1984: The Best Year Of My Life

I watched the movie Wonder Woman 1984 with a friend. After watching it, my friend and I discussed it. I said it was nostalgic in a way, with the now nerdy-looking 1980s-style athletic socks, short shorts, big computers, and 1980-ish style cars. It all brought back memories of my own life in 1984. Despite severe, uncontrolled asthma and an experience with an empty inhaler, it was the best year of my life.

A visit to Florida

We were visiting my grandma and grandpa. Before we went to their house, we went to Disney. On January 4, my grandma took us to McDonald's. I felt too old for this, but my grandma had a McDonald’s birthday party for me. My breathing was fine that day, and the next day my breathing was also fine. We then left Florida in our van.

In the back of the van, under the back seat, was a bag of pecans my dad bought. This was seemingly irrelevant at the time. On the way home, I realized I only had a few puffs left of my Alupent. It was a small white rescue inhaler that quickly opened airways. I had two of these inhalers when we left for Florida, and also had a Vanceril inhaler, which was a pink inhaler. It contained an inhaled steroid. I took two puffs four times a day. Despite taking this asthma controller medicine, my asthma remained poorly controlled, so I was taking extra puffs of my Alupent often.

Asthma and an empty inhaler

Dad turned the back seat into a bed. We kids thought this was so cool. Hooked to the ceiling of the van was a TV. Sometimes we were actually able to pick up channels. So we watched TV when we could while lying on our backs with our heads on our pillows. We also had plenty of board games to play.

I remember my brothers having fun playing games. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, listening to my parents talking, watching stuff zip by outside, and thinking of my breathing. My breathing was fine when I realized my inhaler was close to empty, but thinking of it running out before we got home stressed me out. This caused my breathing to become increasingly worse. And this caused me to need my inhaler. It is memories like this that reminds me of "The Club."

Trying to calm myself down

I made every effort to calm myself, to stop thinking about it. When my chest got tight, I told myself to wait as long as possible before taking another puff. Eventually, my asthma inhaler was empty, and I got severely short of breath. Even then, I attempted to calm myself and to deal with it as best I could.

Eventually, I knew I had to tell mom and dad. I had to generate the courage to ruin the trip home, and eventually, I did tell them. As we drove down the expressway, we looked for blue signs with a white “H.” After what seemed an eternity, we finally saw one. Mom stayed with my brothers. Dad did what dad did many times and went with me to the ER.

He blamed the pecans. I blamed not having my inhaler. In retrospect, I would surmise we were both probably right. In a future post, we can discuss my rescue inhaler abuse. That is an interesting topic in and of itself. If I forget, you are free to remind me.

1984 was the second worse asthma year of my life

I say second because, a week after we returned from Florida, I was admitted to the asthma hospital. I wrote about my six-month experience at the hospital in my post, "My Pithy Asthma Story."

Mom kept a record of my doctor/hospital visits that year. I made over 20 unscheduled doctor visits, all for asthma. I made over 20 visits to the emergency room, all for asthma. I was admitted to the hospital six times for at least six days, all for asthma.

This does not even count all the days I was short of breath and didn’t bother to tell my parents. I felt guilty that mom or dad had to take me somewhere again. I didn’t want to do that to them. So I would often deal with it. And, trust me, back then, my asthma attacks were very severe. It would get so bad I could barely take in half a breath. I describe this type of asthma attack in my post "3 Types Of Asthma Attacks."

1984 was the best year of my life

I was a HUGE Detroit Tiger fan. I still am. But I was an even bigger fan back then. I wasn’t able to play baseball much because of my asthma. But I read the newspaper every day hoping for a story about the Tigers.

On April 3, the Tigers started the year off with a win. On April 19, they were 9 wins and no losses. By May 24, they were off to the best start in major league history with 35 wins to only 5 losses. To this day, that record still stands. In June, I was able to watch a few games. We sat in the bleachers, which cost only $4. The Blue Jays made it close, but the Tigers went all season long in first place in the American League East. They beat the Royals in the playoffs 3 games to 0. They beat the Padres in the World Series 4 games to 1.

I think my asthma was so bad made the Tiger’s run of success even more significant to me. It was so significant that I rarely think of the asthma hardships of that year. Looking back, I still consider 1984 the best year of my life. Considering I am a dad with four awesome kids, 1984 is now considered ONE of the greatest years of my life.

Sometimes I retrospect on how important the Tigers were to me back then. It's a humble reminder of how a simple game can be more than just a game.