Before anyone worries, this is not a request for medical advice. Despite the doctors having no clue, we all spontaneously got better more than twenty years ago. I just would like to know if anyone might have a clue what was wrong with us.
The salient facts
where: Lawrence, Ma
when: 1978-1980
victims: 11-month-old female (me); 2-year-old male; 4-year-old male
symptoms: paleness; persistent unconsciousness; unresponsive to light/sound/pain
duration of symptoms: approximately 2 days, then spontaneous recovery.
diagnosis: idiopathic illness (the jargon equivalent of a puzzled shrug)
possible clues: this happened in all three cases within weeks of moving to the neighborhood; the neighborhood had been a quarry decades before, but had been filled in long before we were born.
Apparently, about a month after we moved into the new apartment, my mother tried to wake me from a nap, and I wouldn’t wake up. I was rushed to the hospital, where I got to baffle more than one doctor since they couldn’t figure out why they couldn’t wake me. I hadn’t been ill, I hadn’t been injured, my breathing and heart-rate were fine.
The only theory doctors discussed as a cause was nicotine poisoning since my dad smoked, but a blood test ruled it out.
24 hours later I woke up, but it took another 24 before I was back to normal. (apparently I was lethargic and fairly dull the first day I was awake) The doctors shrugged and sent me home without knowing what had been wrong or why it no longer was.
Two years later my best friends from early childhood moved into the house directly across the street. They were 2 and 4 at the time, and they both fell victim of this within the first month they lived there, the incidents within 2 weeks of each other. (their poor parents!)
The two-year-old had much the same problem I did; he couldn’t be woken from a nap. Unfortunately, they sent him home as soon as he woke up. He relapsed that night and went back to the hospital until they were sure he was ok this time. Same diagnosis: illness of unknown origin.
I think the scariest was the oldest child affected. Unlike us, he was hit hard and fast - or maybe we were too, but it wasn’t as dramatic since we’d been in our cribs. Fine one minute, collapsed unconscious on the stairs the next. (according to his mom he just dropped in the middle of going up to his room). They couldn’t wake him, doctors couldn’t figure out why, blah, blah… in a couple of days he too was fine. Third inconclusive diagnosis.
We lived in that neighborhood for eight years, and after 1980 it never happened to any of us a second time, or happen at all to any other neighborhood child; nor did our parents know of any other kids similarly affected before then. Both our little brothers lived there in the same homes at the same ages we were when we were taken ill, and nothing ever happened to them. It’s also worth noting that it happened to the boys before we first played at each others’ houses, so it probably wasn’t something that originated in our apartment.
There were no lingering effects from this “illness”, beyond scaring the hell out of our parents. (unless it’s somehow connected to something else my doctor couldn’t find a reason for- I didn’t grow at all between the ages of 2 and 4, not an inch not a pound. I was healthy so not too big a deal was made about it) Plus a lingering curiosity on my part 
So there the facts are laid out. Any ideas what could have been wrong with us? I know our parents suspected a poisoning of some sort because of the quarry, but wouldn’t the blood-work they did to rule out nicotine poisoning picked something up? Or would they have really only did a blood test to rule out one type of poisoning? Perhaps it was something else entirely?
