v-_-v

How old were you when you contracted the disease?

Did you have other conditions that made it worse?

 

I contracted all of the childhood diseases (including measles, pertussis, mumps, etc) via other kids when I was young, and so did pretty much everybody in school and nobody had a problem.

BTW I'm not saying don't vaccinate kids, I'm genuinely curious what happened and why it was such a rough deal for you when even Wikipedia states the mortality rate at about 0.6%.

Is bad luck a mitigating factor

Larry Niven (Ringworld writer) would probably say yes. (If you like reading, the Ringworld series is a really good read)

I was just curious, as back in '80 Europe, everybody knew what it was, generally contracted it from other kids, and was cured eventually through medication and their own immune system.

It does really sound like you drew the short stick 3 times, contracting it in the first place, being seemingly more susceptible to the illness than normal and then not finding a decent doctor. Shitty.