No News is Good News?

The good news is Carter saw the doctor today about these fainting spells and they found nothing wrong with him.

The bad news is Carter saw the doctor today about these fainting spells and they found nothing wrong with him.

So we are sort of back where we started. Not knowing much. But feeling at ease that some things were ruled out.

Carter stayed home from school today because his stomach was still upset. Unfortunately, both Daddy and I had to go to work. There were certain things I had to get done today because I already have tomorrow scheduled off since there is no school. So Jim and I ended up driving separately so I could bolt when those mandatory things got done and head home.

That worked out well. I got home by 12:30 so Carter wasn't alone too long, fed him some soup and sent him to bed so I could get some more work done. We had a doctor's appointment in the mid-afternoon so I made it a quick, productive day.

Although his stomach still didn't feel right when we went to the doctor, he at least kept his food down. In fact, he has never gotten sick that way during any of these fainting or near fainting episodes.

When we laid it out all for the doctor, he could understand why we were concerned about this. In the past month, Carter has fainted twice in a down-for-the-count way, then had 3 other "almost" situations. Whether it was full-blown or not, he always felt yucky after and that included an upset stomach, basically some nausea.

After checking him over, the doctor said his head is on straight (that's a relief) and ruled out anything neurological since the pattern didn't suggest seizures.

He said his heart sounded fine through the stethoscope but thought we should do a more in-depth test for a rapid heartbeat, which can cause fainting. So he ordered an EKG and I just about fell over in my chair. (OK, I shouldn't joke about that.) I will say seeing your kid hooked up with 10 wires to test his heart is just plain scary. At that moment, as I'm trying to hold myself together, I realized this could be serious. Could be, but hopefully not. As it turned out, his EKG results couldn't have been more perfect if the doctor drew them himself. He said that! So that was good. His heart is in perfect shape until some girl comes along and breaks it!

Now we had the heart and nervous system ruled out and really, there's not much else. The doc did explain that all teens and kids have low blood pressure to begin with, so it's not uncommon for them to stand up too quickly and pass out because the blood doesn't have time to get to where it needs to be quickly enough. Based on the situations described, the doctor said this could be the case. But he couldn't say for sure.

He acknowledges Carter has had a run of bad luck being in the wrong place at the wrong time -- seeing graphic scars, standing near other people fainting, etc. So he just told us to keep watch and, if something happens again, note everything that led up to the moment and how everything reacted (body and health-wise) after it. If it keeps happening, we'll have to go to some sort of specialist.

I know I for one am hoping (and praying!) that we just keep watching and there will be nothing to see!