Kayl’s Story: Holding On To Hope

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“Addiction, loss, and grief… And through it all the only thing I have left to hold onto is hope.”

-Kayl

It’s a long story you see… I started abusing drugs around the time I was 13 but I truly didn’t become addicted until I was 16. I spent years in and out of rehab and jail really seeing no end to addiction. I was fully convinced I was going to die by the age of 25. I was perfectly okay with that really. I never had ambition or dreams. I thought the only thing I was capable of was being a drug addict. I liked that life as sad as it sounds. It was one thing I was good at. Being a drug addict. It wasn’t until 3 1/2 years ago when I just knew I needed more out of life.

I was on probation and kept failing my drug tests on purpose in hopes of being put in jail. It was my only way out I knew if I didn’t go away I was going to die. And that’s not what I wanted anymore. On the last drug test, I was going to take my P.O. was going to let me slide yet again. I wouldn’t accept that I told them they needed to put me in jail. Thankfully they did. Its been 3 1/2 years later and I am still clean from drugs. It was the best decision I have ever made in life. (if I bounce around a bit I’m sorry) so within these 3 1/2 years, I’ve learned to grow up and be independent. Maintained a steady job, was starting a family, and building a life I had always hoped for. So onto the loss & grief.

My fiance and I were set to have a baby girl, but unfortunately, our hope for her ran short. She was diagnosed with trisomy 18, and an extra 18th chromosome. This happens in 1 in every 2,000 pregnancy. Rare. Our baby was the 1. Trisomy 18 is not liveable. Chances are you don’t make it full term. and if you do your baby most likely will only live a few hours and die. I mean no parent should ever have no make a decision on whether or not they should end their pregnancy. That’s NOT what we wanted but we knew we could never let our baby suffer the miserable fate she was handed. We chose to let go. Something far from an easy experience. I wanted to die every single day after our baby was sent to heaven. I felt like life would never have meaning again. And a few months later. I had a purpose yet again. I was pregnant for the 2nd time. I’ll never forget taking that test. My fiance and i cried after reading it was positive. At our first ultrasound, I knew something was wrong. I should have been 8 weeks. They told me it was too early to see anything. A week later i started bleeding. I had lost another baby. but the loss just doesn’t end there. 

My fiance – also a recovering addict had started using again. It’s something I wanted not to believe. He promised, swore on our daughter’s life. I believed the lies. Even a recovering addict myself I couldn’t even believe everything that I once did to someone who loved me. Someone was doing that to me. June 11th my fiance and I got into a fight. I had told him our relationship was over. See, after such loss of losing our babies our relationship wasn’t the same we fought A LOT and this was just another fight. I knew deep down though it wouldn’t have been over we would have made up. But we didn’t get that chance. Instead, he went out and decided to use drugs over it. He had left for 15 minutes while in the middle of packing he came back tried talking to me I chose to ignore him. I found him. But I can never remember the amount of time it was that I saw him until I found him. This has bothered me. I found him dead on the floor blue. I gave him CPR I did all I could for him, it does anything for him. He was my life, my other half. He ended up being on life support for 21 days until it was decided he would never wake up. Not only didi sees him dead once but I watched him die again. That was the most horrific day of my life but I knew I needed to be with him until his very last breath.

So throughout the roughest year, I’ve ever experienced I still maintained my sobriety. And if I can live through all this and still wake up every day and choose not to do drugs there is hope out there that anyone can get through it. Life is short. And I’ve learned to cherish it. You never know when the last time you see be able to see someone or tell them you love them. No matter what your situation, reach out to someone and ask for help.