A Penny for My Thoughts: Faith's Last Play

Perhaps the biggest happening of the summer was the Bluffdale Arts production of Newsies. Cannon, Peter, George, and Faith were all a part of the fun. Cannon was Davey, Peter was Les, George was ensemble and Faith was the main tumbler of the ensemble

I have SO many pictures that I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed at the thought of trying to capture the experience in one post. But I'll just jump right in with Faith's experience.

GEORGE IN NEWSIES

George and his ballet buddy, Leland. It was fun this summer to go see Leland and his family in Matlida in Lehi and then they came to see our family in Newsies.

FAITH IN NEWSIES

Let me start off this portion of Faith's newsies saga by saying, she didn't want to do the play to begin with. Live theater is most definitely not her cup of tea. But in a conversation with the directors they mentioned they needed a tumbler. And I said, "Hey! I know a good tumbler!" And then I played the mom card used all my "mom capital" and said, "This is a one-time thing and wouldn't it be so memorable to have this experience with your brothers, and share you talents, and the directors said you could just be in the numbers you want, etc. Perhaps I should be beyond that kind of begging/coercion, but there you have it. She agreed and although she protested at times, I sensed that actually she was bordering on enjoying the experience.

At one of the dress rehearsals, Ben and Bethany went and took some pics and filmed a bit. Ben just so happened to catch the unfortunate moment when tragedy struck.

It happened right at the end when she landing the tumbling pass. Look at Faith's face right when she lands in her spot --The moment

Impressive tumbling, eh? It would have been spectacular in the show.

Instead, Bethany took her to the emergency room where they x-rayed it and said it was sprained. I guess that's good? So, sadness, no Newsies for Faith. Believe it or not, she was pretty bummed.

But WAIT! If you know Faith, you know it will take more than a sprained ankle to keep her down. This was on Tuesday night before the show opened on Thursday night.

It was right about this point she had decided the show must go on, and she must go on--in the show!

Oh, good heavens, Faith!

So Wednesday she slept a lot and iced it all day. She couldn't put any weight on it.

All day on Thursday she rested, took a whole lot of pain medication, and then she got up, wrapped her ankle up tight, and hobbled off to the theater. What would she do? What could she do?

Well, I'll tell you-- she went on stage ---and confirmed yet again that she is made of different stuff than me-- and she did a one-legged round-off, double back handspring. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? She ended up as one of the Manhattan Newsies that are on stage the most. So she limped her way through the choreography of "Carrying the Banner" and tapped danced in "King of New York".

As I type, I can hear you thinking, "Oh, the sprain must not have been that bad, if she could still go on and do those things". I assure you, it was that bad. And yet, it was about to get a whole lot worse.

After totally and completely overdoing it Thursday night, Faith woke up Friday morning in BAD shape. Crippled as she was, she rested and iced it all day and literally crawled around the house on all fours if she needed something.

On one of these ventures off her bed she crawled to the kitchen for some food. When she finished eating she got off the stairs to crawl back to her bed.

Most unfortunately, earlier in the day I had swatted a yellow jacket (or some kind of bee/hornet thing) that had gotten into the house. I was in the middle of a piano lesson and I hadn't taken the time to find and dispose of the little carcass. And, as bad luck would have it, the stinger was still in tact and the dead insect stung the top of Faith's second toe of her good foot as she crawled across the kitchen floor. Which foot wasn't actually doing very well because she over used it to take any pressure off her sprained ankle the night before.

Ah man, a bee sting. Bummer! And painful! Wow-- talk about adding insult to injury.

But WAIT! It gets worse. It immediately started to swell up.

So there we are icing both ankles-- the strained one and the sprained one, but a swelling, painful bee sting to boot.

Now with two bum ankles, we super wrapped both ankles both ankles, because, of course, the show must go on and she must go on with it. Notice her right foot continued to swell.

By the end of the show...

How did she even get her feet into tap shoes? The girl has extremely wide platypus feet to begin with.

I mean, this is ludicrous!

Friends came to support.

Family came to support.

Saturday morning came. Not good. We encouraged her to gracefully bow out of the show. NO.

I said to the director, please tell her it would be better for her to not go on stage-- her wrapped ankles and injuries might be distracting to the audience. Bless the directors heart, she responded, "She's worked so hard, I'm not going to take this away from her."

NOOO! I beg of you to take this away from her. She WILL NOT cry uncle. She is not capable of quitting. She has a will of iron and deplores any sign of weakness.

Somehow, miserable though she was, she made it through two shows on Saturday.

Sunday morning, unable to walk, she stayed home from church. When she finally awoke she texted me pictures of her bee stung, swollen foot. WARNING: It's rather graphic

So hot and swollen and oozing pus

What the heck???

Mind you, the left ankle is badly sprained one. It is already quite swollen itself.

So gross!

That evening I took her to the Instacare to make sure she wasn't going to lose the foot. Just a bad allergic reaction. They gave her some steroid pills and sent her on her merry way.

Not surprisingly, neither foot/ankle was any better by Monday night for the final show. She did sit out a couple of numbers back stage --a fine concession-- (name that movie----- too late! Pride and Prejudice spoken by Mr. Bingley when Mr. Darcy acknowledges that Jane is attractive) So Faith did concede a couple of numbers, and then spent the rest of the summer healing from the trauma of Newsies.