My little brother turned 30 today. In any normal life, that wouldn't be much of an accomplishment. For Ben, it's one hell of a milestone. As a child there were dozens of times when his body tried to shut down and squeeze the life out of him, and, for one reason or another, he wouldn't give up.
He developed severe asthma as an infant. He was hospitalized and in the ICU for the first time at 4 months of age. He spent most of the next five years in the hospital. Usually 2-3 weeks in, 1 week out. When he was four, his doctor told my parents to move him to a drier climate or he wouldn't see his fifth birthday. Without hesitation, my father quit his job at Sears that he had held for 21 years, loaded up everything we could fit into a 24 foot U-Haul truck, and left Columbus, OH, for Phoenix, AZ.
We arrived in Phoenix on Valentine's Day, 1984...homeless, and with my father unemployed. My dad eventually found a job making $5.25 an hour at a warehouse. My mom was a stay at home mom. Our rent payment was $450 a month. You do the math. We were on welfare, food stamps...even qualified for the government cheese and peanut butter. OK....I'm getting off topic. Sorry.
We got to Phoenix, and things for my brother started to improve, but not by much. By now, he had been on one form of steroid or another since he was six months old. His visits to the hospitals became fewer and farther between....mostly, I think, because we were without insurance. He qualified for State run health care, but it didn't cover much. He received a discount on his inhalers, discounts on the dozen or so pills he had to take throughout the day, but that was about it. By first grade, he had his own nebulizer, or what we called his "breathing machine". His doctors in Phoenix eventually told us that the drier air probably did help his asthma a bit, but the pollution in the city counter balanced what positive effect it would have had. All in all, it really didn't make much of a difference whether we moved or not.
Years passed. My brother had missed so many school days per year between the fourth and the sixth grade, about 40-60 per school year, it was as if he never showed up. It was at this point that my mother decided to take him out of public school and home school him. That sounded like a good idea at first. Two weeks later, "home schooling" amounted to sleeping in and fiddling around on the computer.
It was around this same time that my brother had developed an acute reaction to chemicals, any chemicals. Scented deodorant, perfumes and colognes, candles, hand lotion, floor cleaner....the list went on and on. The slightest scent would instantly close his airways. He couldn't go shopping, or to church, or even have friends over for that matter. Everything in our home, including our laundry detergent and dryer sheets had to be unscented. He became a hermit.
It was also around this same time that I tell people that my brother died every night. We shared a bedroom. At least once a night, sometimes two or three times, my brother would wake up having a massive asthma attack. Most times it would wake me from my sleep. I would scream from across the hallway for my mom to wake up and come help. Sometimes, unfortunately, I was a heavy sleeper and wouldn't wake up until the lights were on in the bedroom and my mother was screaming at me to wake up. Jesus, why she didn't have a baby monitor in our room....why she relied on me...I still to this day do not know. I had a routine. I could run to the kitchen, get a coffee mug from the cabinet, fill it with tap water, put about a teaspoon of cherry Jello powder in the water for flavor, stir it, nuke it in the microwave for 45 seconds and be back in the bedroom in 1:15.
The reason why I say he died every night is because the hot water never worked. His bronchial tubes were so tight that his lips would turn white, his face a cold, ice blue, and he would go unconscious. That would give his lungs a chance to calm down and take a normal breath. My mom would turn his breathing machine on and strap his mask against his head, he would regain consciousness, and within minutes, everything would be fine. THIS HAPPENED EVERY FUCKING NIGHT. For probably two years. I was 15 or 16 years old and I had to deal with the possibility of watching my brother die every night for two years. LOL....anyway.....moving on.
Because of being on steroids continually from the time he was 6 months old until he was in his late teens, his adrenal glands never developed properly. He never developed muscle mass the way that he was supposed to. Long story short...he never hit puberty. It's pretty much the same thing that happened to Gary Colman. I am 6'4" tall. My brother is just under 5'2". As an adult, the asthma seemed to go away, but a multitude of problems took its place.
He has either Crohn's disease or Ulcerative Colitis. It is to such a degree that it cannot be determined. At the moment, he bleeds so much from his colon, stomach and intestines, that they cannot stop the bleeding long enough to complete the testing and get an accurate MRI or CT of his abdomen. He is currently going through chemotherapy to stop the bleeding. If that doesn't work, they are discussing a colectomy.
He also has a myriad of mental issues. My brother is very intelligent. A genius in fact. I don't think I have ever personally known anyone smarter. That is part of the problem. He has delusions of grandeur. He thinks he knows better than anyone else how to do something. He over thinks everything. The last time I shot a game of pool with him it was taking him 10 minutes plus to make his shots to figure out the angles and trajectories.
Due to his years of isolation, he had no social skills. He had no ability to hold a conversation. He met a girl online, another Witness, in Ohio. The corresponded for months via email and instant message. Finally, they met, and my brother was in love. They got married just before his 21st birthday. By then he had already attempted suicide multiple times. Strange how your body will fight to stay alive in one situation, but you choose to end your life in another.
Once, when he was 14, he programmed his computer to call 911 with instructions to remove his body and not to disturb our grandmother down the hall. The rest of the family was at church at the time. He didn't follow through. There was another time when him and his wife first moved into their own apartment, out of my parents house. My then sister in law woke up and noticed he wasn't in bed. She searched the apartment. He wasn't there. She started walking through the property. She found him sitting on the pool deck near the deep end. He was using duct tape and nylon rope to tie weights around his ankles. He was going to jump in. He was maybe less than two minutes from jumping in. Honestly, I could write a book....and probably will with the stories I could tell.
He moved back to the Cleveland area, and had two daughters with his wife. Two amazing little girls. God, I miss them so much. That's when he really went off the deep end. Ben had always been a drinker. I have never seen anyone drink so much in my life. It was impressive by frat boy standards. He would regularly drink sometimes two bottles of Captain Morgan a day. When the girls were born, I think that's when the PTSD set in. He got to the point where he couldn't make a left hand turn if he was driving. He would have to plan his route so that he could drive in a large spiral or corresponding right turns to get to his destination. If someone touches him, he screams and starts climbing the wall. He has since become a heavy pot user and has started using meth.
He got to the point where he thought his wife was trying to kill him. He refused to eat anything in the house. He wouldn't sleep. My mom and dad convinced him to come back to
Arizona to get better. Convinced him to abandon his children. I don't understand it. When he got off the plane, he weighed about 90 pounds, and was an ashy shade of gray. He looked like an AIDS patient close to death or a concentration camp prisoner. He stayed with my folks for almost two years, smoking weed in his bedroom with a vaporizer the whole time. They then decided as a family to return to Cleveland and fight for custody.
When it comes to custody, neither my ex sister in law or my brother are fit parents. My brother has never worked a day in his life. Most days when the girls are visiting, he locks himself in his room and works on his computer. Contrary to what my mother insists, he is not a good father. My ex sister in law is far from a good mother. She sends the girls to school in the winter in shorts and sandals. She lets them eat Oreos for breakfast. The girls are on the verge of going into foster care. If my brother wins custody of his children, my mother will raise them, try to make them model Witnesses. This means they'll either be in therapy the rest of their life or strippers by the time they're 16....or both.
So...he made it to 30. Like I said, it's one hell of a milestone. 20 years ago, I would have said that it was a blessing. Now, it's looking more like a curse. It's a very harsh thing to say about my little brother. But Ben, in all my life, the only thing I have ever wanted was peace for you. I love you.
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