4-14-10
Sonrise went very well; I was surprised to have even the faintest attempt of a voice the next day, and it completely recovered in four or five days. My feet got very dirty, I got slightly sunburnt, and I slept like a rock, but it was completely worth it to tell the greatest Story ever.
Last Wednesday, I checked my cell phone upon leaving American History II, and discovered a voicemail (which is odd, for people rarely call me). It was from my school's education department, telling me that they'd made a mistake in assigning my admission to the program interview date and the only time open was that evening. Of course, I accepted the change, e-mailed my work supervisor to say I'd have to take a half hour off to go to my interview, and changed before work. My interview went very well (even though my voice was still a tiny bit raspy from Sonrise), and I got an e-mail stating that they will be recommending me for acceptance into the teacher education program. Yay!
After that, I went to a four-hour-long Sonrise debrief, on account of the fact that I supposedly was an assistant scene director. Not that I'd felt like one, really, until the day of, and that was because I was trying to be helpful. Also, do I know anything about directing people? Nope, not really. But I got free pizza and helped go through various issues that always (seemingly) come up.
On Thursday last, I spoke at the student missions class as the "returned SM." I had a slideshow of Ebeye running in the background, and I spoke about the fact that if a person is where God wants them to be, it doesn't really matter what that place is. Also, you are where you are, not where you were, not where you planned to be (sometimes), and not where you're going to be. Look for the good, acknowledge the bad, deal with what you can, and give the rest to God. Basically, that was my point. It was also funny to see eyes get wide and hear little gasps of air when I gave my regular description of the island ("a mile long, a city block or so wide, and has 15,000 people").
Thursday and Friday we had Wind Symphony practices, I enjoyed vespers, and on Sabbath morning, I got up to get ready to play with the Wind Symphony at church for the first two services. I was about to get in the shower when one of my suitemates wanted to use the bathroom. I left the door open and climbed into the shower, then reached out and pulled the door open a little to let her know that I was in the shower. I must have strained/hurt/something my shoulder because it hurt very badly all of a sudden.
I tried to run it under the water to soothe it, but the pain traveled up into my head (that's the best description I have of what the pain did). My vision got sort of blurry, and so I leaned against the wall opposite of the shower head because it hurt so bad. I was like, "This is weird."
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor outside of the shower. I thought two things: "Why am I on the floor?" and "I'm getting the mat wet; I need to get back into the shower." (I am not kidding, that's what I thought.) The suitemate asked me if I was okay and I said that I was fine. I got back into the shower, saying that that was weird. My hands felt all tingly and then I was on the floor again. Then I tried to get back up and fell again. I was really scared but figured, "Hey, I need to get this shower done with and then get ready for band."
My roommate was there all of a sudden, and I kept saying, "I'm fine, I'm fine, this is weird, I don't know why this is happening," etc., and she said, "Ashlee, your back is bleeding. You need to get out of the shower and sit down," and handed me my towel. I made it to my chair. I drank some water and succeeded in getting dressed while my suitemates and roommate called one of the deans, who called the ambulance. My roommate then called my band director and told him that she wasn't letting me go to band because I had fainted four times and needed to get checked out at the hospital.
I was glad I'd been able to get dressed because the dean, a Campus Safety officer, two volunteer fire department gals (one of which lives two doors down from me with the girl I lived with last semester when she's not volunteering), and then two EMTs were all crowded into my dorm room, along with my roommate and suitemates.
My blood pressure got checked like fifty million times and they kept asking me questions (I realized later that they were doing so because they were afraid that I had possibly gotten a concussion because I'd hit my head at least twice). I was feeling better, but I decided to go to the hospital to get checked out. So I've now had my first ambulance ride. The EMT with me was really nice. He joked with me, got my information, checked my blood sugar, and such. (A sign of how better I was already feeling was the fact that I thought, "Hey, how can I use this in a story?" No joke.)
At the ER, they ran blood work and did a CT scan, among some other things. I sat there with my roommate (who'd followed the ambulance in her car) for about four or five hours or so. Everything came back clean. The doctor, who'd predicted that outcome (since I'd been improving), said that about 20% of healthy people will randomly faint for no reason, and ordered that I chill in bed for the rest of the day. So I had to cancel helping at the student missions retreat (which I'd really wanted to do) and stayed in bed most of the day.
Total sum of injuries: two bumps on the back of the head (one bigger, under my hair on the left side, and one smaller, behind my right ear), a stiff shoulder (the one I pulled/strained/something a muscle in), some cuts on my back from smashing the container I keep some of my tolietries in, and a sore ankle (I think I caught it on the lip of the shower when I fell out of it). Also, I have learned a lot about syncope (the fancy doctor-word for fainting) from the doctor and from medical websites.
I was still able to play in our Wind Symphony concert on Sunday night, and my director was glad that I was okay and told me that, even if I had been the one to call him, he would have told me to go to the hospital instead of coming to play at church. I haven't really exercised like I'm supposed to for Fitness for Life because at first I still felt a little out of sorts and had a slight headache and then my stupid ankle (which has also shown improvement). However, I feel much better and will do my Post-Assessment in Fitness for Life tomorrow afternoon, even if I have to take some ibuprofen to do so.
So I had a busy weekend after some busy weeks. But I am fine, and even though we don't know the reason why I fainted (which was the first--and hopefully the only--time I've fainted), I'm okay. Sometimes I forget that I have goose eggs on the back of my head and accidentally jar them, but that's just an indication that they're not hurting. Yay!!
Off to bed.
More later.
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