t remember a time when I was a kid that I wasn’t sick to my stomach.

It seemed like everything I ate or drank made me sick. I got chills and diarrhea when I got too cold (like playing out in the snow, or later on performing for my one terrible season of JV football cheerleading).

For some strange reason the exact same thing would happen when I got over heated as well—extreme chills, diarrhea, nausea. (I’m sure some dehydration would cause this as well, but I was pretty good at staying hydrated since I was sick so often).

Anyway, since I was such a sickly kid, I began to miss a lot of school, and apparently having to leave and go to the bathroom multiple times was “disruptive to the learning process”. I very vividly remember two instances with my teachers—one in second grade and one in third—that began to shape my understanding of being sick and how that affected other people’s views of me. I.e. as a nuisance, as someone they had to “put up with”...as someone who was a burden to all the good healthy children.

The first occurrence, in second grade, happened over the course of a month or so. My teacher, Mrs. O—I won’t use her full name because hopefully she’s still alive and she’s realized by now how she damaged the fragile psyches of tiny children and repented. But if she didn’t, oh well. That’s what Karma is for and it’s not for me to waste spoons on...

Anyway I digress. Mrs. O was getting angry because I, then a 7 year old child, kept having to go to the bathroom outside of scheduled bathroom times. The nerve of me! I had been admonished each time, with her red turning to purple face mere centimeters from mine in the hallway while she did that ‘mean teacher thing’. You know, where they deadly whispered but super loud, so it was scarier than yelling.

She did this multiple times a day, until I was so upset that I practically hyperventilated and cried. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had a severe stomach issue, but I was deep in the throws of undiagnosed IBS C/D and lactose intolerance...and what do they give you at school every day?! That’s right, milk! Also, what does emotional stress do? Exacerbate IBS!

So after about a month of this, I was in class one day, trying my little best not to be sick. I was clammy and shaking. I felt like I might pass out. I asked the teacher’s assistant if I could be excused. She was a very kind woman (the mom of a classmate), and after taking one look at my pale, sweat soaked face and shaky hands and legs, asked if I needed to go to the nurse.

Mrs. O overheard, made one of those over exaggerated sighs that sounds like it cuts up vegetables on its way out of your throat, like an automatic salad shooter, and said loudly in front of the whole class “SHE DOESN’T NEED TO GO TO THE NURSE!”

I was so embarrassed, but also very sickly feeling, so I walked out, with her yelling after me to come back. Luckily the bathroom was very close, and I just made it inside when I let loose a torrent of vomit with which I even impressed myself.

I could hear her stomping down the hall after me, and although I was weak and puny feeling, I felt immense satisfaction when she scrunched up her face in disgust, and, not looking at me, said “go to the nurse and tell her we need the janitor”.

My second occurrence was more traumatic, but I also feel it was necessary for me to experience. Not only for me to learn a lesson early about how people will perceive me differently and therefore treat me much differently as a sick and then disabled person; but also to learn that if there’s anyone I can always count on to kick some ass when that happens, it’s my mom.

So to the story. I have to preface this by saying my third grade teacher should never have taught children. This is not *my* opinion. She was a friend of one of my mom’s friends, and she actually said herself she was probably too mean to teach kids. She had wanted to teach adults or high schooler, but for whatever reason she didn’t get those jobs and she finally ended up at her last choice, my wonderful school. Yay.

This awful woman would make kids sit in their seats when they had to go to the bathroom until they peed their pants. She actually had a collection of backup kids sweatpants for “accidents” in her THIRD GRADE class. I wish I were making this up.

I’m related closely to a kid who would wear these home because they were too terrified to ask her to go to the bathroom.

When I got to her third grade class, fortunately I was an A+ student, because despite missing school being sick I’m a smart cookie. I also was(am?) a nerd and thought extra credit was fun so I did it every time it was offered, then asked for more.

I helped out the teachers so they wouldn’t hate me. I knew I was the sick kid that was never there that they’d eventually get sick of, so I cleaned up after activities, passed out papers, emptied trashes, I honestly did whatever I could.

And against all odds, the meanest teacher in the entire school did not have an issue with me. Until school was almost over. The two to three months-ish of my third grade year was brutal. I got strep throat 7 times and had to have my tonsils removed, then stay home for that recovery.

Just when I was slated to go back to school, my grandfather passed away from lung cancer. We ended up staying with my grandma for about a week to make sure she was alright and as settled as she could be. So I think all in all I’d been gone for a consecutive four weeks, which is a long time. With 2-3 day absences sprinkled in. I did keep up with my homework, however, because my sister picked most of it up in the office.

The day I walked back in to class and what followed is a day I will never forget. I have some cognitive deficits and have suffered a few (or several, however you say it), TIAs in early 2019, so sometimes my memories are off-kilter, or they’re just gone. They’re mostly gone.

But I remember everything about this. And I was eight. Eight years old and I felt palpable hatred from an adult. An adult who was supposed to be taking care of me. She was supposed to be nurturing my development. Keeping me safe. You could almost smell the fear and embarrassment from the other kids in the room.

A little bit of explanation first. This teacher liked a spotlessly tidy desk. You did not just throw things into the opening in your desk without arranging it. If there was a paper out of order, she would dump the entire thing on the floor in front of the class, make you take everything out in the hall with your desk, organize it, and bring it back in. If it wasn’t organized up to her standards, she’d dump it again. She did not care how humiliating and degrading this was.

So I mentioned I’d been gone about a month and some change, right? Heaven knows when that last desk check was before I left, too. So conservatively let’s say I had a month and two weeks of returned homework and other things just thrown into the opening in my desk by other kids. It barely held everything. It was threatening to spill itself onto the floor at any second.

So what does she do? She makes a beeline for me when I come in—I’ve barely taken off my coat. Puts a vice grip on my upper arm, jerks me over to my desk, and then gets the whole class’s attention. She says mine is the worst desk she’s ever seen. Then she yanks my backpack off my shoulder, and dumps the desk into my backpack. She starts pushing me toward the door, grabbing my desk and carrying it to the hallway.

She sets it down next to the door, and tells me I can’t come back in the room until I’ve sorted and organized every single paper and book and everything is perfectly in place. Including yesterday’s assignments (which I don’t have...I was at a funeral...and I’m EIGHT). I try to tell her I don’t have them and she slams the door in my face.

Obviously I cry. One of the teacher’s aids (thank the lord for teachers aids) found me crying in the hall sitting in a small mound of papers, and took me to the office to call my mom. Ten minutes later my mom showed up, winked as she walked past me, and made her way down the hall to my classroom. I saw the principal’s office door fly open and hit the opposite wall, the knob making a small dent.

“Now Julie, let’s talk about this!” He yelled, chasing after her down the hall.

My mom is an imposing woman now at 58 years old, but back then she had a lot more muscle and looked like she could really mess you up. She was also a lot meaner, due to *her as yet undiagnosed fibroid tumors. But more on that later.

“The time for talkin’ was before that bitch made my baby cry!” My mom called back, not even turning around. She was nearly to my teacher’s door and it made me feel a little better to imagine her hearing my mom yell, knowing she was coming for her, and turning ghost white with panic.

I don’t know what all was said and done after this. I know I got in trouble a lot less (I really was a good kid), and I know my mom seemed really pleased with herself but still pretty angry for a few days.

I didn’t really understand it then,but looking back I know it was a mixture of unbalanced hormones and anger at how people could be so cruel to a sick kid, and fear about what kinds of other people she and I would have to deal with in the future. I’m sure she never thought *that particular call would come from inside the house, though. It certainly shocked me when it happened, and it’s something I struggle with to this day.

But that’s a story for another time—and there will be plenty more stories to tell.

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