So much has happened I don’t know where to start. Noah has been in and out of rehab three times since two open heart surgeries less than a month ago. Someone needs to invent human glue. We brought him to the Ranch rehab after his second surgery, much to his dismay. He tried to get us to drop him off in Austin, his dad pedal to the medal, slowing as he saw stoplights change, preventing the inevitable bolt from the car. Slouching in his seat, we didn’t know the reason for Noah’s behavior, we just knew it was bad.

Arriving, “Promise me you’ll stay here.” I said to him, Randy and Beth out of the car leaving just the two of us.

“Mom, I wasn’t even planning on being back.”

Later we discovered why.

“We found a rig, needles and a bag of pills in his backpack,” said Anthony, Noah’s counselor at the Ranch.

Shooting up four days prior, he’d sold his $300 Nikes to buy dope.

Last night, I lay awake from 1:30 to 4, on the phone with Noah’s old user friend driving to the North side of Houston to pick him up.

“I don’t know what he’s doing there,” the friend said, “This is not a good part of town.”

Awake till I got the text that he had Noah, my sleep totaled 4 hours.

Canceling my morning workout, I write how I feel, what it’s like, and hopefully encourage others through this deep dark maze of sickness.