Starting Over and Loving to Live!

On March 12, 2008 my life ended as I knew it. No it wasn’t the normal death that take place or a boyfriend leaving me that caused the end of my normal hum-drum life…if you will allow me to endure you in a few moments I will explain how I went from dead to alive in a years time.

Lets see…it started out as any normal afternoon after working out, come home pour me a glass of wine, turn on the computer to check email and my Facebook account Wait! I’ve got a new email! We all love getting real emails, right? The guy was someone that I shared a few psychology classes with in college. We exchanged a few short emails back and forth and then exchanged phone numbers. It wasn’t long before he actually called me.

We exchanged all of two phone calls where we talked for an hour one time about this and that from travel to expensive foods that were enjoyable. He came from money and that was evident even in college. We talked about why we didn’t talk in college mainly because he had a fiancé and I had a long term boyfriend. (Things didn’t work out with his fiancé nor my long term boyfriend.) In one phone call I expressed how the TV in my spare room wasn’t working and he said he was in the area and he could help me with it.

Now, yes I know…I shouldn’t have been so eager to allow him into my home as our first meeting but in my mind I thought, I had classes with him, we’ve exchanged emails, we’ve shared phone calls, my parents live with in walking distance (across a 20 archer field) from where I live and he seemed really nice. Plus his parents were both doctors and he was really cute!

When he arrived there was instant attraction and he was a charmer…looking back I’d say he was a snake trying to woe in a mouse. I offered him a drink as he hooked the TV up and got it to working. There was constant intense eye contact between the two of us. Eventually he stopped and said…”would you just kiss me and get this over with?” At the time I thought it was very bold move and feel for it. We exchanged a very passionate kiss that I’ll forever hate.

Before things got to heated I offered him a drink-non alcoholic mind you…Mt. Dew actually, he took the drink and I made the mistake that so many girls make and we aren’t aware of it until it happens to one of us or our best friends…I sat my drink down and went to the rest room. I come back out and he’s put a movie in a movie which I’ll never be able to watch b/c it’s related to him. He handed me my drink…after a few drinks things started getting mixed up.

I remember bits and pieces of what happened…the opening credits, the music, him getting me up and being in my kitchen and me trying to push him back from me which made him say “You’re pretty strong huh? I like strong women.” I know that my bedroom door was shut b/c I didn’t want to make that be an inviting place for him…the next bit I remember was him in my bedroom shoving me on my bed and him being on top of me. There are bits and pieces of the rape that I remember and I’m not exactly sure if I said stop but I do know that I said No and cried…after a while I think I just went numb and made myself be some other place.

The next memory I have was coming to in his truck in different cloths-sweats which I would never wear for a guy coming over and no shoes and this was March in Arkansas it gets pretty cold. I come to and try to open the door but he pulls my hair and pulls me down into the seat-I can see lights on at my parents farm house…if I could just scream maybe someone would hear me. I kept trying to fight him off me and he continues to punch me in the back of the head and my back-I didn’t feel the fist or the hurt-I was still numb to it all. I knew if I could just keep fighting I could get out. He was pulling out of the drive and I managed to open the door as he was pushing the gas I jumped and ran as fast as I could into my house.

I wish I could say the horror story ended there but it did not. I was scared to call my parents right afterwards because my father had arrived home the day before from being in the hospital from a massive heart attack and I didn’t want to cause anymore upset. My best friend was on her honeymoon in Vegas and the only other person I could think to call was my ex-boyfriend who didn’t answer…for some reason I went as far as to call his current girlfriend who got a hold of him and they rushed over to take me to the hospital.

Remember me mentioning that his parents were both physicians…well as the detective was asking me questions (or trying to get me to answer something) he said that the girl who brought me in (my ex’s current girlfriend) told him that the guys name was “---------- -------“ as soon as he said the name the room fell silent and the nurses looked at one another then left the room. I had been given a round of antibiotics which I was allergic to so I had begun to throw them up. They gave me another round which I was still throwing up because of the ones previously giving. My blood wasn’t drawn (which I later found out was mandatory in a rape case) and I was sent home…stopping to throw up on my self on the way out of the ER.

My ex-boyfriend took me to my parents’ home and helped me tell my mother what had happened. I’m not very open with my family and just wanted to go to bed. I continued to throw –up and my mother finally said “We’ve got to get you properly treated.” I work for a hospital in which his parents were not associated; however I did not want to go there the night before because I did not want everyone I worked with to know what had happened to me. I was rushed in due to being an employee and only two people knowing what had happened to me.

The horror still continues…I did receive proper care at the hospital I worked for and received more antibiotics to fight off any STD’s that I might have contracted along with several other medications to take. They did draw my blood but said that the toxicity screen didn’t show any trace of date rape drug; which didn’t mean it wasn’t used but given that he had access to numerous medications that would have long been out of my system by that time. The ER doctor explained that I would continue to throw up until I had all of the other antibiotics out of my system and that I should try to eat plenty of yogurt and take pro-biotic.

However, the throwing up and stomach issues lasted much longer….there was constant pain in my body and the sight of food made me so nauseate I couldn’t bare to eat for days. I was literally wasting away and hating life. Finally one day at work my boss stopped me and said…”Go to the doctor, this isn’t normal, maybe you have a stomach virus that you can’t get over.” I took off early and went…my family doctor said yes I had a stomach virus but put me in the hospital for IV fluids. I continued throwing up, feeling horrible, and running fever the whole time I was in the hospital.

He discharged me and said I should be fine in a few days that the bug would be gone in no time. The next week at work I was still feeling like crap-literally! So I called the hospital I was in and requested the medical records and my lab work while reviewing them I discovered I had contracted a deadly virus that many people get from taking to many antibiotics, called Clostridium difficile or C-Diff. I contacted a specialist who wanted to run test immediately-was put back into the hospital and underwent studies. When the procedures were over the specialist put her head down and looked very overwhelmed. A look I knew all too well from working with numerous surgeons and when the outcome wasn’t exactly as was hoped for.

She expressed the toxin were very advanced in my body and had attached my colon, large and small intestines. She said there had never been a case this severe that had no resulted in death and if I hadn’t gotten treated any sooner than when I did I would have died. I was put on more medications for a few more weeks and underwent more studies and slowly (and I do mean slowly…) there showed signs of improvement. I went in for my last study in July 08 and she said things looked much better; however there were some areas that she was unsure about and wanted to send them off to pathology. A few days later I received the phone call…I was had Crohn’s Disease.

It’s taken me a while to get used to living with it and at first there was about six months that I went into severe depression and didn’t want to live anymore. I was taking antidepressants but it just wasn’t helping. In December of 2008 I switched physicians and got put on another antidepressant that didn’t work either-however this physician was willing to work with me and help me find something that was fitted to me and my circumstance….that’s when he put me on Celexa. That’s when my life started having meaning again…that’s when I started waking up and thanking God for breathing and thanking Him for not taking me out of this world as I had begged him to do just weeks prior to that.

As for the guy who rapped me…he’s still out there. No I didn’t press charges because mentally I knew at the time I really wouldn’t be able to hang on to life. I knew going throw it would surly kill me. However I found out that he had beaten his fiancé on many occasions and this was his pattern. He sent me a few texts in the weeks that followed but eventually went away. I see him on occasion and maybe one day I will be strong enough to stand and fight that demon.

It has taken me totally changing my way of thinking to even want to be alive. It was like he took so much of my life in that one night and I let him have the power to take so many more of my days. I can’t blame him for the actual diseases however the doctor did say that the event is what triggered it and made it become life altering-that I could have continued living my life pre-rape and never have to take the medication for it.

Now, today…I take about fourteen pills a day-from antidepressant to different vitamins that my body needs more of to stay stronger, I have the most amazing guy in my life who knows about everything and encourages me every step of the way of my healing process, I have increased and improved in every area of my life and I’m working one on one with a therapist to maintain a positive healthy life.

Life is what you make it. I was done being dead and wasting away. I’m enjoy breathing now. So this is my story. For those who have read thank you…for those who have been through something similar-I’m here for you. For those who still sit your glass down in public places or around strangers…please be mindful that it could be lifetime illness in there when you pick it back up.