While American heroes around our great nation were fighting insurgents and terrorists on the other side of the globe, our hometown superhero, Commander Cool was fighting what was likely an allergy attack just ten minutes away.

Commander Cool, better known to most as William Dove, was stricken by an allergic reaction to an unknown agent over the course of the last week, climaxing in an emergency room visit on July 4, 2008. Dove, 17, first felt sick on Wednesday evening, July 2, three days before he was scheduled to leave for a home building trip to Mexico with several of his friends.

The trip, coordinated by Sheppard of the Hill Church each year to help the homeless in Mexico, would have been Dove’s first. In an unfortunate stroke of luck, his best friend Connor Kelly, who he originally enticed to go on the trip with him in late-2007 had to leave with a heavy heart while Will found himself lying in a hospital bed.

Although he first felt sick on Wednesday, he went to a doctor on Thursday who prescribed to him allergy medication, which worked for the rest of the day. A day later, his reaction forced him into an urgent care center, where he spent the evening.

“Scary,” Will Dove says after being asked of his emotions on the drive down to the center. But it would only get worse for the grounded sparrow.

But Dove says his worst reaction came on Saturday, which resulted in him having to go to the emergency room complaining of the inability to breath.

“I felt like I was being strangled,” says Dove, “it was one of the most terrifying times in my life as it was beyond my control.”

And what did Will do to alleviate his pain? The lead guitarist of Asthma Catastrophe fell back on his musical roots to calm himself, singing to himself a take on the Leona Lewis song, “Keep Bleeding Love,” entitled “Keep Breathing.”

Just because I had to, I asked him of his emotions on the ride to Swedish Hospital in Issaquah. Will admits he never saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but he was “freaked out of his mind”. His sinuses had supposedly inflamed to the point at which mere inhalation was a struggle.

But with the help of his friends, primarily alerted by means of a Facebook group, he was able to overcome. Many of his friends not only joined the group, but left loving messages on both the community wall and Will’s personal wall.

“They were fantastic, a real credit to their respective peoples,” Dove says of his supporters throughout the struggle. “Although I wasn’t able to see the comments while I was in the hospital, the support that I noticed a couple days after helped my recover, without a doubt.

Although the battle is over, Commander Cool is still looking for his assaulter and trying to defend himself again, much like O.J. Simpson on the golf greens. Dove recently visited a local otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat doctor) to check if a blockage in the passageway was limiting his breathing. To do so, a doctor had to lower a fiber-optic camera into his nasal cavity and eventually down his throat, though he was sedated, Dove claims it was a terrible feeling, understandably.

Though his future is uncertain with the allergen still unknown, Will Dove is taking heavy prescription medication to make a brighter, (commander) cooler future.