2007...best and worst year of my life

During my time in California, my older brother John's drug use had become steadily worse.  I would get calls from my parents, both worried sick, and sometimes not knowing where he was or hearing from him for several days.  I knew things were bad.  I remember him calling me one night and he was obviously messed up, and driving around in his truck.  I begged him to pull over, call a friend, call a cab, or just sleep until he was sober enough to drive.  I didn't find out until much later the extent or seriousness of the drugs he had been doing, including shooting up heroin and crack cocaine.  All in his fourth and final year of medical school, soon to graduate second in his class, and become a doctor.  How could someone so smart be so stupid? I was angry.  Angry that he was putting my family, and himself, through this.  I didn't understand his addiction.  I understood that what he was doing was dangerous, and had the serious capability to take him out of my life forever.  This terrified me, and I cried often.  Jacob understood, and was there with me through it all. 

In early January of 2007, John went missing.  He wasn't at the hospital he worked at in Shreveport, wasn't with his girlfriend, and we were all sick with worry.  Finally on the second night, his girlfriend called.  She had found him, in one of the beds in the doctor's sleep rooms at the hospital, attempting to detox himself.  He was sick.  Shivering, throwing up, cold sweats..all the telltale signs of withdrawal.  With his girlfriend's assistance, my mom committed him to a local mental institution.  He spent three days among schizophrenic and depressed people, while trying to get his head straight.  The Medical Association found out about John's drug use, and told him it was either rehab, or no residency.  Get clean, or you'll never be a doctor.  So he was released to my parents under the condition that he would be checked into an inpatient rehab in the next few weeks.

As we began our soon-to-be fateful trip home to Baton Rouge, I was filled with mixed emotions.  Sad to be leaving behind a dream of moving away from Louisiana and finding a job, but also so happy to be back with the person I loved and who loved me unconditionally. 

That Spring, John had several residency interviews, and since we didn't trust him to drive himself from state to state, I offered to take him.  We drove to Houston one weekend and stayed with a friend of mine.  All night that night as John slept on the couch, his phone rang over and over.  It was a drug dealer, incessantly trying to get hold of one of his best customers.  I didn't tell him, but I copied down that number and later called it in to crime stoppers.  I doubt anything ever became of it, but was glad I did it.  How anyone thought he was worthy of residency at their hospital was beyond me.  I guess I knew him too well, because all I saw when I looked at him was blood-shot eyes, track marked arms, and a brother who had not been himself in quite some time.  But he did get accepted to a residency program in Little Rock, Arkansas.  We all hoped this new position would help him get back on track. But it didn't.

Those few weeks between John's brief institution stay and rehab were hell.  He seemed not to care at all any more, and was trying to kill himself via overdose rather than attend rehab.  There were constant instances of long bathroom trips to shoot up, falling asleep sitting up, and a complete indifference to the well being of those around him. He wrecked his new truck, flipping it across an interstate 10-12 times, and somehow walked away unscathed.  We rushed him to the Emergency Room one day when he complained of severe abdominal pain, and there were no usable veins left in his arms or legs, so one was started in his neck.  I silently cried and held his hand as the doctor asked him "have you used drugs in the past few days?" and he replied with a defeated "Yes."  He was ashamed.  My anger over his drug use soon turned to pity, sadness, and fear.  I was so afraid to lose him.

His ninety day rehab stint finally began several weeks later at a small but nationally known rehabilitation clinic thirty minutes from our home town.  The next three months would force my broken and angry family to be brutally honest with each other, something my estranged parents had not done in years.  I dutifully attended each family session, tissues in hand.  I heard other addicts tell their stories of sexual abuse and substance abuse.  Some had lead very hard lives...but they all seemed to honestly want to get better.  John, being a doctor, became a confidante of many of these men, and I was so proud to see how they looked to him for guidance on issues both medical and emotional.  This was the brother I knew and had missed for so long.

Our parents were forced to review their past mistakes; to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves "what did I do wrong?"  It was hard.  We all ended these sessions in tears.  I held my breath as I heard my brother tell stories of walking through the back alleys of New York City buying drugs while he was there for a medical internship...watching friends overdose, and even bringing one back to life several times...shooting up so many times in one arm that it caused a deep abcess that had to be packed with gauze.  All of these horror stories that I was so unaware of. How he had survived to this point was so far beyond me.  All I could say is that it was God, knowing that we couldn't stand to lose him...that he was such a critical part of our family...and he protected him time and time again.  I will always be so grateful for that.

I later found out from my mom that on that fateful night in the emergency room where John was found detoxing himself, he had a gun in the pocket of his lab coat.  He was considering suicide, which is why he was committed to the mental institution.  He later admitted to my mom that the only reason he didn't kill himself was because he thought of me, and how I would react.  The brother I had always looked up to and admired now showed that he was worried about me, that he did care. I was shocked and saddened by this news, but grateful that we had the close relationship we did.  

Midway through John's rehab and all of our stressful family sessions, I found out I was pregnant.  Jacob and I went to dinner one night and had boiled crawfish, and my stomach started cramping while I was eating them.  I'd never had this happen before, and have always loved spicy southern food.  So, I decided to take a pregnancy test, never assuming it would actually be positive.  But it was! So, we drove to the pharmacy and bought yet another pregnancy test.  This time I bought the one that says "pregnant" or "not pregnant," I was in no mood to fool around with all of the pluses and minuses of the cheaper brands.  This time a very definitive "pregnant" flashed across the screen.  I was terrified, but excited.  I came out of the bathroom crying, and startled Jacob while he was playing on his computer.  He was so happy, which really calmed my fears and reassured me.  At the time, he was preparing for his second deployment with the Marines, and I was saddened by the fact that I would most likely deliver our baby without him by my side.  But I knew that everything would work out.

I sat on the bed that night and called my brother in rehab to break the news.  He was very calm.  "Are you ok?" he asked. "Yes, just scared and nervous" I replied.  He assured me that everything would be fine, and I could tell he was happy for us.  He said something then that I will never forget...he told me "If I weren't here right now, this baby probably wouldn't have an uncle."  It hit me how close we came to losing him.  I cried and told him how much I loved him, and he reassured me again that everything would be ok.  Next, I called my mom.  She too was very calm, but very excited.  She'd been jokingly asking for a grandchild for years, so I knew she would be ecstatic.  My pregnancy became a bright spot during that very difficult time in our lives, something happy that we could all look forward to. 

John was released from rehab for a weekend to attend our beach wedding that we quickly threw together.  It was a small gathering of about 30 family members and a few friends, and the best wedding I could have asked for.  It was a beautiful day, and I was so happy.  I had married the man I loved, was pregnant with our first child, and my brother was on his way to recovery.  We spent a beautiful week at the beach in Destin, Florida celebrating.  It was over too quickly, we returned home, and John returned to rehab.

Over the next two weeks, Jacob and his unit prepared to leave for Iraq.  I was terrified at the idea of losing him, and even more terrified of having our baby alone.  I spoke to my doctor, who strongly recommended that Jacob be with me throughout my pregnancy due to my previous issues with ovarian cysts and depression.  I agreed that I was very anxious about his leaving, and my doctor wrote a letter to his command, recommending to them that he be allowed to stay home from this deployment in case something were to happen with the baby.  The night before he was set to deploy, we received a phone call.  He would be allowed to stay home. 

I was so excited, but Jacob on the other hand was feeling sad, and guilty.  He felt like he had betrayed his squad, and we both knew if something happened to one of them overseas, he would feel responsible.  I understood, but reminded him that I too needed him, and this baby took priority over everything.  We soon moved into an apartment together, and he went active duty with the Marines as a recruiter.  Summer flew by as my stomach continued to swell uncomfortably.  The next few months would be the hardest of our lives.

2006...

Christmas 2005 came and went, and my final semester at LSU began.  I was almost done, and beginning to realize that I had no idea what I wanted to do next.  I began to get restless again, and as I'd always selfishly done in the past, I hurt the person who loved me so much.  I began to be afraid of settling down...what if he wasn't "the one?" What if there was something out there I was missing out on? So, I broke up with Jacob. I broke his heart.  We screamed, we fought, we cried...but I didn't back down.  I knew in my heart that he was the one I wanted to end up with, but I tried to convince myself otherwise.  I secretly hoped he'd be there waiting for me later when I was ready to settle down. 

That spring, I heard about a summer job working for the Truth anti-tobacco campaign on the Vans Warped Tour.  This seemed like a dream to me, and I assumed it was unattainable, but I applied anyway.  That was my toughest semester yet, and I spent a lot of time studying, writing, and filming different projects.  I also worked at an Italian cafe called Monjuni's, alongside Jacob and several of his friends.  I spent many weekends driving back to my home town of Monroe to visit with friends.  Midway through the semester, I received a call to do a phone interview for the Warped Tour job.  I was ecstatic that I had even been considered.  The phone interview went well, and I was invited to New York City for several days of group and solo interviews with the company that puts on the Truth campaign.  It was spring in New York, and my friend Kristi joined me for the trip.  On the last day of interviews, I learned that I hadn't been selected as one of the 8 that would do the tour, but I was selected as an alternate.  So just in case something were to happen to one of the 8, I'd be in.  I was devastated, but sure I'd done my best. 

Back home, I got a call that one of the girls that had been selected was disqualified, and I was offered the job.  I saw this as the opportunity of a lifetime, and I quickly said yes.  I was also able to somehow convince the people at LSU that this summer job of traveling the country on a tour bus should count as my required internship for Mass Comm.  After all, I was marketing for a campaign. 

After my last final, I packed up my apartment and prepared to leave for the summer.  I flew out of Monroe and landed in Maryland, the tour's first stop.  I reunited with our group that I had met during interviews, and we quickly became friends.  It was like a season of "The Real World," but on a tour bus, in the middle of a loud and crazy music tour.  It was a wild summer, and one of my most memorable.  I worked all day in the blistering heat in the middle of about ten stages with different bands playing constantly on each one.  I marketed my anti-tobacco campaign to the youthful attendees of the Warped Tour, and tried to convince them to believe in my cause.  Some days, we did a great job. Others, we were tired and hung over.  There were nightly parties in the midst of several hundred tour buses.  We stayed up late drinking and stumbling through mud and dirt fields in the middle of various U.S. cities.  Often times we would forget which city we had arrived at in the middle of the night, but it was always exciting to crawl out of my small bunk in the morning in a new place.  I saw the country, one city at a time, within a span of sixty days.  There was a party in every city, and with my Warped Tour backstage pass, I was always on the guest list.  I befriended members of the bands who had been in my ipod for years.  It was a dream job, and I loved it.  Although each repetitive day seemed endless, the tour came to an end all too quickly.  I was sunburnt, tired, and 10 pounds heavier after a summer of catering and eating out. 

I returned home to Monroe for a few days to visit with friends and family.  Jacob and I had been in contact throughout the summer, but it was usually an infrequent "I miss you" text at 3 a.m.  I was cruel, and ignored many of these messages.  I can remember driving over the bridge into New York City to attend a tour party and texting him in the back seat.  We were arguing again, he was a constant reminder of the real life back home that I didn't want to think of.  I planned on moving to California after tour to look for a job, and already had a roommate waiting out there for me.  I took one last trip to Baton Rouge to visit friends, and to see Jacob before I left.  Nothing had changed. He was the same handsome guy I'd left, and my feelings for him were still there.  As hard as it was, I remained detached from him.  I could see it was killing him, and inside I was hurting.  But I drove away. 

I picked up a friend from tour at the airport in New Orleans.  He and I explored the city for a day, then drove back to Monroe to prepare for our drive to Los Angeles.  My mom cried as we drove away, and I thought this time, it was for good.      

I found a job at a small Entertainment Company in Beverly Hills called Novi Entertainment.  The guy that owned it managed several big-time rock bands, and was rarely in the office.  It was just me, and occasionally another girl who did marketing for him.  He paid me $400 a week to sit in his office and answer his phone.  October came, and Jacob and I had been talking again.  We texted often, chatted almost daily.  I remembered why I fell in love with him in the first place, and decided to fly home for my birthday to visit.  It was a great weekend.  I fell in love with him all over again, and this time realized I didn't want to lose him.  We spent the next two months flying back and forth between Los Angeles and Baton Rouge.  By Christmas, I decided I was ready to be with him forever, and planned to move home.  I made the excuse to our landlord that I just found out I was pregnant, and needed to go home to be with my boyfriend.  Little did I know, that excuse would soon turn into my reality. 

2005

During my semester in Los Angeles, I began having some knee pain.  I was aware that I had a bone tumor called an osteochondroma, but it had never given me any trouble, until then.  One night while working at Billabong I was climbing up a ladder and my knee popped.  It hurt really badly, and felt like my muscle had caught on the knobby tumor that was sticking off of the bone.  I couldn't exten my leg all the way and had to keep it slightly bent for the next few days until it got better.  I decided to see an orthopedist there, and he told me that if this continued to happen, I would need to have the tumor removed.  Of course, it continued to happen.  Christmas break of that year included a knee surgery for me, and I began the Spring semester of 2005 on crutches and with my leg in a splint so I couldn't bend it.  We made the most of it, and drove electronic carts around Walmart using my leg as an excuse.  Jacob, on the other hand, didn't have a scar or crutches, and was soon kicked off of the cart by Rick Support Manager. 

After all that I'd done, Jacob took care of me.  He took me to class, picked me up, brought me medicine and candy, and continued to love me for who I was. I loved him back.

Since one surgery just wasn't enough, I soon discovered that I had a large cyst on my remaining ovary, the evil predacessor of Derwood, the cyst that had destroyed my left ovary as a teenager.  So, Spring Break 2005 was spent in the hospital having yet another surgery, with yet another ugly incision.  It was not fun.  Jacob was there through it all, and bought me some DVDs and candy for my recovery.  After a night in the hospital, I went home to Jacob's apartment to recover.  My mom had caught a stomach virus in the hospital, which I then caught.  Throwing up with a fresh incision on your abdomen is not fun.  I spent that afternoon and evening back at the hospital  emergency room.  All the retching had caused my incision to split open, and I was bleeding.  Not the Spring Break I would have envisioned for myself. 

Life was soon back to normal, and I moved into a new apartment with my former dorm roommate.  That fall I began my senior year as a student in the college of Mass Communications at LSU, and I enjoyed it.  I knew I didn't want to stay in Baton Rouge forever, but was complacent.    

2003-2004

My carefree attitude and lifestyle soon came to a halt in the fall of 2003.  Jacob and I went to the movies one night to see a horror flick entitled "Gothika."  I'd always been a fan of scary movies, and assumed this one would be like every other cheesy horror movie I'd seen.  But it wasn't.  As we left the theatre that night, I remember feeling very uneasy.  Something just wasn't right.  Later that same night, I had my first panic attack.  I didn't tell anyone, and thought I was going crazy.  I didn't think anyone could understand.  I soon began spending most of my waking hours either in class or at home studying and self-medicating with Nyquil so I could sleep.  Every thought, every worry became a "what if" and soon turned horrible.  My mind was in a state of almost constant fear and panic.  Who am I? What am I doing here? What will happen when I die? These questions were constantly floating through my head, and I began to analyze them so deeply that it would always end in fear and panic.  I was depressed.  I rarely ate, got sick to my stomach often, and lost about 10 pounds.  For two semesters, I made straight A's in all of my classes.  In the fall of 2003, I took a trip to New York City with my mom and aunt.  Jacob decided to join us.  It was the worst trip of my life.  I tried my best to ignore the anxiety and panic, but it was always there.  That fear was inescapable.  I was so happy to return home.  After several more months of panic attacks and unhappiness in the Spring of 2004, I finally decided to reach out.  I can remember calling my mom from the bathroom of a restaurant on a Spring Break trip to the beach.  I didn't know what to do, and she could hear the fear and helplessness in my voice.  She told me I had to get help, to go see someone.  So I did.  When we got home, I set an appointment with the Mental Health department at the LSU Student Health Center.  I saw someone who seemed to understand, I cried a lot, and he prescribed me Zoloft.  I was doubtful that it would help, but he assured me that panic attacks are common and that I wasn't alone.  Several weeks later, I was a new person.  The attacks had subsided, and my head felt clear for the first time in months.  I decided that I wanted to get out of town for a while, and applied for the exchange program through LSU.  Jacob didn't understand, and neither did I really.  I don't know what made me do it...I had been so depressed for so long, and just needed to escape my surroundings.  I was accepted to the national student exchange program, and chose to go to California State University at Northridge, just north of Los Angeles. 

After several months of planning and a big going away party, Jacob, my mom, and I set out on our road trip to California.  I found an apartment with two other girls from the exchange program who I'd never met.  We had fun along the way, taking 4 days to make our trip and sight see.  I soon settled in to my new apartment, and mom flew home.  Jacob stayed a few extra days and we explored Los Angeles.  He then flew home, and I began my semester in California. 

I found a part-time job at Billabong at Universal Studios.  Jacob flew out often to visit.  I turned 21 there, and began going out frequently in L.A. with my roommates.  We were having the time of our lives, and I tried to forget my life back home and all the people in it.  I wanted independence, freedom, and this was my chance.  I surfed, partied, and mingled with celebrities.  I was disloyal once again, and I could tell Jacob wasn't happy with me.  He brought me back down to earth and reminded me who I was and where I came from.  He was angry with me...and I deserved it.  After several months of trying to be someone I definitely was not, it was time to go home.  I was thankful that he was still there...that once again, he forgave me and let me back in his life when I truly did not deserve it. 

From the beginning- 2002-2003

Sometimes I just feel like typing. Typing my thoughts, my memories, my musings on life...typing the things I don't always want to share with the world.  That is me. I've always liked to put a pen to paper, or in this case a finger to a keyboard, and see what happens.  This is my life, and whats become of it.  This is me, the good, the bad, everything.  I'm a worrier, so that will definitely become evident here.  Well, here it goes...

From the moment I met my husband, I knew there was something special about him.  It wasn't one of those "this is the person I'm going to marry" kind of things, but we clicked.  He was walking through the quad at LSU, and I was a freshman in my first semester there.  I was eager to meet new people, learn new things, just to experience life on my own.  He and his friends were goofing around as I watched them, and I literally laughed out loud at something they did.  He overheard, and was obviously pleased I'd noticed how funny they were.  So we introduced ourselves.  That day, we ventured around the LSU campus, talked, and even visited one of his friend's dorm rooms in the Honors College.  We exchanged numbers, and kept in touch infrequently throughout that semester.  I was sort-of seeing someone at the time, spending almost every night and weekend with a friend from high school who also came to LSU from Monroe.  As fall turned to Winter, we kept in touch, and he went skiing with friends while I took a trip to New York with the BCM.  Christmas passed, and my second semester began.  We reconnected, and soon were inseparable.  I liked him.  He and his friends made me feel comfortable, and they made me laugh.  We did silly things together...spent hours in the Union at LSU doing crossword puzzles, eating junk food, and throwing noodles at cakes. (An LSU catering truck driver made the mistake of leaving a huge cake unattended in the back of his truck, and since we had leftover noodles from lunch, we decided the cake was a great target.) We quickly grew very close. 

That Spring, we made a lot of memories together.  Then one day as I walked through the Quad, Jacob called.  He was in the Marines, as I knew, and had just found out that he'd be heading to Iraq for a tour of duty.  I cried as I walked back to my dorm, worried and confused.  We had just begun to really get to know each other, and now he was leaving.  The next few weeks we spent every moment possible together.  He withdrew from classes, and I skipped a lot of mine to be with him.  Our last night together came way too soon, and by that point he was incredibly sleep-deprived from trying to stay up every night to spend time with his friends and family.  By this point I'd grown to know and love his family, as we had visited them frequently over the past few months.  His mom and I hugged and cried as his bus drove away. 

Luckily, I was able to fly out to California to visit Jacob twice while his unit prepared for deployment to Iraq.  We spent two lazy weekends walking around the strange town of Palm Springs checking out places called "Gay Mart" and the bum fountain.  Those trips flew by, and soon he left the country for Iraq.  I told him I loved him, and promised to write all the time. 

Unfortunately, life doesn't stand still when you're on the other side of the world, and I soon became involved with my own life, with new friends and adventures.  Jacob was always there, in the back of my mind, and we did exchange letters and once in a while I would get a phone call, usually in the middle of the night, from an Unknown number, and it was him.  Those talks were short, sometimes awkward, and always sad.  He was definitely homesick, and boredom was a huge issue.  They often had long expanses of time with nothing serious going on, and I could tell that was killing him.  He missed his life and family back home.

After several months of him being away, I took the selfish route.  I decided I didnt want to be in a long-distance relationship with someone in Iraq, and I wrote a letter saying I hoped he'd understand.  Although I know he didn't, he wrote back and said he agreed. 

His deployment finally came to an end, and he returned.  The mistakes I'd made in his absence were tough to overcome, and it took a long time for me to get back in good graces with his friends.  They knew of my disloyalty, and hated me for it.  Honestly, I couldn't blame them.  I was young and selfish. 

We soon settled back into our former routine of spending the majority of our time together.  His friends slowly began to accept me back into their circle, and I was happy.  Temporarily, at least.