I was born with double vision and a hive tumor inside my head. Since I was born with double vision, I didn't realize I was seeing wrong. It took a long time for anyone to figure out why I was so extremely clumsy and had almost no hand-eye coordination. It wasn't until I tried to learn to read in school, that it occured to anyone to have my eyes checked. The eye doctor figured out that I had a lazy right eye. I was unable to follow things he moved around with my eyes. He was the first one to ask me how many objects I saw on slides he showed me in the exam room. Using the eyeglass testing equipment, he figured out that I couldn't focus on anything. He prescribed eye excercises for me. After a year of doing the excercises every day, I was finally able to force my eyes to focus on objects I wanted them to. I still have trouble focusing if I get too tired (partly why I'm not a stay up and play all night hardcore gamer). It took another five years of therapy for me to have enough hand -eye coordination to be able to play any sports involving catching or hitting anything. By the time I was in high school, I was able to dribble a basketball and shoot as long as I was not pressured too hard by the defence. I hardly ever scored but the fact that I could play at all was an achievement for me. I was also and still am, unable to cross my eyes. I can come as close as seeing one side of my nose or the other but not both at the same time.
The hive tumor was invisible to the naked eye on the outside unless it became inflamed by heat or getting really frustrated (which didn't help my development of skills much as you might imagine). When it got inflamed, my face would turn red and I'd get a little white dot on my right cheek. I would get fevers exceeding 100 degrees F. for hours at a time, headaches and sometimes even have hallucinations (without taking any drugs mind you). These attacks lasted from birth until I was about 9 or 10 years old. They got less severe and less frequent as I got older but they really affected my life.
As you might guess, this combination of conditions, did not make me very popular with the "in crowd". I grew up in a small town of less than 500 people in Western Nebraska. Most kids in my town were obsessed with sports and/or cowboying since ranching and playing sports were the main things to do in our county. I was terrible at both for most of my childhood, so I was an outcast. I had a few friends who were mostly outcasts too. They included the only boy of African descent (I mean literaly too, like from Kenya if I remember right) in the whole county when he and his adoptive parents moved there (he wasn't any good at sports so few kids liked him too); a kid with severe asthma (which also ruled him out for the main passtimes of our peers); and a couple of mostly "normal" kids who were just more interested in sci fi, comics, electronics etc than they were in sports or ranching.
Today, I am married to a wonderful woman who is a school teacher; have a Bachelor's Degree in Natural Resources; have a good IT job; spend time with a close knit family etc. Despite my difficulties and "weirdness" growing up, I'm not doing too bad now. I'm still not an uber gamer who beats games on a regular basis I suppose, but I can get through levels of some pretty challenging games, even Ninja Gaiden Black, nowadays.
