THE FAINTING FAMILY
The priest’s voice drones on and I feel the familiar sensations - the slight buzzing in my head and the dizziness. I look down, I fidget, I try to find the closest exit. Then eventually the black spots start to appear before my eyes quickly blotting out the world around me. I head out of the pew and down the center aisle of the church and out the front door. The ushers have come to expect me. This is not my first rodeo. I have been fainting in church for several years. They sit me down on the steps, bring me a cup of water and I follow the usual ritual of putting my head between my knees until the feeling passes and I think I can remain upright again.
I’m a fainter, my husband is a fainter, our sons are fainters. It’s actually quite a feat to be a fainter and a nurse. I don’t faint at the sight of blood I faint whenever I see someone writhing in pain because I have an overabundance of empathy. I have, on occasion, had to tell a physician that he needed to get another nurse to assist with a procedure because I knew the patient would be in pain and I would pass out. They usually don’t believe me and pull me into the room anyway only to wonder where the hell their nurse went when I would leave halfway through. As much as I find surgery interesting, I faint when I see open wounds. Whenever I have been in to observe surgery, I have ended up on the anesthesiologist’s stool with my head between my knees trying not to pass out. It is not the obvious that makes me pass out, the sight of blood or organs. I find body innards very interesting. But my mind imagines what it would feel like to be awake and have your body opened up like that. That’s what makes me faint.
My first experience with the rest of my fainting family was when my then two year old, Sam, cut his hand on a piece of glass. Zach was at school and I was home alone with the other boys. Sam, Jake, who was four at the time, and I were out front playing baseball and the ball rolled across the street into a grassy field. As Sam picked up the ball he screamed out in pain. I saw blood spurting out of his hand and when I looked closer could see muscle and bone. Now typically I would have immediately passed out but when you are in Mom mode, this is not an option. If I passed out, Jake, the four year old would be responsible for getting Sam to the hospital. Probably would not go well. So I quickly covered the hand so that it would stop the bleeding but more importantly in my mind so I wouldn’t have to look at it and could remain upright. I called 911 and then called my husband, Jon to meet us at the hospital. Due to my propensity toward fainting I once made Jon promise that he would always go in with the boys should they need stitches. The ambulance arrived and they put Jake in the front seat where he got to play with the sirens and lights and Sam and I were in the back with one of the paramedics. We were half way down the block when I said “Wait, go back, we forgot the baby!” In tandem they asked “what baby?”. We backed the ambulance up and one of the little boy paramedics ran into the house. Then he came back out and said “This is a LITTLE baby!” Drew was three weeks old. I said “Yeah yeah yeah, just throw him in the car seat.” He was, after all, my fourth baby. There was very little that threw me off my game at that point.
As promised Jon was waiting at the hospital and he went in with Sam while I was out in the lobby with Jake and Drew. Not too much later the nurse brought Sam out to me all bandaged up. She explained that he did indeed require stitches and would need surgery. As an afterthought as she walked away she said “Oh yeah and we’re still working on your husband.” “My husband?? What was wrong with my husband? He was fine when he came in.” She explained that Jon was at the head of the gurney with Sam, talking to him and keeping him calm. He figured if he just focused on Sam he wouldn’t pass out. The young doctor asked my husband how they were doing. When Jon said fine the doctor who obviously had stayed out too late partying the previous night and wasn’t thinking straight said “Good, coz I want to show you something.” When Jon turned toward him he saw that Sam’s hand was wide open. The doctor started pointing out the tendon that had been severed and Jon went down for the count. Everyone in the room left Sam’s side and tried to move my 6 foot 2, 180 lb husband up off the floor and onto a gurney. They were still ministering to my husband with juices and cool cloths.
The time I suspected we had passed our fainting genes onto our children was when we went to the London Dungeon back when my boys were in middle and high school. Now, if you haven’t had the good fortune of going to the London Dungeon let me describe it to you. It is an entire museum devoted to the fine art of torture. It describes and depicts every type of torture that was used in the past few centuries. It’s a place where you probably shouldn’t take children but when you have four boys this was like finding paradise! We were standing in one of the rooms watching a woman dressed in period garb talk about all of the ways people were tortured in the London Dungeon back in the day. She would pull out some nasty looking torture device and proceed to describe how it was used. I was watching my oldest son, Zach across the small room as she talked knowing he had a weak stomach for this sort of thing. I watched as he kept looking down at his feet, the first sign of trouble, as he fidgeted and kept looking toward the door, his route of escape, the second sign of trouble. I watched as he turned pale, slunk to the floor and put his head between his knees, causing all sorts of distress to the people around him. We were told it wasn’t the first time it had happened.
One year I had shoulder surgery. The plan was to have my then 20 year old son, Jake sit with me in the recovery room and bring me home where my husband would meet us. My son described to me what happened. He was sitting in a small cubicle of the recovery room worried for his Mom. It was a warm room, I was all bandaged up, I didn’t look well, the little heart monitor was beating in a rhythmic tone. His imagination was working overtime. He started fidgeting and then looked down at his feet. He looked up at the exit. By then we all knew the signs. The last thing he wanted was to faint in front of the hot nurse taking care of me. So, he decided to step out for a minute and get a bit of fresh air, perhaps find somewhere he could sit and put his head between his knees. He headed out to the hall — the next thing he knew he woke up, lying on the floor with his head in the lap of the hot nurse. She was asking if he was ok. He looked up at her and thought to himself, “Well, this is probably going to be the closest I will ever get to this hot nurse so I may as well enjoy it.”
My husband is a tough guy. He’s an Eagle Scout. He used to be a water safety instructor. He does not back away from any danger. When there is a noise in the house late at night, unlike me he will go looking for it. My sons are proud young men. They are protective of their families. All of the Alexander men love roller coasters and thrill rides. I’m a nurse. I’ve experienced more than my share of putrid, horrifying, malodorous, stomach turning, repulsive things in my 40 year career. I would not put any of us in the wimp category. However, at any given time, if you come upon a faint-worthy scene, you won’t find any of the Alexanders in the thick of things. Instead, you will find us all sitting on the curb with our heads between our knees.