Hurricane Hell, Ten Years Later

One of the main reasons we took on this small, cedar-sided home on six-plus acres in the middle of Nowhere, Arkansas, is because this place doesn't have hurricanes: No Katrinas here.

You're gonna be hearing and seeing media coverage about the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  It started with Robin Roberts' special last night. She did a great job telling the stories she did.  But there are just so many stories...

Many people did not even realize that they were suffering from the effects of trauma.  Over a year post-Katrina, a woman in her early seventies came to me, not knowing the reason for her debilitating anxiety and depression.  She had never before had these problems.  Let's call her Mary.  

"I didn't lose anything in the hurricane... My whole family evacuated to our home north of Slidell... We all did fine." We talked for several sessions, exploring possible causes. During one appointment, Mary matter-of-factly said, "I was glad we didn't live in New Orleans East anymore... I had a good friend, Susan, she and her husband, Joe, used to be our next-door neighbors... Susan died waiting to be rescued."  I asked her to elaborate. 

After Katrina, Mary had offered to help Joe salvage things from their now uninhabitable home.  "We went up in the attic... Sue and Joe had been forced to go up there 'cause of the rising waters from the damned levee breaches. You could still see the hole Joe'd chopped in the roof for some air... and so they could wave their make-shift flag - a pink slip of Sue's - at the rescue helicopters... As I looked around, something caught me eye... I went over to pick it up off the floor... There wasn't much light... I bent over and grabbed it... (Mary involuntarily shivered and grimaced.)  It was sticky and yuckie - smelly.  I quickly shook it off my hand..."  

What was it?  Joe explained to Mary that that was where Susan was laying when she died.  Mary had grabbed a part of Sue's scalp and hair that had rotted off her head, and had stuck to the attic floor, three days post-mortem, when rescuers finally got around to collecting Sue's body.  They'd rescued the husband; he'd been alive.  His wife had died that night before.  Rescuing" the already dead was not a priority so the body had laid there - doing what dead bodies do, in the sweltering heat of early September in Louisiana.

Donna Speaks: Nature or Nurture

Why stress personal v family history in talking about those "invisible" handicaps?  Well, 'cause so many are invisible, you see.  (OK.  Mildly amusing.)

Medical science has yet to establish a genetic connection for many autoimmune disorders.

We all know about Aunt Sophie who had "that there roomie-tism and poor thing  couldn't even hold her head up... she was so bent all up." And your friend Ethel's friend with Multiple Sclerosis (MS); you could see her wheelchair. Joe, a diabetic from your old neighborhood... lost one leg below the knee and the other foot.

In my extended family, I know of no one who had/has any of the autoimmune disorders, I have/have had - with one exception.  My mother had shingles when she was in her mid-sixties.  I was diagnosed with shingles on December 24, 2005.  My doctor believed, as I did, that my case was brought on by the trauma associated with Hurricane Katrina, et al.

Trauma, i.e., excessive and/or repeated stress, is accepted as a cause - a cause, not a precursor or a "factor in"- but a cause of many disorders, including some autoimmune disorders.  Trauma beats the crap out of your mind, your body, your soul.  It leaves you battered and bruised inside.  And, many, many times, you don't always know that it's beat the crap outta 'ya until you have an out-of-the ordinary reaction to an ordinary event.  And, then, you're asking yourself, "Where the hell did that come from...?" (Sorry, I dangle.)

I'd had several MRIs before the spring of 2006. So it was no big deal when my doc scheduled another one to check the status of my historically ailing lower back.  Before Katrina, I'd was fine in the tube.  One time I even went to sleep during an MRI, so relaxed I was.  This time, I went through the usual prep, laid down, had my earphones tuned to the oldies, and went sliding in... And then, my chest went began to feel tight, tighter.  My breathing, slow and deep, and easy, at first, suddenly became shallow and fast, faster... Jaw muscles clinched, hands made fists...  "What the shit!"  I talked to myself: "Hey, now, easy does it... you're OK.. ."  The Beatles sang, "Slow down.  You're moving too fast...".

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!"  I commanded.  "Ma’am, you're OK..."  I rudely interrupted, "GET ME OUT OF HERE NOW... NOW."  And I felt myself slowly sliding out of the coffin.

No amount of reasoning, consoling, or cajoling convinced me to try again.  Not on your life, buddy-boy.  "I am out of here!"  And I got dressed and left the building.

Trauma.  One Big Ole Trauma: being raped, losing a child, witnessing a violent act. All of those things and more are Trauma.  Repeated Losses: your home and all your belongings in a hurricane, in a flood, in a tornado. You are not the same after as before, and never will be.

More on what the Big T does to you.  Tell me what it did to you.  How did it handicap you?