It’s easy to recognize the traits which make us family. We have the K nose. We twiddle our thumbs. We have those stupid bumps on our heads (sebaceous cysts) that sometimes get irritated when we brush our hair. And there are those traits that we could easily do without….
DS and Amy came down for the weekend, driving through a forest fire to get here (….but that is another story….), just to hang out and have me remove this…thing…from his knee. It was a bump that had been there for at least two years, and it hurt when he kneeled on it, and was just annoying.
So, on Saturday we drove to the clinic, I examined the thing, and proceeded to resect it. I had him lay on the exam table, but he raised the back so that he could watch. Amy worried about that, but DS said that “adversity would make him stronger….”
She watched as I numbed the area, injecting him 3-4 times. She did ok as I made the incision, but as I opened the wound and explored it, she suddenly felt quite…warm…. and had to leave the room.
DS was stoic as I scraped away at something hard…..which turned out to be a 1/2″ long piece of glass….which he remembered he might have become “attached to” during a skateboarding incident a couple years prior.
Amy had recovered and was fascinated by the piece of glass, and took to his bedside to show him, but DS seemed quite unimpressed. He seemed….distant. He seemed…..green and sweaty. When asked if he needed a shot for nausea he raised a finger and weakly said “It may be time…..” and then he fainted.
Have I told you about my tendency to pass out? This affliction is called vasovagal syncope. When ill, or under stress, or after unexpected exercise, my blood vessels dilate, the blood leaves my head, and I pass out. I did it in ballet class at age 7, on the basketball court in high school, and at the altar during my wedding. I had seen DS do it twice before: once as a baby when our air conditioning in Phoenix failed, and once during a hike when he was 5 or 6.
Some fanned air and a shot of phenergan helped him recover quickly, but the diaphoresis, the ensuing fatigue and nausea put a damper on the rest of his weekend.
The K nose is….pleasantly distinct. The bumps on the head, a mere inconvenience. The twiddling thumbs don’t bother us (though our significant others are sometimes annoyed….).
The vasovagal syncope……a trait we would prefer not to pass on.
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