#19: High school....I look back and still cringe.

   So, one of my friends had a pretty embarrassing moment today, which reminded me of a somewhat similar experience from high school that my memory had repressed. I won't share his in a public space without his permission, so I'll just go straight into mine.

   So, FLASHBACK about 5 years to my junior year of high school (wow, has it been THAT long??). Every now and then, my asthma reaches rather unfortunate levels and one day this inconveniently happened while I was at school. My school was also rather inconveniently placed on a hill, and my chemistry class was located at the top. I huffed and wheezed my way up there and managed to get to class. I made my way to my seat that was almost in the back, grateful I had made it. However, as class progressed, despite the fact that I was not exerting my body in any way, my lungs became deplorably worse. For those of you lucky ones who don't have asthma, try strangling yourself. That's about what it feels like. It got to the point where I didn't even think I'd be able to walk to the nurse's office--I was getting no oxygen. I struggled my way to the front of the class to inform the teacher in so many breathless and wheezed words that my lungs were denying almost all oxygen access. She asked if I could make it to the office, to which I shook my head. She said she'd call the office to come get me, and so I went back to my seat.
   Now, at this point I was envisioning some office personnel driving up to the classroom door in one of those cool golf carts that they zip around the school in, have me inconspicuously leave the class, and have me sit next to them, after which they would speedily zoom-zoom me down to the office, which was on the other end of campus.
  
      However, about five minutes later, I heard a thu-THUNK...THUNK...KA-THUNK. 
  
     I, along with the other 35 kids in class, turned our heads in the direction of the door at the back of the class, where two teenage office aids were struggling to push a brown, uncomfortable-looking wheelchair over the metal threshold of the doorway. Sweet merciful heavens, they are coming for ME. I think the only way they could have made the situation any more conspicuous would have been to announce their entrance with a megaphone. After overcoming their noisy obstacle, they "zoom-zoomed" or rather, squeeky-squeekied my new set of wheels over to my desk, into which I sat my kabooty. I kept my head shamefully lowered so as not to look at any of my peers, who were excitedly whispering to each other and wondering what the heck was going on. I was then wheeled out of the class, with at least 36 pairs of eyes following me out the door. At least we made it back over the threshold without too much problem. Actually...I don't even remember because I was too preoccupied with the fact that I still couldn't breathe and that the whole class had just seen me be emergency-wheeled out of the class. I guess it could have been worse though....it could have been a stretcher....or I could have fallen out of the wheelchair on the way out the door. Thankfully I was spared a little dignity.
   I was soon whisked away to the nurse's office, or rather, nurse's portable building, where I received what little medical attention they could give me. Unfortunately, there are lots of classrooms to pass before reaching the nurse, and many teachers leave the doors open due to lack of an air conditioning system. Awesome. Fortunately, though, my younger sister had been sitting in one of those classrooms and saw me being wheelchaired (yes I just verbed a noun) away to the medical room. She got permission to leave class to see what was up and make sure I wasn't dying. Blessed supportive sister. I was soon picked up and missed the rest of school, instead using that time to spend quality time with my loyal nebulizer machine forcing gaseous medicines down my chest.
   Oh asthma, as if the inhalers didn't already make me look nerdy enough. Thank you for keeping me humble.