Break a Leg not a Lung

Break a Leg not a Lung

Dear Ryan, hope you like this entry, its for you. As I have mentioned before I did an internship at my old school, Our Lady of Peace (Olp) for two years. My first year (my junior year), I worked with the first through fifth grades. Every December, Olp has a Christmas play. The fourth grade acts, and first through third sing in the choir. Because most of the classes in the play were the ones I worked with, my schedule was pretty much ruined on show day. I had to improvise, and I became the music teacher's assistant that day. The first two shows went off without a hitch, and the music teacher ask me if I was coming to the evening show to help out. I told her yes, and asked her when she wanted me to come back. I was planning on being as helpful that night as I had been during the day. Little did I know, that night would start the weirdest week of my life.
St. Charles Preparatory High School, is an all-boys school with an advanced curriculum. St. Charles is the school that my brother Ryan, his band, and his friends, graduated from. Now, I only hear good things about Saint Charles. However, I probably would have disintegrated upon walking onto the campus on the first day of school, had I chosen it as my high school.
I got home, on the day of the Christmas play, about an hour before Ryan did. It was finals time, so Ryan immediately sat down at the dining room table and started to study. I didn't really have anything to do, so I went upstairs and took a nap. When I came downstairs to go back to Olp,  Ryan was on the couch clutching his chest. He was experiencing sharp pain that wasn't going away, and he was having trouble breathing. My mom was on the phone with my neighbor, who is a nurse. Our neighbor came over, asked Ryan a few questions, then turned to my mom and said, “San, he needs to go to the hospital.” I managed to get to Olp, but I was distracted the whole time. When the show ended, I turned my phone on and I had a text from my mom that said that Ryan’s right lung had collapsed. I have to admit, I don't completely understand what happened, scientifically at least, but basically, his lung collapsed due to stress.
Ryan was in the hospital for six days, working to re-inflate his lung. Almost immediately after he got out of the hospital, my other brothers, my cousins, and myself started making fun of Ryan and his “Wimpy Lung.” The joke was cool for a while, but eventually it lost its sting and was only brought up every once in awhile. Around Thanksgiving of 2018 (coming up on the two-year anniversary), Ryan got pneumonia. The pneumonia caused Ryan to cough, and he re-collapsed his lung. This brought new vigor to the joke. So much so that now, every time Cousin Simple is about to play, I give Ryan a hug, look him dead in the face, and say “Break a leg… not a lung.” The phrase  started out as a joke, but now it's a very important life lesson:

As of tomorrow (3/9/19) I am on spring break. We all know what happens right before spring break, midterms. I took a history class this semester, and as of last week I was not ready for the test. I started hardcore studying early in the week, but I also had a research paper due. When Sunday night rolled around, I started to have a panic attack. I started crying and freaking out, and I could not think rationally. My parents told me the step back and take a break. After a little bit of angry mumbling, I walked up to my room and closed the door. My phone was charging by the side of my bed. I picked it up and I called Ryan. When he answered, I let it all out. I told him everything I was afraid of, everything that could go wrong, everything negative I was going through in that moment. Ryan responded very calmly and managed to calm me down. When I was calmer Ryan said, “You know I’m not good at handling stress. My lung exploded because I was stressed, but you just gotta push through it, you know?”

When he brought up his lung I chuckled for a second, and of course I thought of my  saying, then I realized what it actually means. “Break a leg”, of course means, good luck, and “not a lung” means don't panic. Run around the house like an idiot, say a prayer, play music, scream so loud that the whole world shakes, do whatever you have to do, but don’t panic! I smiled, finished talking to Ryan, and got back to work. When I took the test on Wednesday, I said a prayer, and told myself over and over again “Break a leg, not a lung.”

Have a greattastic day

                                 J. Mitchell Ulibarri