Authors: Scott Bolzan
Vince Scott, who said we'd played together all four years, wrote, “I can tell you, Scott, you were not always a man of many words . . . you were a man of actions. You showed your leadership by working hard in the weight room, off-season conditioning, and on the field. When you did speak, I guarantee you had everyone's undivided attention!”
But the email from Scott Kellar, who went on to play for the Indianapolis Colts, was the hardest for me because I felt no connection to the old Scott he described. Reassuring me that of anyone, I would be able to overcome this injury, he said we met when I was a junior, with the promise to become “a devastating offensive lineman.”
You never knew it, but every time I had to go one-on-one with you, I was so nervous I would feel sick. You had one gear, and that was 100% all of the time. You played with what Coach Mallory always referred to as “a prick in your vein.” You came off the ball with a nastiness about you. . . . You were the best offensive tackle I ever played against in college. I credit you for helping me get to the NFL. It was an honor to play with you and, yes, get my butt kicked from time to time.
What was so very impressive was the presence you exuded whenever you walked into a meeting room, locker room, and the field. You were the consummate leader, and I, as well as many of us, had and still have the highest respect for you. However, more important was the fact that you were and are a great person. You never looked down on anyone. . . . Even when I was a rookie, you rolled me off the line of scrimmage then proceeded to slap my back and told me to keep working hard. You were always just a great guy to be around. You were a great role model and someone I looked up to.
Scott, I hope for nothing but the best for you. I know you are going to come out of this better than you ever imagined. Keep striving every day.
Reading this, I wanted to feel like the old Scott again and have the same kind of positive impact I'd had in college. Given my recent discoveries about my other past behavior, I wondered how the old Scott could have had such polar opposite impacts on the people in his life.
Despite the bittersweet nature of these emails, I always thanked the sender and asked for more stories because they made me proud of who I'd been, what I'd stood for, and how I'd dealt with adversity and success. I now had the chance to pick and choose what characteristics I wanted to keep or discard as I transformed into the man I wanted to become.
These messages inspired me to remember that the leadership I showed at NIU was based on simple morals and values. Thinking perhaps that my legal problems had come about because money issues had blurred my integrity, I vowed that when making decisions in the future, I would adhere to the pure, grounded, and untainted values of my NIU days.
Over the next several weeks and months, the story of my accident and recovery caught on with a wider audience as Joan and I were interviewed by other newspapers, radio shows, and local television news stations. Soon a producer from ABC's
20/20
called to tell us they were interested, then called back a few weeks later to say
Nightline
was going to interview us instead because its producers could air my story much sooner.
In the meantime, I followed up on my doctors' recommendations to see a therapist, and I met with Dr. Philip Barry, a neuropsychologist, to help me improve my coping skills. I didn't see this as a long-term project, but he told me progress wasn't going to happen overnight. This, of course, was not what I wanted to hear. I felt like I wantedâand neededâto get better now, as in right now.
Dr. Barry made me realize that life is full of challenges, and just because my previous life had been deleted didn't mean I wouldn't face some of the same obstacles as before. He also gave me some helpful advice: it was okay to be scared and frustrated, and if people didn't understand what I was going through, to hell with them. Let the new memories come, grab them, and make the most of them. So that's what I set out to do.
After just two sessions with him, I felt like I had things under control so I stopped going. Looking back later, I realized that this, sadly, was nothing more than wishful thinking on my part. Other than Joan, I still had no one to vent to, so I kept the things I couldn't share with her locked up inside, and they began to fester. I had thought I was strong enough to figure out how to deal with my daily challenges all by myself, but I was mistaken. Frankly, I'm not sure anyone is.
G
RANT GOT KICKED OUT OF
the Donna's House program for using drugs six weeks after arriving there in late June, and we later learned that he'd been using all along. There went another $1,600 down the tubes. Out of options in southern California, we brought him back to Arizona and into the house, where we thought we could keep an eye on him. But, as I'd been learning, addicts can be sneaky and cunning.
At times I found myself looking at him, searching for some kind of connection between us so I could try to understand why he was making the choices he did, who he was, and how he felt inside. Maybe if I understood him better, I could find a way to help him more than I had been able to up to this point.
I could see from family photos that Grant had resembled me more when he was younger, but only until he hit sixteen. Today he didn't look much like Joan either, except for his deep blue eyes.
I didn't understand why Grant dressed the way he did or had mutilated himself by stretching giant holes in his earlobes with rings called gauges. This seemed so disrespectful to his mother and me, who had brought him into this world in one perfect piece. So, after Grant's relapses that summer, I told him so. “I don't want you wearing your pants so low that I can see your underwear,” I said. “I don't want to see your piercings or your gauges in, either.”
Grant didn't fight me on the pants, but he refused to remove the gauges. “I can't take them out because they'll close,” he said.
Our strongest commonality was our athleticism, but even that was in the past. Joan told me that back in his motocross days, Grant seemed to have little concern for his body's safety, probably the same indifference I'd had to play football and get smacked around for as many years as I did.
Could I have taught that to him in some way? And does that have something to do with the self-destructiveness he is now wreaking on his body with drugs?
Grant had risen to the top in hockey and motocross because of his natural talent but had lost that edge once his teammates started to work harder to make up the difference. Joan said the difference between us was that, when faced with a challenge or hard work, Grant lost interest whereas the old Scott had dug his heels in even harder.
I also struggled to understand why he felt the need to cover himself with tattoos. I didn't have anything against them per se. I'd actually discovered in the hospital that I had one myself. Not knowing what it was, I tried to rub it offâhard, but it didn't budge, and I didn't mention it to anyone for fear of looking stupid.
Once I started watching TV at home, I started seeing other people with these colored markings and also learned that the five-by-five-inch design near my right shoulder was an American flag, an eagle, and the letters
USA.
“What do you think of my tattoo?” I asked Joan.
“I don't like tattoos, but it's something you wanted, and it's your body,” she said. “But it's not a shameful tattoo. It's a nice tattoo, and it's covered.”
I figured I must have had a good reason for getting it in the first place. I'd already asked Joan how I'd gotten all the scars on my body, and she said most of them were from surgery to fix injuries. But getting a tattoo was a choice.
“Why did I get this?” I asked.
Joan explained that I'd gotten it in 2002âafter September 11, 2001, which she and everyone else called 9/11âbecause I'd always been patriotic and had a tremendous respect for people who served in the military. The eagle and the flag represent courage, dignity, freedom, and my pride in my country.
The tattoo was something Grant and I had in common; I just felt he took his interest to an extreme. So what, I wondered, did Grant's tattoos mean to him? I'd seen the two on the inside of his wristsâ
Truly
on the right and
Blessed
on the leftâafter I got out of the hospital. But the first time I saw the one over his heart with Taryn's name in black cursive letters was that summer, when he took off his shirt to go swimming. It put me off, and I hoped he had a good reason for getting it.
“Why do you have Taryn's name on your chest?” I asked.
“To keep her close to my heart,” he said.
“Are you still happy that you got that tattoo, or do you wish that you'd never gotten it?”
“Are
you
happy that I got this tattoo?”
“No, honestly, I would prefer if it wasn't over your heart. She has a very special place in my heart and your mother's heart, and I don't think that she's in
your
heart.”
I wasn't trying to be mean, but he hadn't even been born when she died, and he just didn't seem like the spiritual type. I also didn't think that he felt or understood the true meaning behind his words. When Taylor ultimately turned eighteen, she too got a
Taryn
tattoo, but it was a delicate one with angel's wings, hidden at the base of her neck. That didn't bother me at all because she
was
more of a spiritual person.
“Why do you like tattoos?” I asked.
He said he saw himself as a free spirit, a rebellious nonconformist, and wanted to be a body piercing artist, but all I could think was that he couldn't be more different from me, who, from what I'd heard, had always wanted to be normal and even now just wanted to fit in. I couldn't see how Joan and I had raised a son who was so outside the norm, especially when we'd also raised a daughter who was so much more like us.
Taylor had been helpful in giving me some insight into Grant's and her generation, but even she said she didn't understand how her brother turned out so different from her.
He had other tattoos I didn't like either, such as the eight-inch bold dark letters spelling
relentless
that went from his armpit to his waist, which Joan said he'd gotten as soon as he turned eighteen. I had a hard time dealing with this one too because I didn't understand it. If I had a thousand words to describe Grant,
relentless
wouldn't be one of them. If I had to pick a word, it would be
lost,
same as me.
Joan and I had talked quite a bit about the parallels of Grant's addiction and my memory loss, which had forced each of us to search in his own way for his true identity and who he was as a man. Grant had lost his sense of purpose and his direction; he'd lost his way. My brain injury had caused me to lose my sense of self and caused my confusion. But I saw a potential for connection between us here, as each of us tried to fight through our own emotional pain, so I tried to use these shared struggles to bridge the gap between us.
“If anyone can understand how you feel, Grant, it's me,” I said. “We've both been through a traumatic brain injury. I understand what it's like to be lost.”
After my own experience with depression and getting some relief from Cymbalta, I also tried to talk to him about the depression I'd seen in him and the benefits of antidepressants. “I know what it's like to not be able to get out of bed, to feel hopeless,” I said.
Grant had tried the meds on and off over the past few years, but he'd always stopped taking them after a month or so. His excuses ranged from not liking the stigma to not having the money to buy the medication, and his current rehab wouldn't let him take any medications. Of course, when he did have money, he'd turn around and spend it on recreational drugs instead.
In the end, my attempts to have these heart-to-heart talks just didn't seem to do any good. Apparently Grant wasn't able to connect with me on that level. He seemed to resent me, and that left me frustrated, disappointed, and sad.
It wasn't long after he'd moved back in with us that I noticed about ten days' worth of my OxyContin pills were missing from the bottle, which I'd hidden in my sock drawer. When Joan and I confronted him, he said, “I know you're not going to believe me, but I didn't take them.” I had no proof, but it wasn't hard to do the math. I took the medicine three times a day, and thirty tablets were missing.
Perhaps his conscience got the best of him, but several weeks later he admitted to the theft and apologized. We felt it was a big step for him to come clean like that, so we gave him a final warning.
“This is your last chance,” I told him.
From then on, we hid my OxyContin in the house safe, which was in my office closet and required a combination and a key to open. Grant knew the combination because we stored our trust documents and wills in there in case something happened to us. However, now that he was home, we thought it best to hide the key.
I never thought he would find the key, which I'd hidden in an organizer on my desk, but that he did, several days before Joan and Taylor were due to go to Hawaii with Joan's mother. When I saw that at least fifty of my pills were gone, leaving about one more day's worth, Joan and I confronted Grant once again, and he denied, denied, denied.
“I know what was there,” I said. “There's no way for this number of pills to be gone without someone taking it, and the only logical choice is you. There's no way I took an extra fifty pills by mistake.”
But Grant stood firm. “There's no way I can get into the safe because you need a key and I don't even know where the key is,” he said. “I haven't been in your office since you told me not to go in there.”
I knew he was lying, but I was so fed up with him I just wanted to get away from him. While Joan and Taylor were in Hawaii, I planned to relax on the boat for four days to clear my head and start honing message points for my new speaking career. After recently losing a refill prescription for the pain meds, I felt it wasn't an option to ask my doctor for anotherâor to confess that my son had taken my supply. Although I'd been taking the OxyContin regularly, I was down to a pretty low dose, so Joan and I figured it wouldn't be a problem to go off it and that I could try to deal with the pain, using some backup Percocet I still had if necessary.
I had mixed emotions about Joan's departure. I wanted her to go and enjoy herself, because God knows she needed a break from me and certainly from Grant, but I knew it would be difficult without her. Before they left I made sure they had their boarding passes and hotel confirmations; I even went to the bank to get them some cash.
After dropping them at the airport, I started my six-hour trip to Oceanside, figuring I would arrive about the same time they landed in Maui. While we were gone, Anthony agreed to stay at our house to “babysit” Grant and make sure he didn't slip out to buy drugs.
Shortly after I got to Oceanside, Joan called to say they'd landed and were on their way to the resort, but she was more worried about me because I wasn't feeling too hot. She suggested that I go to urgent care in California for more OxyContin if I was so worried about Dr. Lanier's reaction, but I told her I'd just tough it out.
On my second day there, I felt like I was coming down with something. My body ached and I couldn't sit still, but it hurt to move. I was either too hot or too cold, I couldn't concentrate, and I felt disoriented. This was my first time being sick since the accident, and Joan thought maybe I had caught the flu due to the stress of the past ten months.
After the third day of feeling crummy, Joan and I decided I should drive home and let Dr. Lanier look me over. Still suffering from insomnia, I headed out around 3:00
A.M.
Seeing no choice but to be honest, I explained to the doctor that I hadn't taken any OxyContin for four days because Grant had stolen my pills, and she immediately knew what was wrong.
“You're not suffering from the flu,” she said. “You're going through withdrawal. It's not a good idea to just stop like that.”
Asked how long the detox would last, she said, “You should feel better in a couple of days.”
“That's fine,” I said, “but I'm going to go off the drugs entirely and see how the headaches are. Maybe, just maybe, they'll go away.”
Grant was still asleep when I got home, so I thanked Anthony for watching the house and told him he could go. Now that I knew what was wrong with me, I was angry that these four days of feeling ill had been forced upon me by my own son. The situation clearly called for a verbal kick in the ass, so I went into Joan's office, where he was sleeping on the spare bed, and kicked him in the leg.
“Get the hell up,” I commanded. “I want to talk to you. Now.”
Startled, Grant muttered, “What's wrong? Why are you here?”
“Never mind,” I replied. “Just get up.”
He joined me in the living room several minutes later, groggy, with his hair tousled. When I told him I'd just come from the doctor's office after feeling like crap with the flu for the past four days, he acted concerned.
“That sucks,” he said. “Are you okay now?”
“Well,” I said, “I found out that I don't have the flu, Grant, but that I'm going through withdrawal. And do you know why? Because you stole my medicine.”
“Dad,” he said quickly, “I didn't take your pain pills. I can't even get in the safe.”
“I think you're a liar, and I'm so pissed off I don't even know what to do with you right now.” After pausing to let that sink in, I went on. “From here on out you're not going to lie around this house anymore. I want you working, cutting grass, cleaning the garage, and whatever else I tell you to do. Is that clear?”
“Okay, whatever,” he said with a mix of apathy and anger.
While he was mowing the grass, I called Joan and told her what the doctor said. I told her to have fun for the rest of her trip; I was going to be working our son from morning till night for the next couple of days.
“We're going to have to make some decisions about Grant when you get back,” I said.
Joan agreed, saying he'd been mouthy with her the last time she'd talked to him on the phone from Hawaii. “He's using again,” she said. “I know it.”