He did go through basic training with dozens of diseases before he took the serum.
Imagine making it through basic training with the diseases he had.
Had astigmatism - so he’d’ve had poor eye sight. I’ve also seen sources that say Steve is colour blind although I couldn’t find them again for writing this or to check what kind of colour blind Steve could be - it could be anything from red-green colour blindness to trichromatic colour blindness, but I’m not sure.
Had scoliosis - this is where the spine bends in a way that isn’t part of the typical S-shaped curve, so his spine would’ve bent to the side. It’s not a life threatening condition but it can be quite noticeable and I’ve not seen a single fic that’s taken it into account.
Was partially deaf. Again, I’ve never read a fic that mentions anyone speaking up for Steve to hear.
Had arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat; he also had heart palpitations, high blood pressure and the more generic heart trouble. I’ve also seen something saying he had angina, chest pain caused by restricted blood supply to the heart muscles.
He also had rheumatic fever at some point which causes red ring-like rashes on the limbs and can affect the brain, joints and heart - which given Steve already had heart problems is not a good thing. It affects older children up to the mid teens. It is treated with aspirin - which is hard on the stomach and unfortunately for little Steve, he also has:
Stomach ulcers. These are extremely painful and can be caused or made worse by drugs like aspirin. Stomach ulcers can be very dangerous if complications arise.
Another stomach complication Steve had was pernicious anaemia, which until the 20s was basically a death sentence. It’s a condition where an enzyme necessary to absorb vitamin B12 is not produced and the patient becomes progressively more anaemic until they suffer complications such as neurological damage or simply die (hence the word “pernicious”). Until 1928 the only treatment was to drink copious quantities of the juice from raw liver (more than a pint a day) or eat half a pound of raw liver a day, which contains the enzyme (cooking would destroy the enzyme). From ‘28, Steve was presumably relieved to hear, a liver extract was produced so that the quantity of liver juice one had to drink was 50x less and was also cheaper. The other symptoms were pretty much the same as other kinds of anaemia.
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What do you mean you aren’t hungry?
Steve also had flat feet (less serious but with everything else this kid isn’t running anywhere)
He had scarlet fever as a child, which causes a sore throat, bright red rash, and can kill - especially as it can cause heart complications.
Steve’s mother was diabetic- his admission form states that he has a parent or sibling with diabetes, and since it’s automatic disqualification from the army and he has no siblings, that means it must be his mother (unless you don’t think Steve’s dad served in the army at all and he’s just lying to serve with Bucky.) Steve has a higher risk for diabetes. This in itself isn’t going to limit him at this stage in the proceedings, but it doesn’t make him popular with eugenicists either.
Generally his respiratory system is struggling - he gets sinusitis and frequent colds to go along with his…
Asthma.
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