On vacation last week, after our campsite was struck by lightning before our eyes and before a falling tree nearly crushed our tent, our minivan was totaled in a flash flood during a thunderstorm. With me and my family in it.

We kept our children calm, telephoned for help, gathered essentials and waited as the water rose up to the door handles and half-filled the van.

By the time the firefighters arrived I was still outwardly calm but inwardly terrified. I watched my darling (who had earlier missed being struck by lightning by 4 feet) make his way out of the van while lightning filled the sky. Then a rescuer took my youngest son to safety. Then two came for my other son and me.

BUT I couldn't move. The firefighter pulled me out and carried me. He asked if I could walk and all I could say was, "NO." He carried me the whole way and took us to the firehouse to wait out the storm.

They also fed us. Brought shoes for the boys. Showed them the fire trucks. Let them play video games. Let me use the Chief's office to line up a rental car, locate my van and call the insurance company. And gave us a ride back to camp. (Support your local firefighters; they're angels in disguise.)

I am so grateful for all the help we received and for being alive to tell the tale. Yet I am deeply disturbed by my body's immobility during the rescue. I can handle the near misses, the loss of the minivan, the thousands of lost dollars...

But here's what haunts me: what if my darling hadn't been there and the firefighters hadn't come when they did? At what point would I have had to TRY to open the doors and pull 8- and 9-year-old boys out into a thunderstorm by the side of a highway? WOULD I EVEN HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MOVE? Had I been alone with them, would something else have kicked in to make me stronger and more mobile? Or not?

PD leaves me feeling so vulnerable.

Has anyone else had experience with PD in an emergency? What has awakened you to your own fragility? How do you accept and adapt to vulnerability if you've spent your adulthood with a high level of competence, resourcefulness, and "success"? How do you accept change that may leave your family less protected?

The vacation was otherwise uneventful and fun, as it is every year. Unbelievably, we've already booked our site for next June. A cabin site. I guess I am an optimist after all!

Rose

Rose-
First, let me congratulate you on one of the better opening sentences that I have seen.

If I undertand correctly, you functioned in the acute crisis and only froze once things stabilized and help was at hand.

This is called "paradoxical kinesia" and appears to be good old adrenaline/epinephrine kicking in the afterburners on the stress circuits. Once the tiger was vanquished, you were able to collapse or, in our case, freeze.

This is also a case where our tendency to stay calm and keep our wits about us could be a detriment. I guess the lesson is that, when conditions warrant, we're better off just letting ourselves "lose it".

Not a lot on Medline about it (just ten hits), but here is an interesting one:


1: J Comp Physiol Psychol. 1976 Jun;90(6):536-46.

Activation-induced restoration of sensorimotor functions in rats with
dopamine-depleting brain lesions.

Marshall JF, Levitan D, Stricker EM.

Bilateral electrolytic lesions of the lateral hypothalamus or intraventricular
6-hydroxydopamine injections produced substantial depletions of striatal dopamine
in rates. All animals with brain damage showed marked sensorimotor impairments.
However, they began to move and respond appropriately to environmental stimuli
when placed in a sink of water, in a shallow ice bath, or among a colony of cats
or rats. A reversal of the sensorimotor dysfunctions was still apparent shortly
after the animals were removed from each activating situation. However, the
terapeutic effects dissipated rapidly, and by 4 hr after an exposure the rats
responded as poorly as they had prior to activation. These findings are
strikingly similar to the "paradoxical kinesia" seen in parkinsonism, a clinical
disorder attributed to degeneration of central dopamine-containing neurons.
Collectively, they suggest the importance of activation in maintaining
responsiveness to senory stimuli in rats following dopamine-depleting brain
lesions.


PMID: 8470 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I am so glad your family made it through that ordeal.


Maybe it is something like the "fight or flight" syndrome , after the stressful situation is over for the most part, the adrenalin is still rushing through you body and causes problems.

Like after accident or a close call you get the shakes and your heart races. I do anyway.

One day, before my husband left for work and was taking a shower, I was carrying a load of laundry down to the laundry room. I froze between steps, and the forward position my body was in tllted me done the last step. I was leftbeing tilted toward toward the wall with all my weight resting on the top of my feet. I was in agony for 3 minutes screaming, but after my brain began functioning, dropped the laundry which broke my freeze. At this point I could do little but moan and wait for help.

The emergency room doctor said he had never seen more swelling around ankles in his life. No bones were broken but I had severely damaged the muscles in my ankles. That was ween we began searching for a one level home. It was putting my own children in danger, but it felt just as helpless.

Don't add to the pile of guilt you probably carrying as a parent with PD. Accidents happen all the time. The flood didn't pick a time for a patient to come along. You may have had your health, beenoverly confident and tried to save your children, and they may have been forced to watch you swept away in the flood. Blame the weather, blame the DNR, blame the ice age, but, Please don't blame your disease and yourself. I definitely agree with your comments about our city police, Fire, and Paramedics. They are living angels.