Never Steal a Sip of Your Mom's Coke

Alternate Title: But Wait, It Gets Worse

A lot of my fainting stories will go unmentioned for the rest of eternity, but some are more significant than others. The event I’m about to share is what I remember as starting Isabelle’s Downfall. I believe I was about 14-15 years old, but no one really remembers. I was in the car with my mom and sister. We had just driven through McDonald’s and then stopped at the eye doctor (in the same parking lot) so that my sister could go in and get her glasses adjusted. They went inside and I was left alone in the front seat. I had french fries in one hand and sweet & sour sauce in the other. They didn’t leave me alone for that long, so surely it would be fine, right?! Nope, I fainted. 

Except, this time, unlike every other time in my life, there wasn’t a clear reason. Here’s what happened.

I became bored waiting for them, and leaned down to steal a sip of my mom’s coke. I took a drink while still leaning down. Immediately, I experienced what I can only describe as the worst pain of my life shooting through my head. I suddenly felt the urge to evacuate my bowels and bladder. I heard a ringing in my ears that quickly got louder until I blacked out. This all happened in a matter of seconds: I bent down, felt the worst I have ever felt in my life, and then lost consciousness right away. No one saw this, so we still do not know how long I was out for (normally it is about 30 seconds). My mom came out the door when I was just starting to raise my head again. Upon waking, I saw that I had clenched my fists so tightly that I had crumpled the fry container in my hand and squeezed the sauce, sending it flying all over myself. Luckily I still had my seatbelt on and it supported me. Normally after I faint, I feel very weak, but this time I felt tense and sore. And normally I have an advanced warning and can get to the ground before losing consciousness, but this time all I felt was the sharp, shooting pain with presyncope all at once, and I was out in moments. This is still the first and only time in my life I have lost consciousness without a reason - unless that reason was being smited for stealing a quick sip of my mom’s coca cola. 

It was concerning that I had evidently seized, but we did not know what to think of this and I just went on with my life afterwards. Every other previous fainting episode up to this point had been in a public place like school and had thus been witnessed by others. 

Still, I was able to avoid fainting for the most part because I knew my triggers well. Unfortunately, that was not enough to stop another notable incident from happening because I was still too timid to speak up for myself. This happened in yet another classroom setting, although it was driver’s ed instead of elementary school. My driving instructor was a pretty cool lady with a big past and lots of stories to share. She was an ex-cop who also had worked in the past as an EMT, and had seen some pretty horrific things in her line of work. We were almost finished with driver’s ed and ready to take our driver’s tests, so this particular night of class was less about learning the rules of the road and more about scaring us straight so that we didn’t immediately go do stupid things behind the wheel. We watched a horrific and sad documentary about car accidents that showed brief footage of a dead child. I didn’t really get a warning for that beforehand, and it’s safe to say I was already feeling on edge. By the end, I was “watching” with my eyes closed. When the video ended, it was time for a class discussion. The instructor ended up telling a very graphic story of something she witnessed on the scene of an accident that traumatized me and still lives in my brain and I still can’t talk about it, but yeah, I passed out in class. I did manage to make one friend, Sophia, which was good, because I fainted on her. She said she thought I was just going in for a random weird hug, and then she realized I wasn’t waking up, and so she did the appropriate thing and raised her hand. When she was called on, she just pointed at me and our instructor jumped into action. About that time is when I started convulsing (I am so sorry, Sophia). Commands were shouted and the students pulled all the chairs and tables out of the way, and then cleared the room. I was lowered to the floor. Someone called 911. When I woke up, a phone was immediately put to my ear with a stranger on the line asking me a billion questions. The paramedics showed up fast and pricked my finger. (I remember that because it’s something they never did any of the other times they were called on me!) 

Because I had been convulsing and this had been witnessed by someone with a lot of medical expertise, who also happened to be a driving instructor, it was reported (on the second to last day of driver’s ed, right before I took my test) that I had a seizure, and I was not allowed to drive for six months. This is something that would of course happen to me, just like getting shingles at 17 is something that would happen to me. Because of this whole disaster, I ended up getting out of practice, panicking, and then not getting my license until 18. So, whoops. 

We now know I most certainly did not have a seizure in driver’s ed that day, but that was up in the air for awhile. I had a sleep study monitoring my brain waves at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and when I woke up they tried to induce a seizure. It was super fun (and didn’t work).  Convulsing while fainting is just a new thing I started doing ever since the car incident. A doctor would later explain to me why this happens. 

Fainting is the body’s way of protecting itself when blood pressure drops, which reduces oxygen and blood flow to the brain. When the brain isn’t getting enough oxygen, it causes you to lose consciousness (AKA fall down). While standing, it takes effort to battle with gravity and pump blood all the way up to your head, but when lying down, it is way easier to get to your brain. That’s why if I feel like I am going to faint, I can often fend off the episode by lying down on the ground, and also why most people wake up fairly quickly after fainting. 

In the instances where I ended up convulsing, I had fainted while sitting down (or in the first case, literally strapped in a seated position). My limbs contracting and seizing was my body’s counterintuitive way of trying to get me flat on the ground at any and all costs, no matter who got smacked in the process. I don’t know if I was convulsing the other time second grade me fainted at her desk, or if the class was just too distracted by James dumping me on the floor. (I guess I still got to the floor pretty quick.) Regardless, this doctor’s theory makes a lot of sense, especially because there was an obvious cause as to why I passed out in driver’s ed that night. 

Around this general timeframe (about 16), I began to experience presyncope on a near daily basis. I can’t remember a day where it was just suddenly awful, but it happened over time. My blood pressure was very unstable and began to plummet whenever I did strenuous activities or got down on my hands and knees (which I did often working with kids). I would have a hard time getting back up and feel very dizzy. I didn’t realize at the time that my blood pressure was the issue, I just knew that I felt like fainting all the time. Every day I would have debilitating heat flashes, but it wasn’t just limited to that, as my temperature was always fluctuating. Hot, cold, hot, burning, cold, burning, freezing, hot, cold, but mostly hot. I was always frustrated, putting on and taking off layers. 

Over time, the stability of my blood pressure got even worse. It was constantly low for no reason, right from the moment I woke up in the morning. If I stood up too fast, or really just stood up at all, I might have to decide between dropping to the ground or fainting. 

I couldn’t manage much physical activity and this really took a toll on me. Taking a shower physically exhausted me to the point where I would need to spend the entire next day in bed to recuperate – I spent the majority of my time in bed. I missed a LOT of school. I saw a lot of doctors, but none of them really knew what was going on. I kept getting referenced from one doctor to the next, and none of them took me very seriously. 

I began to feel presyncope when I merely got the urge to go to the bathroom, which was new. Even if I just need to pee, which really sucks!
By this point, my health had declined so much that I walked with a cane at school (to help me stand up because the room would start spinning and I would need to take frequent breaks), needed a shower chair because I couldn’t stand up for that long and my feet would turn reddish-purple, and rarely showered because it was so exhausting and taxing on my body regardless. I was very unwell.

I was seeing specialists all the way from here to Mars, but no one seemed to have answers. I was tested for a large variety of random afflictions. At a normal check-up with my pediatrician, she told my mom and I to go to the emergency room and refuse to leave until we had answers. It was unexpected, but we went home to grab a bag of stuff, drove through Starbucks like the classy ladies we are, and showed up at the ER. They were kind of exasperated because I wasn’t having an immediate medical emergency and there were obviously people there with more pressing needs, but my pediatrician was also exasperated and didn’t know what else to do for me. I still wasn’t taken seriously, which seemed to be the pattern (besides my amazing pediatrician, who made me sad to turn 18). They asked me why I had a cane and I told them the exact reason. When I saw the doctor’s notes later, I saw that they had written that I carried it with me for “comfort purposes.” Yeah, that was a slap in the face. We did not leave that day with answers, but we did get another reference to some thingy or other. 

At this point, I am barely attending school and losing hope quickly. An unforeseen side effect of becoming so ill was that I lost the vast majority of my friends. I have a couple that have stuck with me through it all, and for them I’m so grateful, but as for the rest of my peers, I learned a hard lesson. 

The truth is, when I wasn’t physically there at school, no one really thought of me. Gradually, people just stopped communicating with me because I was sick and I didn’t show up to school. It was tough for a 16-year old girl who was losing her health to also lose her friends at the same time. Thankfully, I have an amazing family support system who was (and is) there for me through it all. 

After a long and confusing doctor chase with many dead ends, in January 2018 I was referred to cardiology (for some reason). I had an EKG, chest x-ray, plus an ultrasound of my heart, and everything came back normal. After all of these tests, I had a fancy sit-down office meeting with the actual cardiologist. Both of my parents were in attendance and we had all reached a breaking point. 

And then something AMAZEBALLS happened, but this post is running a bit long, and I have to run out the door for yoga, and I love to leave a good cliffhanger, so we are calling it quits here! :)

Autonomically,

Isabelle