Good King Wenceslaus Looked Out . . .

If  Good King (who was supposedly a mere duke and not  king, but once he was canonized and became Saint Wenceslaus, no one really fretted over the technical inaccuracy)  looked in my general direction, he would have seen and heard my barking and wheezing away, to the extent that I was banned from midnight mass.  Croup is a very large part of my destiny, and has been since my brother and I excited my mom's uterus because Uncle Jerry, the OBGYN of record, determined that the twins should be born at the optimal time fr the bigger twin.  Where the other twin was concerned, that was where the miracles of modern technology as it relates to saving micropreemies would come in.  As it turned out, the interventions would be minimal. all that was involved was tubes and an incubator for a few weeks . . .

That and the dreaded croup, which rears its ugly head in my general direction three or four times each year, and usually a the most inopportune times.  I've been told on numerous occasions that croup is an condition afflicting  babies, and that any doctors who have diagnosed me with such nooed to go baxk to medical school.  When I share this with my Uncle Steve, he either, depending upon his mood or on the control the person has over any aspect of my life, curses and tells me not to listen to them, hits a few buttons on his computer and prints out information relating to croup, and asks his secretary to mail it to them, picks up the phone and calls them out on their ignorance directly, or  puts a hex on the person so that someone over the age of eight in his or her family will be diagnosed with the condition in the immediate future.

Croup for me involves sleeping in a room in which my bedding has been made dripping-wet  with the proliferation of hunidifiers/vaporizers, and in especially pesky cases, sleeping under a nakeshift tent in my bed,  receiving steroid injections, and being force-fed doses of goshawful sludgy purply cough syrup that tastes something like I would imagine that congealed cow's blood would taste, not thatI would ever intentionally taste it.

I have company through this most recent  battle with the dreaded croup. My friend Meredith had been given permission to visit long before this dreaded plague struck. now what are my parents to do? Track her parents down in their cruise ship in the Bahamas? Send her to an orphanage? nope, she's happily stuck taking her chances with croup. My friends have a solid track record of avoiding croup even when residing in our abode. Meredith will sleep in a separate bedroom, but a few steps down the hall shouldn't that much difference. Still, she won't get it. my high school PE teacher would say it's because only babies get croup.  My Uncle Steve would say that communicability isn't all that likely among populations over eight or ten. Either way,  we hope the odds continue to work in her favor. If they don't however, we'll bark and wheeze together.

The goal is to be rid entirely of this affliction by December 3o, at which time we plan to travel to the state of the desolate, otherwise known as Utah, which, despite its state of desolation, does have   mountains with snow. We will, God willing, utilize the snow and the slope of the mountains to snowboard.

Pray for good health and continuing snowfall.