my neglected LJ
was speaking with a friend whom I havent talked to in a while and realized during the update that I wouldnt have had a s much to update if I didnt neglect my LJ. So i will update you all - Nate and I are doing alright - gone through some rocky times, but in our economy who hasnt? My BPD got a bit out of control and my shrink tried to get me admitted, but luckily I am not as bad as she felt, I am seeing new doctors instead of the one in Gwinn who refused to medicate me for any purpose - hurrah for modern medicines. I had surgery at the begining of january for womens health - I have endometriosis - instead of helping the surgery has actually made it worse and I will find out on monday when i get to go in for yet another surgery - this time a full hysterectomy and the endo should be all gone from that. Nate's gout has gotten really out of control, but we found out about a program called Medical Care Access Coalition http://www.upmcac.org/whoweare.htm, so we can get Nate some haelthcare and get him back to full functioning and such not. I had to sell the van so we dont get out at all really and it sucks, we miss people, we hate being so hermited, it seems like we are self distructing which is the last thing we want really. In other news my brother was shot and severely injured - i am just going to copy my blog over to here cause i'm lazy and dont want to retype it all.
sunday 1/18/09
Would someone please try to explain to me why some people out there think that it is okay to try and steal the life away from someone else? PLEASE?! I think I need to understand this.
A few days ago my mother called me from across the country to let me know not to freak out about the news if I happened to catch it - I dont have tv so had no time to work into a tissy. For those of you who do not know - my little brother is an up and coming rap artist both solo and within a group that are both doing quite well - they have a few albums and videos out there already - they also play several west coast clubs all over - they also open for many of the larger names that come to the area.
This news my mother had for me was of another - yes another shooting at a club while my brother was performing. this is the 4th to my knowledge - this case a 25 yearold man hired a 19 yearold kid to kill a friend of my brothers - from what I understand my brother and several of his group and other artist friends were on stage when this person started shooting - one person died that night and a few others were injured - the person who was meant to die did live, but was shot twice, right next to my brother - luckily unscathed. I have no clue how they get guns in these clubs with all of the metal detectors and patdowns..... we laughed after a bit, calmed down and then we all wondered when it would be Wes......
That when struck my family just now.
as I type this to vent to you all - to yell and scream into cyberspace - my baby brother is lying in a hospital fighting and i do mean fighting just to live - to keep going - to hopefully get to stick with us and keep my family whole for a while longer. I do not have details yet - my mother called me - she was eerily calm - I know I would have been in pieces - hell I am in pieces - what I do know is that someone felt he had to die - wether that someone is musical competition or it is a retaliation from the shooting just a few days ago - trying to clean up the loose ends - or maybe a drug deal gone bad - those things I do not know - just that some one tried very hard to murder my brother and that they may still win that battle - thankfully that becomes less likely each hour so the doctors say -
Some monster out there shot the goofy, out of porportion kid that is my mothers baby, my brother.... shot him at a near range in the chest. they were not so lucky in their endeavors to hit his heart - as they surley would have won their battle - but they did not have to kill shot to nearly tear my family to bits - they managed to get him in a rather main chest artery. He was in surgery for over three hours - in fact he just came out of surgery from what I understand. The doctors had to not only go in and fix taht damage, but then they had to turn him over and go in along both sides of my brothers spine, they had to explore to make sure that they had found and controlled all the other damage and potential damage. I do not know much yet _ i imagine the calm my mother exuded was more shock than anything else - I know that if the best absolute best can be attained that he will spend a bare minimum - minimum of 5 days in the hospital and it sounds that the surgeons expect more than that - and once he is able to be released from the hospital he will have to go home to my parents - not the home he has struggled to earn for himself - and that he will have to be there for a minimum again, of three months - three month of constant 24 hour care and rehabilitation before we will be able to breathe again - before we will know exactly how much damage some one's greed, jealousy, loathing, pocketbook, drug trade, musical career, will have benefited, and just how broken my family is going to be, how destroyed my baby brother is going to be..........
Please --
I am begging you all to say a prayer, light a candle, lift your voices to whatever it is you believe in - and please say a word for my family.
I am trying as I type this to find some huge miracle of my own to find some way to go home to be there - even if all i get is an hour - a minute - to see him with my own eyes - to see that he is not - goddess i hope not- going to be torn from us all- If any one - anyone at all wether i know you or you just stumbled into my blog please if you have any suggestions how to get 2000 miles across the country for the cheapest way possable please fill me in.
I woud like to get there if possible - by whatever means it takes shy of hitching my way there - lord knows our world is not safe enough for that anymore......
and thank you for listening to me cry.
tuesday 1/20/09
He was able to start breathing on his own today they took the tube out, he is talking some - so far the shooting appears to be very random - some guy no one knows walked down the street, right up to him and his friends and just started shooting
he is still in critical care though and will be for a while
weds 1/21/09
My brother is doing quite well and will likely be moved out of critical care by morning - They are considering removing his chest tubes now -
Mum had enough time to actually talk to me today and now I have the story - in as much fulness as she had -
This was a retaliation shooting - not against my brother nor having anything to do with the Chop Suey shooting just a few days before - My brother and his friends were at Walter E. Hall skate park to shoot a video and it turned into a bit of a turf war. A week prior there had been a fist fight between a friend of my brothers and a former friend - the fight split up the friend of my brothers apologized said he hadnt wanted it to come to a fight - they returned sunday to shoot the video making sure the kid was not present - when they got out of the car there he was - he pointed a gun at each of them in turn, my brother was the one to speak up and tell him to put down the gun, that they would leave and it didnt have to be this way - for whatever reason the kid then turned to the guy from the fight before and fired, they all ran and he kept shooting at his target - the kid says he got so close he could feel the bullets - Wes - for whatever reason yelled at the kid again to stop to not ruin his life and others and the kid turned on my brother - for those that dont know or havent seen my brother in a while - he is over 6 and a half feet tall - there arent many places you can hide when you are that big - he was on all fours crawling around a car being chased by this kid just like in movies, the kid firing down at him all the while - Wes was not shot in the chest as I understtod before - he was actually shot in the left shoulder, the bullet went through the gap in the ribs and chest wall, severed the artery there, passed through the protective fat around the heart (thank god it wasnt off any), diagonally across his chest and lodged on the righ side. There was no exit - he was opened up in what my mother is calling butterfly wings near his shoulders about 6 inches long each so that they could go in and repair the artery and control all the other damage and remove the bullet.
Mum and I discussed how common place these things are becoming in everett and seattle - this was so common in fact that it didnt make the news?! - a shooting on a seattle morning at one of the cities most popular parks with several families and small children there and no news coverage? why? because no one died?
I called the paper irate on my mothers behalf, and was of course assailed by the journalist - aparently they printed a small blurb in this mornings herald - yesterdays online news - and he wanted more info - I was able to deflect him enough to tell him I knew shit being on teh other side of teh country and that I'd have my mum call him - and she is calling him.
I called back to make sure he wouldnt print anything until he spoke to her and was informed that THE STRANGER had already printed an article on it and they had even made the connection to the CHOPSUEY shooting and my brothers stage name CONTAJUS. So it is getting out there now. By the way dont suggest to any of these guys that its their music profession that gets them into this - they get irate - he has a good group of kids who really are trying to turn their rap into a positive thing an anti violent thing - just a life thing - I respect that - do I think it is working? certainly not on a large scale, but if even one person makes a change - no matter how small that one change effects everything else and it breeds - it only takes one - and they are many. GOOD FOR THEM!
Not so good for me - she is threatening to send him to stay with me until he recovers.......
I praise all of you who moved away from that place - for knowing that this is where our hometown was headed - for knowing that better was out there - safer was possible - and taking that hard and rocky road less traveled - for yourselves, for your children, for life.
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that is the story as it proggressed for me - some things have changed, but he is home with my mom now and recovering well
I have pictures if anyone wants to see them
anyway i am off sorry we are so reclusive
sunday 1/18/09
Would someone please try to explain to me why some people out there think that it is okay to try and steal the life away from someone else? PLEASE?! I think I need to understand this.
A few days ago my mother called me from across the country to let me know not to freak out about the news if I happened to catch it - I dont have tv so had no time to work into a tissy. For those of you who do not know - my little brother is an up and coming rap artist both solo and within a group that are both doing quite well - they have a few albums and videos out there already - they also play several west coast clubs all over - they also open for many of the larger names that come to the area.
This news my mother had for me was of another - yes another shooting at a club while my brother was performing. this is the 4th to my knowledge - this case a 25 yearold man hired a 19 yearold kid to kill a friend of my brothers - from what I understand my brother and several of his group and other artist friends were on stage when this person started shooting - one person died that night and a few others were injured - the person who was meant to die did live, but was shot twice, right next to my brother - luckily unscathed. I have no clue how they get guns in these clubs with all of the metal detectors and patdowns..... we laughed after a bit, calmed down and then we all wondered when it would be Wes......
That when struck my family just now.
as I type this to vent to you all - to yell and scream into cyberspace - my baby brother is lying in a hospital fighting and i do mean fighting just to live - to keep going - to hopefully get to stick with us and keep my family whole for a while longer. I do not have details yet - my mother called me - she was eerily calm - I know I would have been in pieces - hell I am in pieces - what I do know is that someone felt he had to die - wether that someone is musical competition or it is a retaliation from the shooting just a few days ago - trying to clean up the loose ends - or maybe a drug deal gone bad - those things I do not know - just that some one tried very hard to murder my brother and that they may still win that battle - thankfully that becomes less likely each hour so the doctors say -
Some monster out there shot the goofy, out of porportion kid that is my mothers baby, my brother.... shot him at a near range in the chest. they were not so lucky in their endeavors to hit his heart - as they surley would have won their battle - but they did not have to kill shot to nearly tear my family to bits - they managed to get him in a rather main chest artery. He was in surgery for over three hours - in fact he just came out of surgery from what I understand. The doctors had to not only go in and fix taht damage, but then they had to turn him over and go in along both sides of my brothers spine, they had to explore to make sure that they had found and controlled all the other damage and potential damage. I do not know much yet _ i imagine the calm my mother exuded was more shock than anything else - I know that if the best absolute best can be attained that he will spend a bare minimum - minimum of 5 days in the hospital and it sounds that the surgeons expect more than that - and once he is able to be released from the hospital he will have to go home to my parents - not the home he has struggled to earn for himself - and that he will have to be there for a minimum again, of three months - three month of constant 24 hour care and rehabilitation before we will be able to breathe again - before we will know exactly how much damage some one's greed, jealousy, loathing, pocketbook, drug trade, musical career, will have benefited, and just how broken my family is going to be, how destroyed my baby brother is going to be..........
Please --
I am begging you all to say a prayer, light a candle, lift your voices to whatever it is you believe in - and please say a word for my family.
I am trying as I type this to find some huge miracle of my own to find some way to go home to be there - even if all i get is an hour - a minute - to see him with my own eyes - to see that he is not - goddess i hope not- going to be torn from us all- If any one - anyone at all wether i know you or you just stumbled into my blog please if you have any suggestions how to get 2000 miles across the country for the cheapest way possable please fill me in.
I woud like to get there if possible - by whatever means it takes shy of hitching my way there - lord knows our world is not safe enough for that anymore......
and thank you for listening to me cry.
tuesday 1/20/09
He was able to start breathing on his own today they took the tube out, he is talking some - so far the shooting appears to be very random - some guy no one knows walked down the street, right up to him and his friends and just started shooting
he is still in critical care though and will be for a while
weds 1/21/09
My brother is doing quite well and will likely be moved out of critical care by morning - They are considering removing his chest tubes now -
Mum had enough time to actually talk to me today and now I have the story - in as much fulness as she had -
This was a retaliation shooting - not against my brother nor having anything to do with the Chop Suey shooting just a few days before - My brother and his friends were at Walter E. Hall skate park to shoot a video and it turned into a bit of a turf war. A week prior there had been a fist fight between a friend of my brothers and a former friend - the fight split up the friend of my brothers apologized said he hadnt wanted it to come to a fight - they returned sunday to shoot the video making sure the kid was not present - when they got out of the car there he was - he pointed a gun at each of them in turn, my brother was the one to speak up and tell him to put down the gun, that they would leave and it didnt have to be this way - for whatever reason the kid then turned to the guy from the fight before and fired, they all ran and he kept shooting at his target - the kid says he got so close he could feel the bullets - Wes - for whatever reason yelled at the kid again to stop to not ruin his life and others and the kid turned on my brother - for those that dont know or havent seen my brother in a while - he is over 6 and a half feet tall - there arent many places you can hide when you are that big - he was on all fours crawling around a car being chased by this kid just like in movies, the kid firing down at him all the while - Wes was not shot in the chest as I understtod before - he was actually shot in the left shoulder, the bullet went through the gap in the ribs and chest wall, severed the artery there, passed through the protective fat around the heart (thank god it wasnt off any), diagonally across his chest and lodged on the righ side. There was no exit - he was opened up in what my mother is calling butterfly wings near his shoulders about 6 inches long each so that they could go in and repair the artery and control all the other damage and remove the bullet.
Mum and I discussed how common place these things are becoming in everett and seattle - this was so common in fact that it didnt make the news?! - a shooting on a seattle morning at one of the cities most popular parks with several families and small children there and no news coverage? why? because no one died?
I called the paper irate on my mothers behalf, and was of course assailed by the journalist - aparently they printed a small blurb in this mornings herald - yesterdays online news - and he wanted more info - I was able to deflect him enough to tell him I knew shit being on teh other side of teh country and that I'd have my mum call him - and she is calling him.
I called back to make sure he wouldnt print anything until he spoke to her and was informed that THE STRANGER had already printed an article on it and they had even made the connection to the CHOPSUEY shooting and my brothers stage name CONTAJUS. So it is getting out there now. By the way dont suggest to any of these guys that its their music profession that gets them into this - they get irate - he has a good group of kids who really are trying to turn their rap into a positive thing an anti violent thing - just a life thing - I respect that - do I think it is working? certainly not on a large scale, but if even one person makes a change - no matter how small that one change effects everything else and it breeds - it only takes one - and they are many. GOOD FOR THEM!
Not so good for me - she is threatening to send him to stay with me until he recovers.......
I praise all of you who moved away from that place - for knowing that this is where our hometown was headed - for knowing that better was out there - safer was possible - and taking that hard and rocky road less traveled - for yourselves, for your children, for life.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
that is the story as it proggressed for me - some things have changed, but he is home with my mom now and recovering well
I have pictures if anyone wants to see them
anyway i am off sorry we are so reclusive