My dad shoved his iPhone(opened up to StudentVue) right into my face, and literally screamed at me, “What is this?! Why do you have a B- in half of your grades, and missing assignments and classwork from almost each subject?”

“Weeelllll…”, I tried to explain to my dad that it wasn’t what he thought it was. Then I realized it was exactly what he thought it was. However, that was an exaggeration. It was only 2 out of my 6 grades, that weren’t so pleasing. My dad is a really nice person and lets me do almost anything I want, but can be kind of strict when the matter is focused on my grade. My problem is that I’m extremely forgetful and that I somehow managed to lose every single one of my jackets in school. Eventually, I was sick of both my parents lecturing me about how my grades could be better and that I had to be more responsible now that I was a middle schooler. Yeesh...It’s not like a couple of bad grades in 6th grade is going to shape my whole entire career. Ignoring my parents, I went and shut myself inside my room and locked the door, thinking of ways I could annoy my parents and feeling generally miserable. Then I thought of  ways to take revenge on them(such as hiding their phone…)

I went to sleep and awoke the next day to the riiiiiiiiiiiing, riiiiiiiiiiiing, riiiiiiiiiiiing, of my alarm clock. I groaned as I smacked the darn alarm clock right on its button and dragged myself out of bed, unsure of the fate that awaited me. I was still annoyed with my parents because of the previous night where they had been complaining that my grades weren’t going that well and that I had to be less forgetful. That thought kept on nagging me in the back of my head, and I pushed it aside and started getting ready.Is it necessarily my fault if I have the memory of a goldfish(which is around 3 seconds)? The fact that I left my jacket at school a couple of days earlier didn’t help my case… So I took a shower, put my clothes and did all the boring stuff that most people do to get ready for school. As I was procrastinating and finishing my math HW at 7 in the morning, I suddenly felt a flare of pain inside my chest and was forced to sit down on the bed. I heard my mom calling me from the kitchen to come eat breakfast, and I was about to respond before I suddenly felt another continuous pain inside my chest, and before I knew it, I couldn’t breathe. I started coughing like a madman gasping for air, and it felt like I just got winded and the air was forced out of my chest.I tried to call for my parents, but my voice wasn’t working and the edges of my eyes were starting to go fuzzy, which I hardly doubt was a good sign. I even tried to yell HELP, but it came out as a whisper. After a few second though my parents rushed into the room, partly because I didn't answer any of their questions, and partly because my coughing was so loud, I wouldn’t be surprised if it caused an earthquake. My dad hauled me outside, where I could breathe in the fresh air, while my mom frantically rushed to get the phone, and then she called the 911. They said we could come bring me to the hospital, or that they would send an ambulance. The rest was kind of hazy, but I remember that they made me lie down in the back of the ambulance with my parents sitting next to me while going way faster than they should’ve towards the emergency room.

Surprisingly, I remembered the hospital quite clearly.  The air was thick and slightly suffocating with all of the fumes from various chemicals building up. The whole place had a sense of misery to it and at the same time, it seemed like it had been scrubbed clean a couple of times. When we got there the doctors were ready, waiting for me, standing right over me, in there clean white gowns….That’s when it hits you.The realization of what is actually happening. How serious it actually is.  They checked my vital signs with a worried expression(later I learned it was much more serious than me and my family thought), and then put an oxygen mask on my face, and hooked me up with some steroids. The doctors warned me that one of them would make me feel really jittery, and it would make me feel really uncomfortable. What’s the point of medicine if it makes you feel worse?! A few minutes later, I see what they meant. I felt like I had just ran a mile and then ate like 500 pounds of pure sugar. I was so uncomfortable and I started rolling around in my hospitable bed while dealing with my parents shot worried looks at me. They also gave me an anesthetic, which they explained would help me go to sleep and make me feel better. As I started to go to sleep, I had a flashback of my parents smiling face as I slowly fell asleep. Later when I woke up, the doctors also gave me a bunch of other medicines and then handed a sheet to my parents explaining what side effects the medicines could do to me. I snatched the paper out of there hand and became more anxious, the more I read. The memory of the argument with my parents was faint in the back of my mind and I didn’t even care about it anymore. I realized that it didn’t matter anymore, and that my parents always wanted the best for me(Ugh.), and everything they did was for my own good. I soon fell asleep after talking to them a bit and the doctors after I was done telling them how I felt. To pass the time the doctors allowed me to binge watch movies and eat a lot of ice cream(they assured me it wouldn’t make my throat worse) and in other words, it was a really clean hotel…. Later on in the day they moved me up to the “kid part” of the hotel and boy was I hungry. As soon as I finished screaming at my parents, that I was fine and that they did not need to call the doctor just to make sure that I was fine. At that very moment the doctors walked into the room and checked to see how I felt. Then with a very serious expression clouding her face, they told me that my case was extremely serious and that I had come close to taking my last breath. They then had a conversation with my parents, speaking in a hushed tone, so I could not hear the details of their conversation. Then they left the room with a shocked expression on my parents face and a worried expression on mine. I did some research later, and found out that very few people have to be hospitalized due to croup and I was one of those people. But then again I’ve been hospitalized 2 times before for this exact same reason(lucky me…) but it was never this bad. After a couple of hours my visitors started pouring into the hospital members and included in the group were a couple of family members and friends. Eventually I got sick of hearing the term “Are you OK?” Then I would respond by saying,”I’m lying in a hospital bed! DO YOU THINK I’M OK?” I never knew I had so many family members that could be so annoying. They all wanted to know exactly what happened, and what I was doing. All of them had the same reaction when they learnt I had almost died due to suffocating...mind-blown. I suppose that the fact that they came to visit me is all that matters and that I should really appreciate what my family means to me, but there's no way I’m going to do that. Yet. Of course this was just there way of expressing concern for me and that I had to listen and thank them for being worried about me(at least that’s what my parents said). The best part was the get well gifts and then they left me to R.I.P and I slowly get better. I slept in the hospital overnight and my dad was sleeping on the couch, and my sister and mom had gone home. It was kinda hard to sleep because I was hooked up to a bunch of monitors and tubes that would poke me and make me feel weird.  Sometime in the night(luckily I was asleep) they stuck a needle full of some medicine into me, and I only know because my parents told me.The doctors even wanted to know exactly when I did everything(such as going to the restroom) which was creepy and kind of weird. The next day the doctors cleared me to be released from the hospital, and scheduled another checkup a couple of days later, and they gave me a bunch of medicines that I had to keep on taking to ensure my well being. The argument that me and my parents had a couple of days before was completely forgotten, but there was something that I forgot to say.  Maybe me apologizing to my parents for causing them so much worry and concern for me, and thanking them for being there for me? As we were walking out of the hospital towards our car my dad looked at me and said,”You do realise that your little hospital trip cost us $15,00 right?”

And then I remembered what I had forgotten to say…”Thanks, Mom and Dad. I appreciate you taking so much great care for me. I hope this money will not affect your decision to get me that phone for my 12th birthday.” Really I was being sarcastic right there and then. Secretly, I was glad that my parents took such good care of me and I understood that they had gotten mad at me because they wanted my academic career to be successful. But this event was a major life-changing moment for me. Life is precious and you shouldn’t waste a moment of it doing things you’ll regret. And like my parents would say that since life is precious, they want my time spent on earth to be great and successful.