Help Us Keep Grace Safe
You know those terrible phone calls you hope you never get? Well at approximately 7:45 a.m. on July 6, I got a phone call, the worst had happened. Grace (our fun loving 14-year-old) had overdosed on methamphetamine (or what she called crystal meth) that had been given to her by her uncle “Brown” (on her mom’s side). Shortly after the disclosure of the drug use, she also admitted that her adult uncle had been climbing into bed with her at night. The next 72 hours were pure hell.
Upon arriving at the hospital the nurse informed me that Grace had been given two capsules of meth at around 4 a.m., stating her uncle had used his old antibiotics and dumped out the contents and refilled them with meth before giving her two capsules of meth, after he had climbed into bed with her that night.
After the first dose, Grace recalls laying on the floor, feeling like she was at the dentist when her uncle told her to take a second one. At around 6 a.m. Grace went cross-eyed and started vomiting, alerting Faith (Graces Mom) to take Grace to the hospital. At the hospital Grace admitted that Mom knew about the drug use and uncle climbing into bed with her and had done nothing about it.
Grace was given several mg of adavan, and she still was hallucinating. At this point we had been at the hospital for 10 hours and finally a doctor told us that it just had to work out of her system and she could come home.
We brought Grace home and had to have an adult with her every second because she kept trying to run and we were afraid of her hurting herself. During this time Rob and I took shifts, one would go to bed from 9:30 to 2:00 a.m. and the other would take from 2:00 until the morning. I got first shift, and as the night progressed, so did Grace’s hallucinations. Grace repeatedly sat on my lap and tried to take her clothes off, all the while calling me her uncle “Brown”. Later she looked at me and told me “Uncle Brown, what we did last night was not so scary, I could do it again.” And then proceeded to sit on my lap. After lifting her off my lap she started to try to bite, kick, punch and pinch me because she did not know who I was.
At around 12:30 a.m. Grace started screaming “I don’t fucken know you, don’t touch me!”
Rob came down early for his shift and calmed her down, at around 3:30 a.m. Grace stopped recognizing Rob. She then started screaming that she did not want to go to the sex trade and she did not want to be raped. As Rob held her in his arms she screamed “I want my daddy!” During this time, 911 was called and ambulance took Grace back to the hospital.
This second time at the hospital, they finally gave Grace an anti-psychotic, and she slept for 3 hours. After 3 hours she woke up and seemed to recognize everyone, after an hour or so, the hallucinations started again. So they gave her another dose of the same anti-psychotic. During this time, the doctor prescribed us the same anti-psychotic, with the plan that we will keep her asleep through the rest of this. We brought Grace home, gave her one dose, she slept all night and woke up the next day with no hallucinations.
During this time, Grace lost a total of 6 pounds, she is still experiencing trauma reactions (hypervigilance, sudden panic, stomach aches nausea, rapid heart rate, rapid respirations and crying). We will get through this, but now we need help with funds to get a lawyer so we can continue to keep Grace safe.
