Posted by:
GayLayAle
(
)
Date: January 21, 2011 08:18PM
Time moved on, as it does, and I became increasingly aware that I probably wasn’t going to change. I had prayed. I had cried. I had done everything I knew how to do to make this “affliction” go away, to absolutely no effect. I continued chatting online, but instead of seeking out random sex partners, I went in search of someone to date. I figured if I focused my brain elsewhere, I wouldn’t be tempted to have sex. Plus, after what I had done, the thought of actually repeating the same mistake kept me in line for awhile. At that point, I had no idea sex could be anything other than smelly, disgusting and wrong. I still had a sex drive, sure. I was an adolescent boy in the height of puberty, after all. But after the horrific Chase experience, I was too scared to try again.
Things on the home front weren’t improving much either. In fact, things were getting drastically worse. By this time, my mom was nearly completely bedridden. Like before, years ago, any light she had in her eyes had gone almost dark. I did everything I knew how to do to help her, but being only a teenage boy my resources were limited. Not to mention the set of problems I was creating for myself without anyone knowing.
Carrying around a secret like that is sheer torture. The weight and taste of it gets so bad, there are times you’re sure you won’t be able to continue walking. But whom could I talk to? Who could I tell? My parents were certainly out of the question. The bishop? Hell, no. I began to feel trapped. I started having a whole slew of suicidal thoughts. Evidently, there was no way out of this except to die. I was tired of fighting to keep my family together, trying to help my mom, worrying about my dad, attempting to keep my brother shielded from the hell of what was going on in our house, all the while grappling with what I thought was an affliction. God had obviously abandoned me. My prayers had gone unanswered. All my cries for help fell on deaf ears.
I never attempted suicide, but there came a point when it was all I ever thought about. My mind became obsessed with thoughts of death. I had my funeral all planned out, right down to what music would be played. The only solace I found was knowing that once I got to the ‘other side’, whatever that was, all these problems I had would cease to exist.
As I said earlier, the specific times and dates get a little muddy, but I was in mid-adolescence when my dad had his first heart attack. He was in his mid-forties at the time. His family had a big history of heart disease; his mother passed away of a heart attack in 1984. I remember the ambulance coming to the house and taking my dad away. It was then that I understood how fiercely I avoid conflict. When the ambulance came, I was hiding up in my room, doing my best to convince myself I was completely aloof. And if I’m brutally honest with myself, I think I was a little desensitized by that time. So many shitty things had happened, this one felt like the proverbial drop in the bucket. In fact, it was eerily funny in some way. It was like, “REALLY? HOW MUCH MORE???”.
Even at her lowest, my mom was fantastic in a crisis. Shades of her old self really came shining through. At a time when it seemed she should have been falling apart, she completely came together and stepped up to the plate. She remained calm with the paramedics, with everyone. She went to the hospital with my dad and arranged for my siblings and me to stay with friends for the night.
Thankfully, the heart attack was minor, and there was little damage. It was painfully clear, however, that my dad needed to reduce the stress in his life. But how? His doctor ended up putting him on a fairly high dose of the antidepressant Zoloft. Unlike with my mom, the drug seemed to do wonders for him. He was much calmer, took things more in stride, and my parents seemed to fight less and less.
A year went by, and disaster struck again. My dad had another heart attack. This time, however, my mom was in no way, shape or form equipped to handle it. She completely shut down. She was taken to the hospital alongside my dad. They admitted both of them to the hospital; my dad to the cardiac ICU, and my mom to the psychiatric unit for observation.
My world was falling apart around my ears, or should I say falling even further apart than it already had. My parents were both in the hospital, I had no idea whether they would live or die. By this time, I had pretty much given up on God. Where the fuck had he been? What had all of us done to deserve having this much shit rain down on our heads?
My dad had dodged a bullet yet again, but this time the treatment was more aggressive. They went in and inserted stents into arteries in his heart to keep the flow of blood going and to help get rid of the blockages. This seemed to help for awhile, and my dad’s health improved.
My mom’s health, however, continued deteriorating. She continued seeing the psychiatrist and his wife, who was a licensed clinical psychologist. It seemed everything that could possibly be done was being done, and yet, nothing was working.
Later that same year, my dad had his third heart attack. This time, he was taken via helicopter to the cardiac trauma unit at St. Mark’s hospital. While en route to the hospital, he was given a shot nicknamed the Artery Blaster, which allowed just enough blood to get through the artery to keep him alive. This was the only thing that kept him from dying. The cardiologist delivered the news the next day that my dad would need to undergo a triple bypass surgery. My dad was still only in his mid-forties. What the hell was going on? They scheduled the surgery for the following day. My mom stayed by his side the entire time, and once again was back in survival mode and seemed to be doing quite well.
As we all know, most things aren’t usually what they seem to be. The REAL beginning of the end was just around the corner.