I’m going to talk about these two movie titles but not the movies themselves.
Let’s start with ‘frozen.’ The other day I was getting out of bed and froze in kind of an awkward position, one foot on the ground, unable to put the other down.
My mind seemed to be a spinning car tire on ice, trying to gain traction but not going anywhere. My thoughts wandered. Seconds seemed like minutes. I heard my wife’s voice.
“Mike are you OK?,” she asked.
I snapped out of my unplanned reverie.
“Yes,” I said. “I was just frozen.”
Those who know something about Lewy body dementia understand it is cousin of Parkinson’s disease, in that the brain is being attacked by an overabundance of a protein. This malfunction can cause movement problems, including stopping while walking forward and becoming frozen.
This leads me to Awakenings, the based-on-a true-story with Robin Williams in the lead role. He plays a doctor treating people who have been frozen for years. The unusual symptoms were caused by an encephalitis outbreak starting in 1917.
Williams’ character discovered that hefty quantities of the medicine L-Dopa unfroze (thawed?) these patients, allowed them to move and talk again. According to the movie, they started right back up again, like toys getting a new battery.
Now I know very little science about the machinations of the brain and damage-causing proteins. I do have Lewy body dementia, and I find the Williams’ case to be one of the biggest tragic ironies of all time.
Williams in a 1990 movie finds a drug that cured (at least temporarily) the frozen nature of a group of people with brain damage. That ‘cure’ or successful treatment would likely have been the first drug prescribed to him. L-dopa, or levadopa (often combined with carbidopa for better results with the levadopa.
Despite memory loss, sleep problems, hallucinations, constipation, depression and anxiety, he was never diagnosed with LBD.
Williams died by suicide; the autopsy said he had a severe case of Lewy bodies and was plagued by hallucinations.
I too have had major hallucinations. I too have had movement disorder to the point I freeze or cannot write this column because my hands don’t work.
My movement disorder has led to feelings of frustration and despair.
I was hammered with these feelings until I found the right doctor and right mix of meds.
And with LBD, anxiety and depression double down with hallucinations. If only he had a doctor like the one Williams played.
I take a number of medicines but one that addresses my movement issues and does a fine job of it is carbadevadopa.
Did anybody give Robin Williams this? With no correct diagnosis and no medicine like he dispensed in the 1990 movie, Williams thought he going crazy. I don’t imagine how he felt. I know how he felt.
I know.
Mike Oliver is a retired journalist whose focus is bringing awareness to Lewy body dementia which affects 1.4 million in the United States. Website www.myvinyicountdown. com ……………………..