#Warrant Officer One A. Rady

[pedroam-bang]

Courage Under Fire (1996)

[dark-elf-writes]

I love you and the three raccoons that make up your 5’4 ass but please STOP GETTING HURT. And the concern is vry much warranted hon

It was the broken ankle wasn’t it? That’s what caused the concern.

….

Have I told the story about the time I became The Kid Who Totally Died In Homeroom™️?

So like I live in the America Lands where from a young age I was told to deny an ambulance at all costs because shit costs money and until my mom remarried we were poor as fuck. But EMT’s only let you deny care if you are able to like breathe and tell them that and are also not a minor.

And can breathe.

So I had zero hour (class before classes technically started) gym and it was fallish time I think so my lungs were already shot but no one believed that my wheezing ass needed to not be told to run faster because I would do it and then almost black out so fun times.

So I had an asthma attack. No big. I had a minor one pretty much every day. Took the inhaler. Vibes with the office ladies who saw me pretty much every day because two middle aged moms were better company when asthma-ing than The Alleged Pornstar™️ and like twenty five teenager. It’s whatever. We move on.

Second hour is Chorus which is normally fine but my lungs were still feeling real bad and trying to Fancy Breathe was not making it better. Got a little more wheezy. Spammed my inhaler again. No big.

Then comes homeroom which that day was club period.

And I was, perhaps unsurprisingly, in improv club.

So I’m sitting on top of a desk in the Forensic Science classroom watching them play the bus station improve game when it happens.

I cough.

Then I keep coughing.

Then I can’t breathe.

So me being me just get up and walk out. It’s an old hat. I’m pretty used to it. I start making my way to the office to vibe with my girlies until it passes.

Only it doesn’t pass.

And the office is farther away from the forensics classroom than it is from the gym. And I’m still coughing and wheezing. Rather loudly mind. It’s not fun.

Here is where things start getting hazy. One minute I’m in the hallway alone and the next the tiny forensic science teacher who is like the same size as me but fifty pounds lighter and one of my office girlies are hauling ass towards me. Then I’m sitting in the office girlies desk. Then more and more people are there watching and staring and I’m still not able to get in a breath.

I remember two things clearly.

One: the friend I was fighting with for months (who incidentally said I faked my asthma attacks) was at the phone calling home staring at me.

Two: my French/Theatre teacher the sweetest woman I knew was watching me with horror as she sunk into a chair and I have a very clear memory of thinking “someone should help her” like I wasn’t actively trying to suck what little scraps of oxygen I could get through satans piss hole.

Then I’m in the assistant principal’s office and the EMT’s are there. There mother fucker’s give me FOUR BREATHING TREATMENTS IN A ROW.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a breathing treatment but it really scrambles the brain meats. Just one makes me kinda loopy. At this point I am staring glassy eyes at this man as he tries to get the barest information from me because I know he’s talking and I see his mouth moving and nothing. No one is home.

No one can get ahold of either of my parents. My mom lives half an hour away. My dad is literally around the corner but was probably drunk at 10:45 AM on a Friday. No one knows what to do. I offer to drive myself home. No one agrees with me (v rude)

They finally call a code yellow to keep the other kids in class and load me up on a stretcher to go to the hospital. I think my dad showed up here. Pretty sure I called him a bastard. Not entirely sure.

The only memories I have after this are that they were playing the local rock station and I lifted my head off the stretcher looked the EMT in the face and told him “I like this station” as the edgy sex innuendo soundboard plays signaling the radio person actually talking. And once I was actually in the ER and both my mom and stepdad had arrived I cracked a joke because I’m still out of my mind zoinked and my step dad Was Not Amused and snapped at me.

I was fine. They kept me like less than an hour and sent me home. I kept the bracelet on as an excuse to leave work early. By the time Monday rolled around half the school thought I was dead and the other half were like “Nah that’s just something they do ya know”

And that is the story of my one and only ambulance ride.

My school got a pulse ox machine for literally just me the very next year.

[pedroam-bang]

Courage Under Fire (1996)