Tuesday, May 12, 2009

What Bad Knees, Good Drugs, and Teenagers Are Made Of





So the boy jacked up his knee doing some ungodly, torturous exercises called the "clean and jerk," and "squats" in his weight-lifting class, and more than $8,000 in hospital bills and thousands in rehab later, my stepson, Mazi, is finally getting to the point where his leg kills only a few of the day's 24 hours, and maybe only six out seven days of the week. He's been a trooper about it; the first few days after his corrective surgery, the boy was in such pain he'd use his cellphone to wake us out of our slumber just down the hall to bring him his pain killers; I could hear his half-moan/half-anguished cry through Nick's Samsung, the pain so apparent, so searing, it made my doggone knee hurt.

Thank goodness for the drugs.

Now Mazi, trooper that he is, was back at school a few days after surgery, limping on his sad little crutches on his broke-down knee. For sure, the crip walk gained him a bit of attention. Just not the kind we expected.

"You know, you can sell those painkillers, dude."

That's what more than a few of his friends said to him when they got a gander of his crutches and gimp. They didn't bother asking him how his leg was, how long he'd be on crutches, whether the surgery hurt, or if he'd be able to play football in time enough for the recruiters to check out his game on the field.

"You know, you can sell those painkillers, dude."

Now, Nick and I are no dummies--we know there are kids up to no good up there at that high school. I wrote earlier this year about the astounding number of students expecting babies at Mazi's school, which means they're not really listening to Bristol Palin and her mama and them about the whole abstinence thing. And of course there are kids who smoke weed and drink, too, and get suspended for dumb stuff that high schoolers tend to do. But good grief, for some reason I just didn't latch onto the whole "prescription drugs=candy" thing.

Not familiar? Check out the PSA I found on The AntiDrug.com, titled "All My Pills."



Great... one more thing to add to my worries.

Does it ever get easier?

[Note to my I ♥ Faces visitors: Thank you for stopping by! The picture illustrating this post is of my stepson Mazi; he started giggling like a loon when I commanded him to "look hard." Yeah, right. This is about as hard as he gets.]


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8 comments:

  1. Hello from SITS. You have a beautiful blog. Sorry to hear about your stepson, he is a good looking kid. Tell him to ignor those boneheads suggesting he sell pills...its great that he has a strong foundation at home.

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  2. ...my little newborn niece -- I watch her and her mom and think, "these are the simple times" even as I know it is physically rough now -- as children grow, so does the complexity of their lives, and the ways we parents must address them. Thanks for posting this -- we all need to stay on the loving case with our children.

    Best,
    Rue
    http://www.outdoorafro.com

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  3. I'm sorry he had to go through surgery I'm even more sorry that he has to go to a school where kids want to sell prescription drugs. What do you do? I have a 13 year old not yet in high school, but I'm so worried about what he will encounter when he gets there.

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  4. Well dang. Nope, sadly it doesn't get any easier... take it from someone who was a teenager not all that long ago. High school can be a real mess and you really have to be on top of your game to get through it on top, no matter what school, what neighborhood, or what kind of child. Teens are teens and you just have to hope that you've covered all of your bases when releasing them to the peers.

    That whole prescription thing is just one other way that kids get high... there are also otc drugs and paint and all kinds of crazy stuff... but I'm sure "the boy" knows better and stays clear of all of that foolishness.

    Hope his knee gets better soon =(

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  5. You never fail to make me think about hard issues, thank you. My husband is a pharmacist and I am amazed when he shares with me about how much prescription medications can be 'worth' on the street. It's really frightening.

    Mazi is adorable - I hope he's healing!

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  6. great photo, he has a great smile!

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