A short time after the start of the 10th grade I got a case of the flu with hair on it. I ran 101-102° temps. I could barely get out of bed to go to the bathroom. Anything I drank or ate came out in liquid form from one end and/or the other. When I stood up, everything spun around like some malevolent carnival ride run amok. My mouth stayed painfully dry. It actually hurt to talk my mouth and throat were so dry.

My brother put a stack of albums on the record player in an attempt to hopefully soothe me. The goddamn needle stuck at the beginning of "Dreamweaver" by Gary Wright which succeeded in creeping me out for several hours or maybe it was two minutes. With the fever, I don't know. I finally got up and turned the thing off. To this day, that song gives me the willies.

Slowly but surely the flu and the fever let me be for a while although I was woozy for another ten days and had very little appetite. Finally, I went back to school.

There are some very clear-cut symptoms of Diabetes all of which were ignored by me and Mom. Topping the list for me was excessive thirst. No matter what I drank, I was still thirsty. Iced Tea? Coke? Coffee? Pah! No effect at all if not to make me more thirsty. Though none of us recognized it at the time, my body was fighting off, or trying to fight off, excessive sugar in my system.

It's called Osmotic Diuretic Effect, I think. Whatever it's called, because of excess sugar in my bloodstream, cells started voiding their water to try to flush the sugar out. As more and more cells lost their water, the thirstier I became. I was blissfully unaware as I drank more and more sugar-filled beverages to try to end that maddening dry mouth and throat.

At the other end of the spectrum, I was peeing like a Persian racehorse, as the old saying goes. I would sit in class trying not to fidget too obviously, waiting for the bell. As soon as it rang, I was out the door like The Flash, hauling ass down to the boys room where I would pee until I didn't think I could possibly pee anymore. Then it was equally as fast to the water fountain to guzzle the cold liquid nonstop for a couple of minutes. Afterward, I'd head to my next class.

At first, my ritual of pouring good water after bad only happened once or twice a day. Before long, I was running to the bathroom between every single class. It was harder and harder to make it through each class without "gotta go gotta go gotta go right now gotta go gotta go gotta go." Mom's answer to this was I was peeing because I was trying to rehydrate myself after the flu by drinking a lot.

[An important note here: My mom was not neglectful. Far from it. On top of my bout with the flu, she and my dad were trying to fix things so my oldest brother wouldn't have his fingers broken or cut off because of gambling debts. He was a programmer with a Sicilian girlfriend. Her family had "interests" in Las Vegas. They had him work on a lot of the slot machines. He, naturally, knew the programming so he played those machines. That was not part of the "family plan." Mom and Dad had to take out a second mortgage which he never paid back. Yes, he is an asshole. He has always been so and nothing has changed. To this day he cannot set foot in any casino in Vegas.]

Then it started at night and that's where things really became fubar. I'd go to bed at 10:00 pm or so. Half hour later, I was thirsty. I'd get up and get a glass of water then go pee, finally back to bed again. Around midnight the cycle would repeat. Then around 1:00 am, then 2:15 then 3:00. On and on and on until time to wake up and get ready for school.

Saturdays were worse because we had no a/c in the trailer we lived in while Dad was being transferred around. To compensate for the lack of sleep all week, I'd sleep until nearly 3:00 in the afternoon, much to Mom's aggravation. I'd wake up with the worst friggin' sinus headache. Blinking hurt my head. I'd stagger around with it trying to unstop my clogged nostrils. Suddenly I'd hear an audible "pop" and bloody water would just pour out of my nose. Nifty, huh?

Eventually, I was so tired from my erratic sleep patterns, I couldn't stay awake in class. I'd wake up with the undeniable urge to pee and my mouth so dry that I couldn't speak right away. Mercifully sometimes the bell would ring and allow me some relief. My grades started to dip.

Mom used to save one or two gallon milk jugs. She'd wash them then fill them halfway with water and put them in the freezer. After the water froze solid, she'd take them out and fill them the rest of the way with regular tap water. She would take one so she'd have cold water whenever she'd make a trip back to Clara to check on the house. Kept in the refrigerator, however, they made super cold water. At the peak of my "situation," I was drinking one to two gallons of water a night.

When my first clothes started to fit loosely, Mom chalked it up to the fact the band was doing a particularly physical marching show this year and that was probably why I was losing weight. Honestly, it sounded plausible and I was glad. And there was also the recent flu to blame. It seemed like my prayers were being answered.

Suddenly, my clothes were very loose. In fact, without a belt, I couldn't take more than one or two steps before my pants fell off. My weight was down from the high 340s to around 315-320. Mom and I went to get some more pants and underwear for me. At the time she was sewing all my shirts.

Got the new clothes and within a week or ten days they, too, were falling off of me. My belt would be pulled so tight that my baggy pants would look as though they were pleated. Every time I had to get up to speak in Speech class, everyone would laugh at me. That fucking hurt, let me tell you.

I'd gotten used to "Hey Crispy Legs/Dick/Face/Ass, what's for dinner? Let me guess....Chicken?" etc.. But for some reason, the laughter in Speech class was the worst. Why? I haven't the slightest. For some reason, though, it just went right through me like a dead-on-target spear thrown at my chest.

They'd call me "Jethro Bodine" and "Gomer Pyle." The names didn't bug me as much as the snickers and muffled laughter every time I'd stand up. It was all I could do to hold back the tears enough to make my speech. On those days, I'd drive home from school cursing those assholes and crying uncontrollably. Then I'd hate myself for crying. I truly just wanted to die and thought about suicide constantly. At that point in time I didn't think my life would ever have any worthwhile meaning except to be the butt of jokes or source of humor from those assholes who had everything going for them.

I perpetually wondered why I had survived the gunshot wound when I was six. I mean, the bullet went through my left forearm, breaking the bone, then zig-zagged through my abdomen, through my liver and came to rest between my kidneys where it remains to this day. Reliving it, there was no sense for my survival. Too many things had to fall into place in order for me to have come through it alive. And to what purpose? To be belittled at every turn in my life?

We lived out in the middle of nowhere, 15 miles from the nearest hospital. No adult was home when it happened--my middle brother (19 years old) was supposed to be keeping an eye on us but instead left us alone to go off with some of his buddies to get drunk or something equally pointless. Our phone was a "party line" with several other homes on the same line but each home had a unique ring. That was my salvation, as it turned out.

We were in our parents' room. After the gun went off, I don't remember the sound, but my left hand went numb and my abdomen felt like it was on fire. I looked down and blood was trickling out of a charred little hole in my shirt. I think we both collapsed from shock but Jeff later got me to one of the couches in the living room. I was throwing up repeatedly. I heard Jeff babbling on the phone to someone, telling them I'd been hurt and to come quick.

The person on the other end was finally able to figure out where we were and came on the run with his three teenaged sons. I remember when they all rushed in the front door. DeWayne, the oldest of the three sons, tried unsuccessfully to vault over the other couch. Him sprawling onto the floor made me laugh uncontrollably, the pain of which in turn caused me to vomit uncontrollably.

Aubrey, the father, quickly bundled me in a wool blanket. It was made it Germany with blue and white squares and tassels around the edges. I remember thinking, "Mom's not gonna like me ruining her blanket." He carried me to their car. I still remember that car. It was a pale blue 1964 Ford Falcon. It's funny the things that stick in the filters in your mind in a crisis. Anyway, the boys held me in their laps in the back seat. I passed out and it seemed only seconds later we were at the hospital.

[I want to say something here so everyone who is kind enough to read it knows: Jeff accidentally shot me. I don't blame him for anything that has happened as a result of the accident. I love him dearly and he is my favorite brother. He has always looked out for me and has taken me in more than once when I've had nowhere else to go. He has always been my best friend and I hope he knows that. Now I have Karen so, I guess that makes y'all "co-best friends." Thanks for everything you've always done for me and for being my "oasis" in my past desert of life. Now, in 5 short years, Karen has made my life complete and I'm happier than I've ever been. But I'm still eternally grateful to you. I love you, dude!]

Did I survive that just to get non-stop ragging from people I barely knew and to have it just tear me apart inside every friggin' day of my life? I had no answers for that. I was just fucked in my opinion. I had no one else to turn to.

My grades were quickly dropping from As, Bs and the occasional C to Cs, Ds and the occasional F. Mom and Dad were getting notes to the effect that I should not be working and they should consider whether I should remain in band.

Dad was getting pissed at me thinking I wasn't trying. My only A was for band and I was not quitting. Hell no! I felt that music was all that was keeping me sane. Even though it was getting harder and harder for me because my mouth was so dry.

We'd spend our hour long class period perpetually running our competition show. By the time the period was over, my tongue was literally like a stick in my mouth and I could not talk very well. My first stop on the way back in the building was at the water fountain which, thankfully, was right next to the restrooms.

A week or so later it didn't matter.

On my third or fourth set of new clothes, I truthfully don't remember which, Mom asked me to get on the scale. I hadn't weighed myself lately. She and I went in the bathroom. I stepped on the old scale and looked down. (I could see the scale instead of my stomach!!) It wavered back and forth for a couple of seconds but I was having trouble believing what I was seeing. Instead of having to calculate how much over 250 I weighed and do the math, the scale had come to rest at 247.

I was overjoyed. I'd lost nearly 100 pounds in just over 6 weeks. Breaking my mood, Mom said "There's something wrong with you."

The next day she scheduled an appointment with our doctor.

Chapter 1
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

Chapter 5