Archive for the ‘Sad Experiences’ Category
Friday, June 6th, 2008 |
If only I knew then, what I know now life would be a lot different. Life might have been easier, decisions might not have been so hard. But thats the beauty of life. The unknown day that lies ahead of us. The simple fact is that, if we did know then what we know now, we would all be a bunch of smart ass’s. Life’s lessons, that only life can teach us, would never be learned. Thats why I am thankful that life didn’t give me the easy route. It chewed me up and spit me out. And for that, I will be forever grateful.
February 26 2003 9:00am
I was running late like a typical 17 year old. Life waited on me, I didn’t wait on life. It was that ignorant notion that got me into where I was going in the first place. “Not a care in the world” seemed to be my life motto at that typical time. I was nervous, I mean who wouldn’t be? Life would never throw me a bunch of cards I didn’t know how to play. Never. I was wrong. (more…)
Posted in Awkward Experiences, Life Experiences, Sad Experiences | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 |
It was january 12,1994. I was then 13 years old. My mom was at work . My older sister and I were cleaning up the house, getting ready for bed, it was shortly after 10:00pm. And our mother would soon be home from work. She would usually get in by 11:00pm. She was on the second shift. She worked as a nurse at a nursing home from 3 to 11pm.
We received a phone call from her job around 10:15pm from one of the nurses she worked with asking us, what kind of medicine did our mom take? At the time we knew she had high blood pressure but we were not sure of the type of medicine she was taking. We were to young to know. I then told the nurse to call my grandmother and I gave her the number, I stated to the nurse she would know more about that then we would.
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Posted in Life Experiences, Sad Experiences | 1 Comment »
Sunday, February 17th, 2008 |
It’s been 9 days, 16 hours and 12 minutes since she took her last breath. I had a thought in the back of my head once we took her off life support, that my mom would just come back. She’d wake up and say “what are you guys doing here wasting your time, the gutters need to be cleaned”. We’d all laugh, tell mom we knew she would make it and joke how she really scared us while we drank coffee. She’d complain that her throat hurts and we’d never tell her about all the tubes she had in (knowing she’d be pissed about that.)
But that’s not how it happened. When they took the tubes out, I stood on the outside of the curtain. I didn’t want to miss a thing. I needed to be there for everything. I heard some horrible noise of choking and gargling that I’ll never get out of my head. Then the nurse rushed out from behind the curtain, told me to get the rest of the family, it’s not looking to great. I ran to the waiting room, and as I opened the door, my sister was there. You could see the tears filling up in her eyes as I yelled “everyone needs to come, the nurse said we should all go in as soon as possible”.
Everyone rushed in to hold mom’s hand or foot or anything they could hold on to. The look on my dad’s face is the one thing that would make me break. I could barely hold my body up. It’s heart breaking to see that look, and wonder if he’s thinking about their first kiss, their wedding day or even each one of their babies coming into the world.
We all stood there crying, turning red and gasping for tissues, sleeves or each other. My mom was free of all tubes except her IV. They kept that in as they gave her shots of Morphine for any pain. Her breathing was all over the place and it was almost like a heavy snore. The nurses would come in and suction her mouth out. It was horrible to see your mom or ANYONE for that matter, so incapacitated.
For the first 2 hours, we all sat in the room, unbearable as the noise and thought of losing our mother was it was harder to not be in the room. We all wanted to be there. Maybe we all thought there was a chance she would come back, or we all just wanted her to know she had a very special place in our hearts and we loved her deeply.
After the first 2 hours, we took turns having a few in the room at a time. After 5pm, Lauren came so I had some company. Lauren coming gave me some break. We talked, watched some TV & played with silly puddy. Most of the guests left around 10pm. I went in with mom around 11pm and sat with her (as did Denise). Dad had left around 11:30pm & so did Brian. I came out of the room around 11:45pm to see if any of my other brothers wanted to leave… Mom was hanging on strong (at least that’s what I thought). Shortly after, my sister came out b/c the nurses were planning to turn mom. Not long, did a nurse come out and tell us our mom was very close to passing. Frantically we rushed in. I tried to call Dad on his cell and Doryan called the house. Dad JUST got home and was coming back to the hospital bringing Damien (dawn wasn’t able to go through it).
I wonder if my mom knew we were all there in the final 30 minutes. It was the HARDEST thing I ever had to endure. Watching her heart beat go from 150 (which is pretty high) all day drop to 120, 110, 100, 90, 80 and then hit 50… I quietly pleaded with my mom to wait for dad to get there so he could be with her too, and her heart beat went up to 100. I took that as my sign that mom knew I was there and wanted dad to be there. Five minutes later, Dad, Doryan and Damien walk in. Dad goes to mom left hand side and holds her hand. My mom is turning a shade darker and you could tell it was coming. The breathing came much more shallow. The sadness in the room was over bearing. Her heart beat drops slowly and I prayed for it to either happen faster or for it to turn back. It slowly went down to 20, and then she stopped breathing but her heart beat continued. We watched the monitor and everything hit 0 and blanked. I gasped. Yes, I gasped just like on TV. I gasped and sobbed. Mom had passed. My heart sank so low I could have died a long with her. Maybe a piece of me has. The nurses came, shut everything off. We all said the very last word “I love you” and walked out. I sat in the room for another 2 minutes talking to my mom, kissing her forehead and telling her that she would be always be in my heart. Everyone already walked to the waiting room, I followed behind.
It was 12:44am when mom passed. We sat in the waiting room for 15 minutes waiting for the head nurse to come talk to dad. Once the nurse came in she went over logistics for my mothers body to be transferred; basically giving him the “rules”. She asked if anyone wanted the flowers. No one did. Those flowers represented the days we spent in her room, hoping and praying for her to come back. I couldn’t bare to have them in my apartment. The nurse also asked if anyone wanted to go in one more time to see her. I needed to. I needed to know that this wasn’t a joke, that is was over and my mom had left me. I needed to see her, to tell her I loved her for that one last time.
Posted in Life Experiences, Sad Experiences | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 |
Thank you to K.S. for his submission. This thoughtful and heart-breaking submission of a parent’s love and what they must sometimes do to help their child has been chosen as the first winner in the “From My Experience” Contest. Another contest starts February 21, 2008, so please submit your experience and maybe you’ll be our next winner.
This is the true story of what I had to do to get my son the help he so desperately needed.
Let’s begin about 20 years ago. 1982 to be exact. My wife Valerie was pregnant with our first (and only) child. She was extremely concerned during the pregnancy, partially because my brother’s baby, who was born just 6 months earlier, was delivered with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, and her face was extremely bluish. There was grave concern at that time by everyone about the possibility of brain damage, but I can gladly report that my niece currently is a junior in college and is even the Editor of the school’s newspaper.
My wife took excellent care of herself during the entire pregnancy. She never smoked or drank alcohol to begin with, so these were never issues in the first place. She also avoided all medications. In fact, the only pill which crossed her lips during the entire 9 months was 1 Tylenol. Nevertheless, we still prayed each and every day up to and including the day of delivery that everything would be fine. I guess all expectant parents do that.
We took pre-natal classes, and I had remembered one session in particular, in which the instructor spoke of what is called the “APGAR* Score.”
*Activity (Muscle Tone)
Pulse
Grimace (Reflex)
Appearance (Skin Color)
Respiration
The APGAR is a 2 part evaluation of the baby. The evaluation is done twice, once immediately after birth and again just a few minutes later, and is supposedly a strong indicator as to the overall health of the newborn. The APGAR Score is based on the 5 factors listed above. Each of these factors is given a score of 0, 1, or 2, so the total score could range from 0-10. We were told during the pre-natal class that a score of 6 or higher for the first evaluation and 8 or higher for the second evaluation was usually a good sign of a healthy baby. With this in mind, the minute Kurt Junior entered the outside world I immediately focused on “6 & 8,” “6 & 8.” After a few minutes I asked one of the nurses what the APGAR Scores were. She seemed surprised by my asking, but her reply was music to my ears. “9-10,” she said, “can’t get much better than that.” At that moment, everything was right with the universe, and my world seemed totally secure.
Kurt seemed to be perfect. With a birth weight of 9 pounds, 10-1/2 ounces, he had a head start on most babies. He turned over, crawled and walked much earlier than expected. Everything seemed to be going along just fine.
It was somewhere around his first birthday that we started to think that things just weren’t quite right. It seemed that Kurt wasn’t listening to us, and he was making less and less sounds. Even if we said something like “Kurt, if you come here you can have some ice cream,” (which was his favorite) he failed to respond. Frightful that Kurt had a possible hearing loss, we scheduled a hearing test for him at Lenox Hill Hospital.
The hearing test was a disaster. Kurt would not sit still at all and wouldn’t even let the Audiologist put headphones on him. The most disturbing part, however, was that I could tell immediately from the Audiologist’s facial expressions that he thought there was some other problem. He told us after the aborted test that he didn’t think Kurt had a hearing problem, because although Kurt wouldn’t allow the test to be done he seemed to respond to all the sounds he had heard. He also recommended that we see a Neurologist, but refused to elaborate on a reason why.
When we finally got to see the Neurologist 1 week later, our world started to crumble. He diagnosed Kurt with Mental Retardation. Valerie and I were obviously devastated, but almost immediately turned our attention to getting Kurt whatever help he needed so he could lead as normal and productive a life as possible. After all, Valerie’s brother is Mentally Retarded (The politically correct term today is Developmentally Disabled) and he is living a full life, complete with a full time job as a messenger and a wife. Valerie and I decided to turn our pain, hurt and anger into action. As soon as we could, we got Kurt enrolled in a special education pre-school program, as well as an excellent recreation program on Saturdays.
As Kurt started getting older, however, his behavior changed drastically for the worse. He would become extremely agitated and angry, sometimes for no reason at all, other times if just 1 minor thing was changed. One example was the day we moved some furniture in the living room. When Kurt saw that the furniture was in a different place he got very upset and started to continually bang the table with his fists. When we took Kurt to a Specialist, he diagnosed Kurt with Autism, in addition to the Mental Retardation. The Autism explained why Kurt would get so upset over the slightest of changes.
As time passed, the aggressive behavior kept escalating. Kurt started throwing objects like chairs, and was becoming violent towards himself and us. He also began a pattern of only sleeping 2 or 3 hours a night, every night. Valerie and I actually had to take shifts sleeping because anything could happen when Kurt was awake. One minute he’d be laughing hysterically at nothing at all and the next do a complete 180 and start kicking and biting. It was around this time that a 3rd diagnosis was added to the mix. In addition to everything else, we were now told that Kurt was also Manic-Depressive, or Bi-Polar. This would explain Kurt’s rapid mood swings. The Doctor started Kurt on the medications Elavil and Lithium, and although he was only 6 at the time, when the smaller doses did not seem to have any effect, they were raised to 300mg of Elavil and 400mg of Mellaril. Even at these high doses, we saw not one change in Kurt. The behaviors were exactly the same, and he was still sleeping only 2 to 3 hours every night. The doctor then, over the course of many months, proceeded to try another 6 or so different medications, such as Ritalin and Tegretol, each also having no positive effects at all.
When Kurt was about 7, Valerie and I made the painstaking decision that the best thing we could do for Kurt was to find him a good Group Home, one where he could be monitored much more closely than it was humanly possible for just Valerie and I to, because the ever increasing violence he was exhibiting was becoming far too dangerous for us to handle alone.
We obtained a list of approximately 20 Group Homes and contacted them all. Over the course of the next two years only 6 of them ever responded that they even might have an opening. We visited all 6 of them, some hundreds of miles away and in different states, but not a single one would accept him. The answer we got was usually along the lines of one of these two statements: “Kurt is just too violent and aggressive for our program,” or “We just don’t have the adequate staff to meet Kurt’s special needs.” I would ask these programs if they knew of any others that might accept Kurt, since he was a child who definitely needed a Group Home setting, more so than just about anyone else, but they could not help me.
One visit to a potential Group Home stood out in my mind. This particular Group Home was upstate, about 300 miles away from our house. Needless to say, by the time we got there Kurt was extremely agitated, and proceeded to slap the face of the person interviewing us. So it ended up taking about 5 hours to drive there, 5 minutes to realize that Kurt wouldn’t be accepted, and another 5 hours to drive back home.
By the time Kurt turned 9, his behavior was worse than ever, with no end in sight. It seemed like we were taking him every other week or so to The Children’s Psychiatric Emergency Room.
It was during one of these visits to this E/R that our world would start to change again. Kurt was having a horrible time of it that home at night, knocking over the TV set and a wall unit. When he started to bang his head on purpose against the wall we knew we had to take him in. While there, one of the ER docs motioned me over to him. “Have you thought about placing Kurt in a Group Home,” he asked. “Of course,” I told him, then proceeded to tell him our 2 year saga of trying to place Kurt without any success.
The doctor then brought me to a small room and closed the door behind us. “I want to tell you something, Mr. Sass, but you can never tell anyone that I told you this. Most Group Homes will never take on a child like Kurt, because it comes down to a matter of money, and Kurt requires so much additional attention that it is not cost effective for them to accept him. In other words, most Group Homes only want the kids that don’t really need to be in Group Homes, because they are easier to take care of and require less staff.”
“There is one thing we can do, Mr. Sass, but you have to promise not to tell anyone you heard this from me.” He had my full attention. “The only way a Group Home will accept a child like Kurt would be on an emergency basis. In other words, if Child Welfare felt that he could not under any circumstances remain at home because his life would be in danger. What I can do is refer him overnight to the Bronx Children’s Psychiatric Hospital for evaluation and to put on my report that it is for the child’s safety.”
“What you need to do, Mr. Sass, is to come to the hospital the next day, and then pretend you are the absolute worst parent on the face of the earth. You’ll have to convince Child Welfare that you hate him and that if he is returned home you will harm him. And you’ll have to be very convincing, because if they believe you’re faking, they’ll send him right back to your house. One other thing. Come alone. Don’t bring your wife. If both parents come the odds are much more likely that the child will not be considered in danger. Now remember, Mr. Sass, you did not hear this from me. But you must decide. To be honest with you, this is the only way to get him in a Group Home.”
I discussed this with Valerie and, through tears, we decided to go ahead with it since it was truly our only option.
The next day I went to the Bronx Children’s Psychiatric Hospital, alone, and was led to a room in which there were 4 people; Kurt, a member of the hospital staff and 2 people I believe to be from the Department of Child Welfare. As soon as I spotted them, I went into my performance mode. I yelled at Kurt and called him every name in the book. I had never cursed at Kurt before and felt like the lowest scum on earth in doing so. I called him a “fucking retard” and told him I wish he was never born. I still had no idea if they were buying it, so I proceeded to pick up a chair and throw it past Kurt, but close enough for the others in the room to think he was the intended target. I will never forget the look of fear on Kurt’s face for as long as I live. I still have nightmares about it.
Well, whatever I did, it worked. They refused to let me take Kurt home, and “miraculously” just 2 days later he was placed in a Group Home just 5 minutes from our house, a place we were told many times in the past had no openings.
Was it worth it? Of course, it was. Kurt has flourished in the highly structured Group Home environment.
Although I could never thank the doctor enough for his courage in putting himself at risk to help me out, I to this day find it appalling that I had to stoop to being so cruel to my own son in order to help him.
K.S.
Posted in Medical Experiences, Parenting Experiences, Sad Experiences, Winning Experiences | 1 Comment »
Sunday, January 27th, 2008 |
My name is Heather. I suffer from depression. I find that people don’t understand depression as a disease. It runs in my family. My Dad committed suicide when I was nine. BAM! The thing is I didn’t meet him until I was 7. We share the same birthday: December 28. I had a father for 2 years of my life. The other thing is I carry all the depressive genes he had. I never knew how he could commit suicide when he had two girls.
I grew up, am married and I have 2 beautiful girls. I love them with all my heart.
Back to the depression-I suffered for years and saw many doctors and they just medicated me and the therapists didn’t get it. Unless you have suffered major depression you don’t know how it feels, waking up wishing you hadn’t, feeling like you can’t move, not wanting to see anybody, and in my case hating myself because I couldn’t get up and play with my angels. I just lay on the couch, couldn’t sleep, doing just enough to keep my kids healthy. I didn’t care about me and my husband had to step up and take care of the children when I couldn’t. I felt nothing. I would have rather felt pain than feel nothing. I was in the bathtub one day; just in the water thinking now was the time to commit suicide. Depression took over me, no one could fix it, I felt nothing, I felt my husband and girls would live without me. The disease took over me. It takes over people who commit suicide. I understood how people could kill themselves when they have everything. At that moment I was dead.
I couldn’t kill myself where my kids would find me. I planned on going to a hotel and killing myself with pills. Then when I was dying I would start slicing veins to make sure I died and didn’t start throwing up the pills. At checkout time someone would open the door and find me. I didn’t do it. I don’t know why. I finally knew how my father felt when heput the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. It wasn’t that he didn’t love me. The disease took a hold of him. It wrapped itself around him and made him feel that all would be fine if he died. People would go on and he wouldn’t be in pain anymore.
I’m alive. I’m not dead anymore. I got help and found a great psychiatrist and a great therapist. I empathize with people who have killed themselves and those with depression. I feel when a person is depressed. I want to help. Some just don’t want help yet. Now I have my depression under control and will never forget the day I “died”. Now I am thankful I wake up, that the sun shines, I play with my kids now and enjoy every minute. Finally I got what I always wanted-to be cured of depression before it killed me and traumatized my family.
What would my girls have done without a Mom? I’m so thankful I “died” and came back to life. Now I have a new understanding for depression and want to help others overcome it.
Posted in Life Experiences, Sad Experiences | 1 Comment »
Saturday, January 26th, 2008 |
Olympia, Washington
August, 1992
I remember the first time I saw a dead body. It’s burned into my memory forever, I think.
I was walking with my best friend Adam to the local quickie mart. We were eleven years old and the summer was filled with scouring for loose change under sofa cushions and taking our findings to the store to buy candy. On this particular day we were approached by a homeless man before we made it halfway to the store. He was dirty, old, and close enough to death that we could almost see his soul departing his body. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes were wide and empty saucers, and his lips were the cool blue color of the summer sky.
“Spare any change?” he barely croaked through toothless gums and cracked lips. I put my hand to the front pocket of my jeans and felt the few quarters, dimes, and nickels that were soon to be exchanged for lollipops, Hershey bars, and a can of Coke. My heart caught in my throat.
I’m not a bad person. I swear I’m not. Most days I would have given the guy all the change I had… But whether it was because I was hungry for sugar or that the man looked like no amount of change would ever turn his luck, I said, “No. Sorry.” And Adam and I walked on.
We got our candy. We got our Coke. We were happy about this.
On the way back home, was saw two police cars with their flashers on and a strip of yellow tape hung between a few trees on the side of the road. We approached cautiously, each of us already knowing what had happened.
In the space of time after we left the man and when we had returned, he had died in the ditch, someone had called the cops, and they were now taking pictures of his body.
We saw him lying face down in the scotch broom and ferns. He was only slightly less alive than when we had seen him before, and one-hundred percent gone.
I’ve never felt so guilty over anything in my life. Even though I know it wouldn’t have helped him survive another day, my giving him all the change I had (a measly dollar something) might have given him some hope at least.
I still lie awake nights and think of him. His black eyes and blue lips will haunt me forever, I think.
Peter
Posted in Life Experiences, Sad Experiences | No Comments »
Saturday, September 29th, 2007 |
From my experience, watching one of your favorite sports teams lose on a consistent and devastating manner can really ruin your week. Of course I realize it is just a game and in the scheme of life, it is relatively inconsequential. But still…it really, really bothers me and if I let it and put me in a horrible mood for longer than it should. Talking about a loss which can bother you until the next game is one thing, but rooting for a team that is truly bad, well that is quite another.
Not to put too fine a point on things, but I’m speaking specifically of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team. I just watched them go down for the 5 game in a row this season. They are 0-5 this year and all of the loses have been by 15 points or more. They rank statistically in the bottom for just about every category. They are bad. They are a comedy of errors, missing two extra points and a field goal in one game. The games previous to the Purdue game were like watching a high school team play. Truly, truly disheartening to endure.
Back to my situation. On one hand I no longer feel convicted to watch every game and my weekends have opened up my schedule for which my wife is very happy. But I also now have no college football game to look forward to. So what do I do? I recored the game and watch the beginning, then I start fast forwarding with the 3 and outs, the turnovers, the missed blocks, the bad play and the poor coaching rear the heads. I have turned 3 1/2 hours of football into 40 minutes of condensed football. It has really saved on time and since I don’t have to be at home to watch it live (after all, they are probably going to lose) I can spend the day in the nice Virginia weather.
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Posted in Sad Experiences, Sporting Experiences | 3 Comments »
