Deja Vu, All Over Again

This morning I was wiggling into my Strawberry Days golf shirt when from the kids' bathroom I heard a Bam, Bam,Bam!

I ran into the bathroom, and seeing legs and feet through the crack of the door and in the mirror's reflection, I gently opened the door and squeezed in to find The Girl in a pile on the floor right behind the door.

"Girl, Girl!" I called to her.  "Are you conscious, or are you out?!"

"ah, ow, huh, whoa."  She answered.

I think she was conscious, but still out of it.

Sure enough.  She had been putting in her contacts when she suddenly felt sick to her stomach, and then just as suddenly blacked out, bouncing her head off the edge of the tub on her way to the floor.  She has a nice lump on the back of her head.

Once I established that she neither would puke on me nor pass out again, I helped her gingerly back to bed, where she remained until about 1 PM today.

The entire ordeal this morning reminded me of a horrific chapter in my life, when I was just a year older than The Girl. 

Of course, I'll tell you.  I hoped you'd ask.

I was a junior in high school, and got up each day about 5 AM in order to get ready for school, and still make it to my early morning Seminary class at our church in town before the high school classes started. 

Seminary is a daily religion class for LDS high school aged kids where we studied a different book of scripture each year for four years.  One year is the Old Testament, followed by a year of New Testament, followed by a year of Book of Mormon studies and then a year of Church History including studying the Doctrine and Covenants.  Anyhoo.

Well, since it was a early class, I had the first shower shift in my family.  So about 5 AM I was in the shower.  And I was naked, as you generally are in the shower.  And the water was running at full blast, as that is the basic difference between a shower and a bath. Suddenly I felt myself getting woozy and before I could sit down, I blacked out.

All of this was reported to me later that morning, as I was still out of it for most of it.


Our best guess here, after the fact, is that on the way from a standing position in the shower, I twisted slightly and on the way down disturbed the location of my razor, and ended up landing on it, slicing open the back side of my upper thigh, just below my bum.

Now, the water is running, I am naked, and currently bleeding too.  Hearing the banging commotion, my mom leaps from bed and runs to the shower to see what in the world happened.  Seeing me konked out on the floor of the shower and bleeding from the upper thigh, lower bum, she shut off the water and proceeded to pass out herself.

This is a common family trait, come to find out.

But my mom has special black-out powers.  She also seizes when she passes out, like an epileptic.  She  looks like a little fish thrown to the river bank, gasping for air.  It is disturbing, especially when you are little girl.  I'm sure it isn't a trip to Disneyland for her, either.

Sure enough, she begins her fish-flopping seizure have now closed herself into the tiny portion of the bathroom that houses the toilet and the shower.  Her head is pushed into the back of the door and she is on the floor, unconscious, just outside of the shower.

My dad, hearing a secondary commotion, gets out of bed and comes to find us in a most unusual, and disadvantaged situation.  He can't get to us because the door is shut, and Mom is directly behind it.

Hearing my dad get up following the two previous banging bathroom events, my sister gets up and as she stood in the hallway, all sleepy, and dazed, asked if she should call 911.

Eventually, and somewhat miraculously, Dad got into the bathroom to save Mom, and apparently, to save me--naked and bleeding and wet. 

This is an episode where the telling of it ends as the beginning of the rescue. I just don't want to imagine my poor dad having to pull me out of the bathtub, like a naked, limp noodle.  Because, let's face it, I was never a noodle shaped girl.

Oh.  Just thinking of this is giving me some serious heartburn.  And this is 25 plus years later.  Yikes!!  Sorry Dad, in case I never told you.  And thank you for never, ever mentioning the naked part to me again.

The Girl was still in her pajamas this morning when I discovered her in the limp noodle situation.  If she'd been in the shower already, I might have followed my mom's example.  And we need only have one memorable situation like this per family, please.