Here's a good story we may laugh about some day:
It all began when the lights went out. Literally, in Sunday mass yesterday morning, as Father was saying the communion rite, the power went out. It was kind of weird and knocked everyone off-kilter for a minute, but things continued, without electricity. A couple minutes later, a nurse-friend who is also a Eucharistic minister began gesturing wildly to me from the door of the sacristy. I began going through my mental Rolodex of wiring expertise and left my pew to walk her way. But she wasn't summoning me for my power skills at all. When I entered the sacristy, I saw two other nurse-friends bent over a child laid out on the floor.
In the darkness, we had not even noticed, but our Amanda, who had been at the altar serving mass, had passed out. Though this has never happened before, Amanda sensed something was wrong and thought she was going to be sick, so she tried to leave the front of church. She collapsed at the doorway to the sacristy, but our priest had followed her and kind of caught her as she dropped and lowered her to the floor before leaving her with the nurse and returning to continue mass.
Amanda was very pale and clammy, said she felt hot, and complained of black spots, headache and chest tightness before she fainted. We gave her time to recover and then took her home. She seemed OK throughout the day, but not great. Amanda, Elisabeth and I had tentative plans to attend a Maroon 5 concert tonight, but I told Amanda I thought a crowded, noisy, hot arena where she would have to stand all night and stay up late would be a bad idea. She was disappointed but halfheartedly agreed.
She said she was feeling better this morning, so I took her to school and she was fine all day. After school, I had scheduled an appointment with our family doctor, just to make sure Amanda checked out all right. The doctor examined her and said she was not at all concerned about the fainting spell. She saw no cardiac indications or anything else, and said it was a classic example of lack of blood flow due to the kneeling-standing routine for which we Catholics are so famous, combined with hot lights and the excitement of the power outage, etc. The doc did warn Amanda may be more prone to fainting in the future, and said the next time Amanda begins to "feel weird" she should immediately sit down and put her head down or lie flat on the floor. I sense a lot of floor time in her future.
While we were in clinic, Amanda (my favorite, young hypochondriac) told the doctor she had some other things to ask her about:
"My dad said this mole on my neck looks weird."
"I see nothing weird about it. Has it been there a long time? It's just a part of who you are."
"I have this really rough skin on my arms and face."
"Yes, you have keratosis pilaris. You know this. If you would remember to use the special lotion morning and night, your skin condition would improve."
"I get nosebleeds-- sometimes when I'm working out and sometimes when I'm sleeping. They're always from this one nostril and they stop pretty quickly, but they're annoying and gross."
"I suspect you have a blood vessel that's very close to the surface of your skin. Put a humidifier in your room at night, and put Vaseline in that nostril. That should take care of it. If not, we can cauterize that vessel."
"And the side of my right foot hurts, here, where I have a little lump. I told my mom and dad but they just rubbed it and said I was fine. It started hurting when I was playing in the state basketball tournament about two weeks ago and it really hurt when I was dancing in the musical last weekend, and now it hurts when you push on it!"
"Hmmm, that is right where a fifth metatarsal break occurs. Maybe we should take an x-ray just to check..."
The doctor said she would call me after the x-ray was read, and I drove home thinking maybe we would go to the concert, after all. Then, the doctor called: Amanda's foot is broken! There was some dispute between those who first looked at the images over whether this was a standard fifth metarsal break (coincidentally, something Todd experienced a couple years ago) or a more involved Jones fracture. She recommended next-day follow-up with an orthopedist. I called Todd who was immediately making connections with his orthopod buddies, and they recommended we go to a speciality walk/limp/roll-in center (think Urgent Care for injuries.)
So, off we went. Concert plans definitely canceled. Then, Amanda literally danced into the clinic and we looked like the World's Stupidest Parents, but that's not the first time that has happened, nor will it be the last. The on-call orthopedist there ordered more x-rays and then reviewed them with Todd, agreeing the injury was difficult to categorize. With the information Amanda provided, he suspected she had rolled her ankle in a basketball game, which probably hurt but not enough to take her down at the time. It may be a fracture of that bone on the side of her foot, or it may be a separation of the growth plate there; either would be considered a "broken foot," but the latter would heal much more quickly.
No full pressure, running, jumping, etc. for the next two weeks, and then we will reassess. In the meantime, Amanda gets a lovely boot. I predict the novelty wears off by end of day tomorrow. Thanks, as always, for your prayers and shared chuckles over this latest bump in the road. Amanda appears to be handling things in style and, yes, in a cape. Unfortunately, I could not persuade her to pose for any photos.
