Scary Times!

I went in to work for a few hours yesterday morning. The campus is closed down, but it can be a productive time with students (and faculty!) away. When I got home, my brother-in-law and niece were out in the yard with worried expressions on their faces. “Scooter fell off her bike and an ambulance is on its way.”

After I ran inside, I found Kadie with Scooter in the bathroom. Scooter looked very pale. Kadie filled me in on the story. Scooter fell off her bike and received a run-of-the-mill knee scrape and walked inside the house crying slightly. She was sitting down while Kadie cleaned her knee. Scooter then complained that she felt sick and needed to lay down. Before Kadie could move her, Scooter’s eyes rolled up into her eyelids and she slumped forward.

She awoke almost instantly and Kadie (a Registered Nurse, thank God) wiped a cool rag across her face. Scooter then said that she felt dizzy and passed out again. This time she was out for about fifteen seconds and her right arm curled up and one leg raised, just like she was suffering a seizure. Then she awoke again. Kadie asked her sister to call for an ambulance and continued to wipe Scooter’s face for the next five minutes.

About this time I arrived, followed quickly by the EMTs. They took her vital signs which all registered within the normal range. As we told them, Scooter has actually fainted twice before. Once when she was four she was sick and trying to throw up and it triggered a Vasovagal reflex. Then last year she was running across her playground at school and passed out while again trying to throw up, due to a stomach virus.

The EMTs said that an ER trip was really unnecessary and so we went to the doctor’s office. Her pediatrician thinks that Scooter may just be more likely to faint then most. Kadie was a little concerned about the seizure like symptoms, but the doctor thinks that it was not a seizure. She did say some people can faint quite easily, such as when they are startled or angered.

The doctor does want to rule out a heart arrhythmia and gave Scooter an EKG which was fine. Thursday at 10:00 she has scheduled an echocardiogram which is apparently like a sonogram for her heart. That test should rule out any heart problems. Please keep us in your prayers if you think of us.

Life can change in an instant!