The Queen of Croup

I'm not sure why, unless it has something to do with my having been a premature infant, but almost anytime I develop any respiratory ailment, it turns into croup. Anyone who lives within a hundred yards of me can forget about getting a decent night's sleep when I have croup. Once when my mom had to take me to the hospital because my dad was out of town when I came down with the dreaded croup, a doctor pushed back the curtain of my little cubicle in the ER and was stunned to find a small eleven-year-old girl inside. He said my cough sounded like it was coming from a two-hundred-fifty-pound linebacker. I've always felt that if a person is going to have an illness that makes him or her feel generally lousy, one may as well make everyone around him or her just as miserable.

Last night my lips turned blue during a particularly violent croup attack. My dad was here, so he injected me with steroids and took me out into the fog for a few minutes. (He had his stethoscope, cell phone, and car keys with him, so he could have taken me to the hospital or called 911 if I got worse. I didn't.)

My Aunt Jillian's brother Tim put his humidifier (we're all sick except my dad) in my room along with mine to make the air even foggier when I came back inside. It was almost like what I imagine a Scottish moor is like. I had to feel my way to my bed.

I'm a little croupy tonight, but not one-tenth as bad as I was last night. I always wonder if an attack of croup will be my last one, either because it kills me or because maybe my lungs will finally mature. My dad knows a guy with a recording studio near here. Next time I have croup, I'm going to arrange to record myself so I'll always remember how great I sounded if I never get croup again, not that I'd really mind not getting croup again.