Panic, Blood, and Pressure

Originally Posted August 2017

Traveling with children is always an adventure. The part that lies under the surface of every parent’s mind is the inevitability of the unforeseeable event. Usually, this is the fear that your child will injure themselves in a strange place that might have a quack doctor or that you will have to go the hospital and use practitioners outside of the domestic insurance plan.
My great fear is my inability to soothe one of my children when they are hurt. I get all panicky and completely lose my cool when my children are hurt. I don’t excel in trauma based situations, situations where my children’s blood is copiously leaving their body or when they are screaming loudly because of some hurt like a barked shin or a bee sting.

I don’t know why I do this.

Maybe I just want the pain to go away for them. I would gladly take the pain for them in most situations. Since I can’t absolve pain by vicariously experiencing it for them, I just panic. Panic must be my default setting.

While traveling the wilds of Idaho this summer with my family, we decided to visit a beautiful mountain lake and swim in its refreshingly cool waters. We found a tiny mountain beach made of granulated granite, minnows, lake weeds, and driftwood, and we decided to take a literal dip in the pond if you will.

Most of the evening, we spent swimming the refreshingly cool waters of this mountain lake. The kids loved it, especially my little mermaid, Sarahmay. She just can’t get enough of the water.
For some reason, Jesse and Griffin thought that it was cooler to play on the fallen trunk of an old pine whose root system was completely exposed and at the edge of the water. They could sit up there on that trunk and plan imaginary piracies and raids on their swimming cousins with sticks of driftwood. (I’m now glad that I haven’t read The Coral Island or The Lord of the Flies to them as of yet. I’m not sure if they would understand the dark implications just yet).

I spent my time out in the deeps. I really like to swim. I did some serious swimming on that day. (I probably swam the distance of the English channel.) Mostly, I was just trying to go where the water was dark so I could dive down and try to touch the bottom. It was both creepy and exhilarating at what my feet might encounter there, in the dark, beyond the growth of lake weed, with the pressure of the water all around my head and ears, facing my primal fear of drowning and the unknown of slimy things.

I convinced my sister and brother-in-law to swim out there and watch. They were my courage and my companionship in my crazy desire to reach the bottom.

My brother-in-law tried with me but the pressure on his ears caused him extreme pain. He became dizzy and his equilibrium was hampered. As he swam back in pain, I took one last dive and strained for the bottom.

The pressure becomes intense and pounds at my ears as I encounter the darkness. I regulate and keep going. The heartbeat in my head keeps monotonous time as the water grows cold and deathlike. My feet hit bottom: soft, cold sand with something squishy underneath like clay. I feel a few victory bubbles leave my mouth as I kick off and head back to the light.

I broke through the surface of the water to the caterwauling of my Griffin. I took bearings of where he was and saw him at the base of the sun burst of roots. (Had he fallen) Sarah was soothing him and he soon stopped crying. I was swimming back when I noticed Griffin’s head turn crimson down one side. What had happened?


“Did he fall?” I asked. The panic of things out of my control rising in my chest.


“I don’t know,” Sarah said. I could see the concern in her eyes, the steely determination to protect her child. She would do it, I had no doubt about it. I had seen that look before.
Someone said that they saw Griffin stand up under the roots. He must have gouged his poor head on one of the sand-sharpened roots. My brother-in-law was still trying to withstand the pain in his ears and help out with his considerable medical training. It could have been a panic nightmare but Sarah and my sister kept us all calm and on our feet. (Without those two, I might be walking the streets in some busy town with a sandwich board on preaching that the end is nigh).

Since we were in a remote area and the cut was pretty bad we decided to resort to first aid. It’s amazing what Isopropyl alcohol (70%), super glue, and a little soap and water won’t cure. Brave boy. We patched him up with the promise of candy if he were brave and let us clean the wound. He was acting normally within the minute.
Oh yeah, My brother-in-law was fine as well.

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After Post: Griffin's cut healed perfectly without any infections or complications. He refers to it as his scar and sometimes has a hard time locating it. He is a tough, brave little kid.