Tryouts are in full swing now and I think that Xavier has a decent shot of making the team. On Wednesday we took him to get his custom pads. This is his design. Quite a lot of colours. The team colours are red, black and white. His favorite colour is orange and he decided he liked the gold and yellow as well. We are taking sponsorships to get him 2 more sets of pads. In return for donating for his pads, when he makes the NHL you can get free tickets to his home games. This is only applicable to the first 200 people who donate a minimum of $10. I would also like to point out that Xavier does not like missing school and has repeatedly said that he will choose school over hockey. With this in mind he does not even want to consider playing AAA where you travel frequently. He still wants to make the NHL, but not at the expense of his education. Nevertheless he should be able to make the NHL. There are close to a thousand NHL players in the league.
On the day we got his pads, Melanie had to get some groceries as well. She left me alone with the kids at home while she went to grab some things. The kids shower downstairs in the steam shower and do not always get their towels prior which they keep in their rooms. Xavier was yelling for me to get him a towel and I was in bed so I got up to get him a towel. That did not go so well. I woke up on the floor beside a pool of blood. Somehow the kids found me and brought me a phone and I called Melanie and told her to finish shopping and come home as it was not a big deal. Since I was calm talking to her she was not super concerned. Olivier got me some paper towels to help me to clean up the bloody mess. I called Melanie again and calmly told her that I had fainted again and was on the floor. I do not remember calling her once, let alone twice. She knew something was seriously wrong as I did not remember calling her at all. I have a faint recollection of talking to Olivier and him giving me the paper towels. I also remember thinking, boy is the floor a mess, Melanie is not going to like cleaning that up. All of this occurred over approximately 10 minutes where I am sure I was in and out of consciousness. When Melanie got home and saw me with the blood she saw a huge gash on the side of my head. I explained to her again that I fainted and fell and she called 911 because of my memory loss throughout. The paramedics came and decided to take me to the hospital because they thought I might need stitches and to get me checked out. The ER was busy that night and some people were there for 11+ hours. A bunch of people left while I was there because they were waiting so long. Up to this point I have not been sitting upright in an uncomfortable chair for more than 2 hrs at a time. I have worked throughout this but not more than 2 hrs at a time at my desk. I do most of my work from the couch in a reclined position or from the bed.
The doctors did not seem to be too concerned from the bandage wrapped around my head and did not check it at all. I had bloodwork done, an ECG and a head CT. When they were testing my blood pressure, they did it when I was lying down, sitting up and standing up. My blood pressure fluctuated greatly when moving. The doctor said that right now I am very sensitive to sudden changes to my blood pressure and I needed to move slowly. It took me about 8 hrs to leave the hospital. I left and got home around 5am. Since that time I have lost a couple of pounds since I was slightly below calories on the Wednesday and ended sleeping most of the day on Thursday. I am pretty sure I got a concussion this time as well and it is my second one in two weeks. The best part about this is the sudden onset where I just collapse. Now I am very slow and take my time moving and getting up. I slowly sit up wait a minute, stand up by the bed and wait a minute and slowly move. The doctor said that putting my hands above my head are enough to trigger the drop in blood pressure. The doctor recommended that I do not drive or buy a Tesla with auto-pilot. I do not remember much from that night and this is information I got from Melanie and the kids. They were rather calm throughout it and were fantastic.
I ended up taking Thursday off. I had a doctor’s appointment but Melanie cancelled it. She took the day off as well and she came into the bedroom telling me she changed her meetings and my appointments. I proceeded to tell her that I needed her to drive me into Vale for an in-person meeting. She was not happy and looked like she was going to kill me. It was fun. I laughed and told her it was a joke and she told me that it better have been.