Sisters

Sometimes i forget how close my sister was to dying as a child
She was born blue and everyone was terrified
Baby photos all show her crawling around wheezing with a constant tube down her nose
As a kid when she coughed or laughed she sounded like a duck
We spends months living in Auckland at the Ronald McDonald house where i caught so many super-bugs from being at the hospital that i had to go to hospital myself..

apparently i was feeding her leaves, i am a fantastic sister

For a long time she was in and out of hospitals as she had such a rare condition, she was in a ward with other small children with serious conditions. I think one of the little boys in her room died shortly after we were able to go home, but another child with the same problem (narrow airway) is still going strong.

She had problems breathing on and off for a few years; one day we were visiting a family friend who became her piano teacher, i liked her house a lot as the pathway down to the house was made of shells and she gave me a glass window mosaic to hang up so that all sorts of colours would light up through my window. We walked down to the beach and it was a very windy day, then my sister stopped breathing. She was in a baby carrier that you put on like a backpack, so it took dad a moment to work out what was going on. She turned purple and we ran so, so fast home to call an ambulance/ the fire brigade. The problem was the nearest hospital was extremely far away, so the fire brigade got there first and was faced with an oxygen starved baby. They lay her down and took an oxygen canister and inserted it down her neck.. I have no idea how it worked as i probably wasn't very aware of what was going on. Maybe half an hour later the ambulance turned up and took her to hospital, a bit slow really.
She still has problems with sports and running, and had problems breathing on windy days (hard to avoid in wellington), but i would be walking home with her and she would put her hands over her mouth gasping as if she couldn't get any oxygen in as the wind was ripping it all away.

She was in the newspaper this year:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/6993009/Julias-venturing-against-the-wind, they got a lot of things wrong really.. but that's journalism
I'll bet anything she never said that scouting has given her the confidence to embrace life... seriously?
I remember the speech therapy but i don't think it was related so much to the condition, just her reluctance to talk.. or so i thought?

at least you have a doctors note to get out of cross country now!
proud of you xx