After the marriage between E and M ended, and before my real father showed up to get us, we moved into the small farming town we live by. So that my brother and sister could continue going to the same schools. I don't think I've was factored into the equation.

One day when we were there, I was probably about 13 years old, I was playing scientist. And I mixed chlorine and ammonia together. Just FYI DON'T ever do this. 

I caught a whiff of what was coming out of the jar and quickly turned it upside down in the snow outside my bedroom window. My mother saw this jar later on in the day and told me to bring it back inside. So I went into my room opened the window, held my breath and grabbed the jar to dump the contents down the toilet. And naturally got a lungful of the toxic Vapors emitting from it. The chemical reaction between the bleach and the Drano have been occurring for hours.

I remember staggering to the stairs and falling down them. That's where my sister found me coughing up blood and vomiting.

They carried me me over to the couch and that's where I layed for three days. Gasping for breath.

I remember something about my mother saying that this will teach him a lesson. She was a highly trained medical professional. At one point in time she was only one of a thousand people in her specialty. Later on in life she was offered a direct commission to colonel in the United States Army if she would accept a commission.

And she left her youngest son who would just been exposed to what is basically a chemical weapon to recover on his own so he would learn something.

And replaying that memory over in my mind I truly believe that they were hoping that I would die. I was just so damaged.

I mean they'd grieve, and they would talk about how tragic it is that I died in this accident. There probably would even have been tears But it would be over, they wouldn't have to look at what they built.

Because they're the ones that built that thing, by doing what they did to me and by am allowing it to be done they made that.

It was years before I could smell strong perfume without going into a coughing fit, and to this day when my throat dries out I start coughing from the scar tissue.

But I learnt something.