Jake Haendel
Appearances
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
10. The Silent Witness
I would definitely pass up, but I knew there was a chance I could die. And so I would start to have these conversations. Like, oh, calm yourself down. Calm yourself down, Jake. You gotta calm down. You gotta calm down.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
10. The Silent Witness
Basically, I got a bird's eye view. Like, my vision left my body and went to the ceiling. And it was like my eyes turned around to look at me, but also could see the entire 360 of the room. And also, I had the ability to, like, zoom in on things. Kind of like a security camera. It was really weird. And I was like... I don't know, just like super rational. And I'm like, well, this can't be real.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
10. The Silent Witness
Like, what the fuck is happening? And this happened for the first time when I had, and as we all know by now, my visitors were gone. fairly scarce. So when I would have a visitor or something important, this would happen or something I viewed as important. So the first one was with my mother-in-law, Cindy, and it was a really heavy conversation. She was crying.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
10. The Silent Witness
She kind of came in, pulled the chair. She wasn't like close to the bed. You know, if I'm in bed, she was on the left. She had these black leggings. It's like, black shirt and black sweater. And she had this silver brooch she wore and her pearl necklaces. And I could really zoom in on what she was saying in her emotion and facial expressions. And it was like super, super intense.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
10. The Silent Witness
And it was crazy, you know, because I could only look at the ceiling. So it's like, how is this? possible. I really thought it was a hallucination for a while. It wasn't until I'm communicating in 2019 with the Megabee, I was like, can I ask you something? She was like, of course, and I was like, did this happen? You came in in your ICU to say goodbye to me, and you were wearing this, and
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
10. The Silent Witness
You were talking about how... I'm so sorry this happened. And I know this wasn't the way you wanted your life to go. And certainly not your life with my daughter, Ellen. And I'm so sorry. And I want to let you know that she will be okay. I'll take care of her. So I regurgitate this, sir. I'm like, did this happen? And it was so emotional for me. I felt like I was crying with you.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
10. The Silent Witness
And she was like, how could you possibly know that? Yes, I vividly remember that. And I could have sworn you actually shed a tear. Yeah, I wrote about it non-verbally right after that conversation. I was like, whoa, that is crazy because that really happened. That was the first confirmation from, you know, the only other person in the room.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
10. The Silent Witness
This short little guy who wore the same bow tie and like, you know, no disrespect to bow ties. My uncle Adam wears bow tie. So I'm not shitting on bow ties. But this guy's bow tie was like kind of goofy. And with my sense of humor and sarcasm, even being trapped in my own body, I just kind of made fun of his bow tie. And I could see it from the ceiling.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
10. The Silent Witness
And obviously I'm very connected with the people. Maybe it's not obvious, actually. You know, pretty social guy, and I stayed in contact with people that were involved in my care, and I did bring this up. I was giving a talk to the neuro ICU, and there was confirmation that this short little man with the bow tie did enter my room on occasion, and I was like, oh.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
10. The Silent Witness
validation these things can happen apparently which by the way i was total skeptic and before this happened to me if someone was telling me that they were in a coma frozen but could see the whole room i'd be like okay like yeah me too when i used to take lsd
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
There were already concerns about Jake's stash before his diagnosis. Something seemed off. Did it taste strange because he was getting sick? An early symptom no one recognized? But the food he ate tasted normal. And the heroin he smoked of Adrian's after telling her his was off tasted normal.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
And then the heroin Adrian brought him in the hospital when he was being diagnosed with acute toxic progressive leukoencephalopathy also tasted normal. Whatever was wrong, it seemed specific to his cut, the one he kept at home. Once admitted to the hospital, Jake was upfront about his drug use.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Jake recalls a conversation about his heroin being brought in for testing, but Jake also recalls that that sample was never brought in. it wasn't until he began recovering that the pieces started to fall into place. Could it be possible, however unthinkable, that his heroine had been tampered with? People like Justin dismissed this idea as absurd, and Jake himself wasn't sure.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
He never spoke about it publicly, not in his Reddit posts, podcast interviews, or news articles. Even he doubted his own thoughts. Was he just bitter? Was his mind reaching for answers after surviving the impossible? A man with a new body, a new perspective, yet still searching for the why. But then came the messages from this man on Facebook Messenger. And then the call. Unprompted. Unexpected.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
I asked Justin if he thought that this supposed ex-boyfriend was becoming suspicious that perhaps the call was being recorded.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
It wasn't recorded, but there were the Facebook messages. Written evidence of another man's identical theory.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
For two years, it remained just that, a theory. To many, it sounded impossible, far-fetched, maybe even a way for Jake to shift blame away from himself and his drug use. But then, out of nowhere, Jake received a Facebook message from someone he didn't expect. Someone with a strikingly similar suspicion.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
The call had ended, but for Jake and Justin, the conversation wasn't over.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
So Jake types out a message on Facebook Messenger. Jake writes, Dude, I can't stop thinking about the poisoning thing. Like, did she ever hint at the fact that she actually did that? The response says, Yeah, she joked about it actually. Said you were practiced leading to and for my demise, but also showed disdain for the topic later and decided not to joke about it. What do you think?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Were there any red flags? And then this man pivots the conversation to drug use.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
I find it strange that on the phone, there was hesitancy to discuss this theory, yet he had no problem typing it out, leaving behind a much more concrete record. I find the choice of the word poison bizarre too. When discussing drugs, people usually use the word laced, which doesn't carry the same weight or intent as poisoned.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
As Justin pointed out, heroin is dangerous on its own, and the world of drugs is full of uncertainty. To dig deeper, I reached out to toxicologist Dr. Anne Chappelle. I wanted to know what substances are commonly used to lease drugs. Could Jake have been exposed to an entirely different toxin that affected his brain in this way?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
And beyond those three things that made Jake question the potential poisoning, the weird taste, the lack of sample brought into the hospital, and then the phone call, I wanted to rule out any other possibilities.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
We don't have a sample of Jake's heroin, so it will be impossible to speak in definitives here. But Anne can help answer some of the questions around what could have happened to bring on his diagnosis. Toxic leukoencephalopathy. And in Jake's case, acute toxic progressive leukoencephalopathy.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Ann tells me about levosomal, originally created as an anti-parasitic drug for animals and humans, and now commonly used to cut into drugs like cocaine and sometimes heroin to increase the weight or volume of the drug.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
And here's where there's a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Did Jake's inhalation of heroin and potential toxic contaminants over time lead to this diagnosis? Or was this specific cut of this specific batch laced with something that brought on this disease?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Anne is insinuating here that because of Jake's particular response to odors or tastes, or even as an early sign of toxic glucoencephalopathy, Jake may have thought his stash tasted different, even when others did not. Which is true. He did. And others noticed no difference.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
However, this isn't entirely applicable for Jake's case, as he did taste other cuts from the same batch that were in the possession of other people and found no odd taste as he did in his own cut. Oftentimes, when we think of contaminants or cutting agents in drugs, we think of things like fentanyl or rat poison. But Anne brought up something else.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Baking soda, a common item that you can find in most homes. And I was curious about this. What everyday substances could Jake have been exposed to or could have found its way into his heroin that could cause some serious harm when unintentionally inhaled?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
At the time Jake received the message, he was in an Uber with Justin, one of his first friends he made after beginning his recovery. Justin also happened to live in our apartment complex.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Anne tells me the most common poisonings are food poisonings. And while Jake didn't have food poisoning, I wondered about his career as an executive chef. He was working in a kitchen most days. Could he have been exposed to something there that when coupled with his heroin use resulted in this disease?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Now, I wanted to present a hypothetical. Let's pretend a sample of Jake's heroin had been brought into the hospital for testing. What sort of process is needed to find a potentially lethal toxin? Or would Jake's symptoms and heroin use be enough for medical teams to say, hey, he was a drug user, and that's enough of an answer for us. No need for a full-on criminal investigation.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Jake recalls a conversation with a medical professional who said it could be laced with something he'd never suspect, like a pesticide.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Would they have been able to search for all of these potential toxins if Jake and his family had been able to provide a sample? Or would they have simply tested for the basics?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
We may never get the answers Jake's been searching for, and he may never get them either. All he's left with are theories. And now, a growing sense of concern. Concern for the ex-boyfriend. Jake has tried to follow up, to check in, but every attempt has gone unanswered. And with each passing day, Jake's concern only deepens.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
The message continues, And then the message concludes with,
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
It was sent June 7th, 2022 at 6.50 p.m. I won't share this entire exchange, but Ellen was kind, complimenting Jake on his sobriety and his journey of sharing his story. And then asking him to be mindful in what he shares with her ex-boyfriend, as he was also working towards sobriety. Over the span of nine days, there were three messages sent asking if Jake had heard from this man.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
I do find the timing of this to be quite interesting. Jake hadn't directly heard from her in two years. I say directly because Jake had suspicions about a few burner accounts on social media, but otherwise it had been pretty quiet. And now she's reaching out under the guise of potentially shepherding an addict towards sobriety?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
I first started recording Jake's story a few years ago, and this phone call happened in the middle of it. Just like Justin. I, too, started to wonder if this wild theory actually held weight. And there was something else Jake had told me that I wasn't intending to include in this series. But now, with everything else that has been shared, it may be worth looking into.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Thank you for listening to Blink. This podcast is hosted and produced by me, Corinne Vien, alongside my co-creator and survivor, Jake Handel. Our original music is composed by the brilliant and talented Michael Marguet. We're so grateful for your support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating, reviewing, and sharing this story with others.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
For additional resources, updates, and behind-the-scenes content, visit our website, BlinkThePodcast.com. Blink will return with a new episode next Sunday.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
A response comes in 20 minutes later. I'm the guy she supposedly tried to track down in the West in Seattle. So this person is claiming to be the ex that Ellen had plans to see when she was fixing up her RV when she and Jake first started dating.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Blink is intended for mature audiences as it discusses topics that can be upsetting, such as drug use, sexual assault, and emotional and physical violence. Content warnings for each episode are included in the show notes. Resources for drug addiction and domestic abuse can be found in the show notes and on our website, blinkthepodcast.com.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
The message continues, talking about his personal relationship with Jake's ex-wife, and then questioning Jake's relationship, writing comments like, I was just curious about her behavior while you were married. She seemed very dedicated to you. Again, I apologize if this is inappropriate, and I understand if you don't feel comfortable responding.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Another message, more complimentary. I knew do you love her and probably tried just as hard, if not harder, to meet her demands.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Another message. Sorry, I meant I could tell you loved her. And then, a line that completely rattled Jake.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Now, here is where Justin, Jake's friend from the Uber ride, comes into the story as a witness to some of these exchanges.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Jake had been nervous to go out because he didn't know if a place was accessible to him, even if it said it had things like an accessible bathroom. And Justin was shocked to hear that nothing like this existed. So Jake pitched him an idea, and Justin, who was the founder of Drizzly, thought it was a great one.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
The two went on to co-found Ahoy, an app that allows users to review and view the accessibility of businesses. Jake is full of good ideas, and he's a great person to go to dinner with.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
But then two years after Jake and Justin met, and two years after Jake's divorce, the two are in an Uber together when Jake receives this first Facebook message from a man claiming to be Ellen's ex-boyfriend. Let's go back to the original Facebook message thread. After Jake was asked, Do you think she poisoned you at all? Jake responded with,
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
The testimonies and opinions expressed by guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself or affiliates of this podcast. It's a question Jake has wrestled with for years, one he asked in silence when no one could hear him. And even now, as he pushes his body through grueling therapy and fights for every inch of mobility, that question still lingers.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Jake, skeptical that this is actually Ellen, writes back, Wait for my book.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
I remember when Jake called me after this call happened. He was freaking out. He told me before that there were some big question marks around why he'd gotten sick. So let's take a moment to explore why Jake had started to suspect that his stash may have been tampered with. First, the heroin stash that he had been smoking just before his diagnosis seemed off.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Quietly, constantly. Jake's mind spiraled through possibilities. Was it years of drug use catching up to him? A bad batch? Fate? Or was something, someone, pushing him toward this outcome? As friends and family opened up, sharing candid thoughts about his addiction and his relationships, a troubling theory began to take shape. Could Jake have been poisoned?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
He called Adrian, his ex-girlfriend and supplier, asking about the batch. Here's Adrienne telling Jake about her memory of this realization.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
I asked Adrian what this was like for her, knowing his heroin tasted off to him and then his impending diagnosis.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
12. Bad Batch
Up until the day that Jake was diagnosed, which is when his dad, Derone, quit smoking heroin cold turkey, Derone had also been smoking from the same batch.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
Come to find out, her parents bought her this house. Yeah, her name was on it. She owned, like, a small amount of equity in it. Whatever. It doesn't matter. There were lies on both sides, I guess. So this...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
rv thing gets i'm like so what's the plan here i've always wanted to visit all these states and i bought this rv and i saw it was called the queen victoria it was from like 1970 it needed work and she also had a part-time job at a motorcycle shop Which I also thought was sick. And this RV was parked there and the guy who owned the shop was doing work to it. I'm like, what's the plan?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And she's like, well, I'm going to drive from here down south. She had like a playlist for every state. Go through Alabama. and swing through the tip of Florida had more southwest through Texas and I'm gonna end in Seattle and I'm like why Seattle this was another thing she kept for me until this point she was
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
like well there's this like guy out there and he's like a dj and we've been together off and on for years he has substance abuse issues and can be like kind of a dick i'm trying to remember what she said exactly but that was the gist And she's like, and I'm going to end there and like stay out there for a while. Maybe I'll get back with him or maybe I'll come home. I don't know.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I don't know exactly what I said out loud. Maybe nothing yet.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I think infatuated is a word because every moment of my day, I'm thinking about her.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I never seemed mad. Fucking piece of shit liar. What is this? What is this? You think I don't know what this is? I asked you the first day we met. First day we hung out. Do you do opiates? What did you say? I'm like, fuck, yeah. I'm trying to quit. I'm so sorry. Why'd you lie? I didn't want to blow it with you day one. I really fucking like you and I'm really trying to get clean.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And she just railed in to me for a while. And I was like, I deserve it. I deserve it. Thing with drugs, it's something you are never honest about ever. And you're used to hiding from everyone. And I was never able to be fully honest. Even when she claimed she wanted, I don't know if this is true, but, you know, be fully honest with me about this act. I couldn't do it.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I was partially honest about some. It came to the point where I couldn't even go to the bathroom without her. What are you doing in there? What are you doing in there? And, like, probably 70% of the time, you know, I was sneaking a hit or something. It actually started making me do more. Anyway, still looking forward to this RV trip. I was like, look, I want to go with you.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
We can go to Seattle, but I want to be with you. I love you. I won't be able to do drugs. I might be sick for a while, but you know, it'll work. And anyway, it was like a plan. We were going together. I gave notice to Horseshoe Pub. It was kind of one of those stomach-dropping decisions. Like, I felt like, oh, wow, this is, like, real.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And I gave notice, and I started putting money into the RV and time and making fixes. I remember I mounted, like, 50-inch TV to our master bedroom in the RV. Like, it was sick. And then I got her pregnant a month away before departure. Oh shit. I always wanted to be a dad. The way she told me there was this picture. It looks like a pencil drawing.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And she holds it with two eyes and then turns it around. And it's written, I'm pregnant on it. And I thought it was really cute, actually. And I was like, why are you so sad? Is this not a good thing? And she's like, well, I don't know what you want. And I'm like, well... I don't know what you want, but if you want, I want. Like, I love you. It's your choice. Yeah, that's how I feel.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
Even if I really want it, it's your choice. Hugged her kiss or this RV trip is like, do we go? Do we not? I was like, fuck. I gotta get clean. I gotta save money. I gotta get a job. I had always told myself, stop doing drugs. When I have a kid, or I hit 30. One or the other. Now, we never got to see if it'd live up to that totally. Three and a half months in, she has a miscarriage.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And it fucking crushed me. Obviously her, too. I went off the deep end. Things weren't perfect between me and Ellen. I just remember us arguing. It was... I don't know. I was very sad. And I do what I do best in those times of depression. I... I go to self-medicating and...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
this whole kind of gotta be prepared to be a father went out the window immediately and first thing I did is I went to the bar started drinking pretty hard and started doing heroin in the bar's bathroom just getting fucked up I don't think I was too responsive to her calls in this time where I probably you know should have been there for her
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I was fully back into the heroin, opiate use, and drinking heavy. I stopped giving a fuck about hiding any drug use. I would smoke this shit in front of her. I didn't give a shit. That's when our relationship really got fucked up. Our relationship just got bad. Talking about breaking up bad. We haven't had fun in a long time. I'm like, let's go out. I'll get us a hotel.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
Let's give this one last shot. One of my favorite places, always been my favorite place, still is Liberty Hotel in Boston. Ironically, right next to the neuro ICU I was in for a long time.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
We're going to have a nice dinner. I'll get a sweet. You'll love it there. We check in, but she's not feeling it. And in Liberty fashion, our hotel room phone rings. It's like 7 o'clock. And they're like, this is automated call from Liberty. There is a party in the lobby tonight from 9 to 2 a.m. Feel free to come. Complimentary first round drink. And I'm like... There's a party tonight.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
We should definitely hit that up. We go down there. It's filling up and it's early. It's like nine. And she's like, this is sick. Should we get that? Should we get that acid? And I'm like, you want a drip? It's a little fucking wild for me right now, but if you want, I'm down. So we go to the car. We get the acid and Molly. We stop by the room, have a drink.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And she takes, I think, a tab and I take a tab. And then this, she used to buy it by like the sheet or something, which is like a hundred hits. She would like shave a little bit with a razor off each tab. I don't know if it was just really strong, which it was. But she'll make each hit a little smaller. Anyway, bottom of this bag have all of these shavings.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
She's like, you want any of these shavings? And I'm like, no. And I turn around and she's got this wad of... She, like, dumped all these shavings in her mouth. And I'm like, oh my god, you just took, like, five hits. You're gonna be tripping out of your mind. And she's like, is it a lot? And I'm like, it's... You're okay, though. It's cool. I'm like, deep down, I'm like, oh, fuck.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
You know, and we go back down to the lobby party, and, I mean, the walls start moving. It's really decorative in there. And we're just bouncing around room to room in Liberty, just tripping out. And down in Alibi, they have a private DJ, and we head in the back. We have this private table, and we're just rolling and tripping and touching each other's hair, and, like, we're in our own world.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I duck off to the bathroom at one point, take a few hits of dope, and they hit me super hard, because I was tripping so hard. We just have this really fantastic night. We go back to the room, and... We have this like wild, passionate sex. I mean, real intense, like love making sex, right? She's just like, oh, I think I'm pregnant. And I'm like, really? You can tell?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And she's like, yeah, I think you just got me pregnant. I'm just thinking in my head, is that even a thing? I don't know how many weeks later she was pregnant and they told her how far along she was. She looked in the calendar and she's like, I think it was that night I said I got pregnant and we're pregnant again. Gotta clean up my act for real, gotta stack dough, and now I gotta get a job.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
She just has a talk with me one day, and she's like, I envisioned me being married before I had a baby. I'm like, let's get married. She's like, yeah, but like, I don't want to be showing in my wedding dress. I'm like, let's get married soon. She's like, yeah, but I want a big wedding. Well, let's have a big wedding. Let's do a New Year's Eve. It was like two months away.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
Boom, we're getting married all of a sudden. It's like all happening so fast. We're planning a New Year's Eve, winter wonderland wedding at a private golf club. It's all happening so fast. Long story short, she has a sack of miscarriage like two, three weeks before the wedding. And man, the wedding cake was going to double as the gender reveal. History repeats itself. I'm abusing trucks again.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
It's like, do we cancel the wedding? And like, you know, she's miserable. I'm pretty miserable. Yeah. We got married. It was a really good wedding. That was the only day I did not do opiates. I didn't even drink that much. I think I had like one champagne toast.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And we went down there. Um... And that's when my new wife was like, I want... I want to know what this heroin's all about. I want to know why you're so addicted. I want some. And I'm like, no. It is so addicting because... It's so fucking addicting. And the last thing I'm going to do is subject someone who doesn't have an addiction to this. Like, I'm not doing it.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And she was like, you're such a hypocrite, asshole. How are you going to tell me? I can't. That's unfair. I want to understand why you're so wrapped up in this. I want to do it. And I'm like, no, I'm not giving it to you. And she's like, fine, I'll go get it myself. And I'm like, no, don't fucking do it. It sucks. I wish I never did this shit. It is so addicting. I really wanted to not allow this.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
But I just remember I threw the bag on the table and I was like, fine, do it. I'm out of here. And I went to a different room in the house and she did it the entire week.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
it was like day four or something she woke up and felt dope sick really dope sick she woke me up crying and she was like i'm shaking this stuff is so bad i fucking hate you i want to leave i want to get out of here i fucking hate you purple i mean I'm like the worst. The worst thing with that drug is introducing someone to it.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I mean, even as someone who sold it, I mean, I never sold someone who wasn't addicted for financial gain. There's this cinematic picture in my head. There's always that depiction of that scumbag dude who probably at one point was a decent person, probably still is. But these drugs cloud you. And that was my first experience feeling like...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I was working as a sous chef in Hudson Mass at a place called the Horseshoe Pub. This place had like 150 beers on tap, I think a total of 900 beers, and they were trying to be like a gastropub, like doing this fancy-ish food paired with these beers. I was a nicotine addict, and I was smoking a cigarette in the back. This girl pulls in on like a Harley motorcycle. I could tell she was cute.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I'm that dude now that has introduced someone to the most addicting substance on planet Earth, and it happens to be my new wife. I felt so small, so horrible. God almost wanted to tell her mom. I was worried that she would continue, honestly. And once you're addicted, you're addicted. I mean, there's no one in the world that could stop you. She would be out there going to Worcester by herself.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And then I'd be in a position where I don't want her to get a hot dose.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And maybe I was wrong, but I always felt like I had a good head and my shoulders even wrapped up in this. I never wanted to really hurt anyone like that. I knew what was too far. I think this roots from my depression and the way I kind of like... And not the way I was brought up, but the way I kind of dealt with things on my own and grew up handling my grief.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I just was like, what I'm doing is hurting me and like only me. And I'm okay with that. You can definitely say, and I'll take it. You know, you were a drug dealer. You contributed to this huge problem. Which I definitely did, but I have to say some of the most hardcore people I knew, people that I would say, woo. I'm not sure if they'll ever get clean.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
Honestly, I'm one of these people that I know I said when I have a kid, but after two miscarriages, I wasn't sure if I'd ever get clean. But a lot of these people that I would be like, woo, they're never going to get, you know, they didn't. So, yeah, it's rare, though. I was very worried for my wife at this time. Luckily, she just didn't do it again and hated me even more. What?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
There was like three spots, the dumpster and this door and I'm smoking like at the door next to the dumpster. And she parked in one of the spots and I'm like... She coming here, you know, the back door, like she's not a customer. And I had never seen her. I'd worked there for a while. She gets off her bike and walks in the employee entrance right by me. And I was like, hey, or something.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And she was like, hi. And walks right in. I just said to myself, I'm like, who the fuck is that? This chick's riding a Harley that's, like, badass, you know? I had a friend working in the kitchen, too. And I remember asking, and I was like, yo, who's that girl? That's Ellen. She goes by Elle.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
She works, like, once a month, attends bar on a Friday night, and makes, like, more money than we make in a week.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I just remember feeling like she was spending more time in the kitchen than she needed to. And towards the end of the night, she was on there and I was like, hey, I'm like, we should hang out sometime. And she was like, yeah. And I'm like, can I get your number? And she was like, yeah.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
Hey, this is Jake. You doing anything tonight? And she was like, yeah, I got plans, but definitely want to hang out real soon.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And I remember jokingly said, are you going to pick me up on your motorcycle? She was like, ha ha, no, I'll pick you up in a car. I remember feeling like I got to get some heroin in my system so I don't feel dope sick. But I don't want to do it around her. I got high, obviously, before. And then I walked out of the hotel to wait to get picked up.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I'm taken aback because there's like a guy driving and she's in the passenger seat and gets out of the car. Am I the third wheel here? Is this her boyfriend? I have no idea, right? I just remember her cranking her neck. We're talking a lot and the guy is not. You know, I'm, like, a friendly dude, so I'm trying to include him in the convo, too.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
Like, what are you... And, you know, I can feel energy, and I can just tell this dude's, like, not happy that I'm in the back of his car. I just remember him talking a lot about selling drugs, what a big drug dealer he was. Like, it was... I saw it after occupation. Like, it was so cool. And in my head, I'm thinking, what dude who's really in the game just advertises this shit?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I buy her a drink or whatever, and he goes to some other friends finally. And she's like, oh, this dude keeps following me around like a puppy dog. And I'm like, oh, you don't like that? Who is he? She was like, just like a friend. He's been wanting to date me for a while, but it's like not going to happen. And she goes...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
Okay, just like one thing I gotta ask you before we, you know, get going here. Do you do like opiates? Do you do heroin? And I'm kind of like, whoa, like what a question. I answered probably within three seconds, but it was like time kind of slowed down. I thought to myself, I'm like, well, you got two options here. Because I really did like her. Without even knowing her, I was attracted to her.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I was like, you got two options here. You can be a total piece of shit and lie, or you can tell her the truth and, like, probably eliminate your chances. I was actively trying to get my shit together, so it was kind of like the lie sounded okay. And, yeah, I lied. I was kind of like, well, like I've done it, but I don't like do it. She goes, oh, good. Cause I like, I like you.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
What a fucking dick I am. I just like totally lied to this chick. She went into telling me about all the people she knows that have OD'd on these opiates. Particularly, she wasn't like against drugs. She did drugs. Like we took ecstasy shortly after this conversation. But the opiates, yeah, she was against that.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And that's when I made the move. I was like, you want to just like get out of here?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
This is where being a drug dealer comes in cool. Like, I remember I had my phone on silent and I was getting blown up. I probably had like 400 texts of people being like, yo, I need, can you meet? Where you at? I need, I need, I need. But I'm on a date, you know, I'm not answering that rent. Anyway, taking my phone real quick, I'm like, Most reliable, like who do I like most on this list?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
Dude, like send me like 20 texts. And I was like, dude, I got whatever you want, but here's the trick. You can't say anything about it, and you've got to pick me and this girl up in Boston and drive us wherever we've got to go. He's like, on it, dude. See you in 30 minutes. I'm like, sick. And he had like a sick sports car kind of pit, you know.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
Yeah. Not backed up, but I had like probably a 10 gram package for a thousand dollar value or something. We're both rolling face in the back of this car, like looking at the lights. And I just remember us like making out in the back and touchy feely. Get out of the car. She goes to get something in her car.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
That's when I quickly, I was like, yo, you got like a piece of paper, a dollar bill or something. And I just poured a shitload of powder out. And I was like, here, take it. Get out of here. And yeah, I probably gave him like $700 worth or something for that ride. You know, I didn't care though.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And it was like a five or six mile walk. But it was like, it was the best walk ever. And we talked for like two hours about kind of everything. Yeah.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I didn't want to fuck it up with her because I liked her so much. I wanted to have a relationship with her.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
That day when she got off work, she texted me. From that day on, we never spent a day apart, actually. There was this bar in the same plaza of Horseshoe Pub, and it was a dive. Not a place I would typically go, but she liked it there. It had pool tables, and one thing I learned quickly, she was really good at pool. She told me, I play people in pool for drinks.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
We won't pay for a single drink all night. And she would hustle these people so good. And for money, too. She was, like, really cool. Drives a Harley, sick of pool. She likes to have fun.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
She told me that she owned a house and had just sold it to buy an RV because she was about to tour the country in the RV. That's fucking awesome. And I remember being like, man, that'd be so good for me to like get out of here and get away from all these drugs. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of a selfish thought. I also love this girl, but how crazy would that be if I got myself actually clean?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
And over this first two weeks, I drastically cut down on my dope use. I found myself so happy, I guess, with her that the the early onset of dope sickness was being very much um put off i was so into it that i'd be like wow i've been thought about dope in 10 hours and i feel fine and my drug dealing kind of took a hit which i wasn't mad about i felt it financially but i didn't care
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
relationship definitely started on a lie and for being totally honest i mean she portrayed herself as like having it going on like owned a house on her own multiple jobs this rv very financially independent i just felt like what the fuck do i really have going on
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
I was like, oh, it's mine. Throw to that lie out there.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
4: Heroin or Heroine
You know, trying to portray that I was on her level, I suppose. When in reality, my life was like on a downward slope in the last year.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
9: Signed, Sealed, Silenced
these paragraph angry comments and i just like screenshot this stuff through voice and i'm like i think this is out and then we pull up writing samples of hers and you just look at them side by side and you're like that's her
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
9: Signed, Sealed, Silenced
It went from like a very complicated divorce over nothing to like us burning money on both sides, fighting over nothing. Just these like key points. If I want my belongings back, I want all the recovery footage that she was recording of my downfall and my early recovery back. And it went from like just confrontational argument to just one day like, okay, yeah, I'll sign.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
9: Signed, Sealed, Silenced
And that's when all the comments kind of stopped, at least the ones with these similar writing patterns.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
9: Signed, Sealed, Silenced
One was my personal belongings, mainly stuff I put in storage of my mother's that I was saving for my house. Two was the footage I asked to be taken of me on the road downhill, and the off chance I survive, I thought it would be really cool to have.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
11. One-Hundred Pound Baby
Jake was desperate not to go back to Tewksbury and us basically having to convince the medical community that he'd be OK.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
11. One-Hundred Pound Baby
We found an apartment in Cambridge. It's amazing how many places claim that they are ADA capable, they can handle disabled people. This place was totally no, except that he was still completely bedridden. So it didn't matter. It wasn't like he could go to the bathroom anyway, you know, get in a wheelchair and wheel over. It couldn't do any of that stuff.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
And they just... Ich war in meiner Schuhe. Katie begann sofort zu weinen. Sie war wie weinend. Und dann sind wir in diesen Sonnenraum gegangen. Sie haben mich da reingelegt. Das war, als Sophie sich unterbrochen hat. Sie begann zu weinen. Sie sagten, wir dachten, du wärst tot. Und... I don't remember Eli crying. I remember Eli being pretty. Just like taking all in, kind of listening.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
There were no questions. More just like, miss you, love you. It was a good visit. It was a heavy visit. So I didn't know any of this yet. People were looking for me for a very long time.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Meine Step-Sister Katie, sie hat diesen Wunsch von Find Jake. Und einer von Katies Freunden, Mandy, war Freund auf Facebook mit meiner Frau. Und Katie und sie würden ihre Webseite stecken, um mir irgendwelche Hinweise zu geben. And that's when we learned, or my family learned about Ellen, my wife, posting as me when I was on hospice. So I'm locked in. Can't move. Can't do anything.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
And she's posting as Jacob Handel on Facebook. My wife is taking excellent care of me. As if I was on a fucking beach in Maui, like... Can't talk right now, guys. I'm enjoying the surf. Life's, you know, posting as if I can post. Which is like interesting and wild and crazy.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
This started early. She took control of my stuff. Two months after diagnosis, I mean, she took my phone when I could still use my phone. But the rationale then was, I don't want you to get drugs.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
There's nothing like, you got six months to live to make you sober up. She had everything, and I never got her back since then.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Und ich habe gesagt, wenn du zurückkommst, können wir dir etwas Zeit dedizieren, um mir zu helfen, einige Dinge zu schreiben? Er hat gesagt, ja.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
What I wanted to write down was huge. And we went outside. That was like one of my first times outside. This was like a week after that visit. And we went outside to this like gazebo. And he pushed me up there at the iPad. And he was still having a hard time understanding what I was saying. And it took me like... Vier oder fünf Mal, um jedes Wort zu bekommen. Okay.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Und dann war er, er brachte das Thema zu meinem Vater. Er war so, du sollst wirklich, wirklich deinen Vater kontaktieren. Und ich war so, aber warum?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
I commented to Jake about how meaningful this must have been to his dad. There was hope in the letter. The door was nudged open. Yeah, and I can honestly say at that juncture, I put in that hope to be nice. Man, it's so fucked up to say out loud. Yeah, alright. Internally, there wasn't hope yet. In that letter I gave hope.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
I posted something in the LinkedIn Sudbury where I went to high school alumni page. And I was like, hi, Jacob Handel, class of 07. Went through something crazy, but I'm alive now, recovering. Like, I don't know. I got like a hundred Facebook comments. And then... A lot of DMs and people reaching out. Not only from my high school.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
My first real girlfriend, Emma, she's like, Jake, you're live, like amazing. I was so worried when I heard friends being like, I wanted to come visit, but I wasn't allowed.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Es war großartig, diesen Post zu sehen. Ich dachte, du wärst tot. Ich wurde gesagt, ich soll nicht zum Feierabend kommen. Und ich dachte, was? One by one, people told Jake the same thing.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
This is a really real thing that she obviously posted about or like made public, like, I don't know, yeah.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
I actually grew to really like Western Mass State Hospital. I knew everyone there. I started talking. I was comfortable there.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Ich sah ihn jedes drei Monate, ihn und Dr. Vanna, meinen Neurologen, weil der Trip so lang war und er muss von Stretcher genommen werden. Dr. Levinson wollte mehr regelmäßige Updates auf Jakes Rückkehr. The reason I started a YouTube channel, I couldn't send Steven Levinson and my care team in Boston videos of my recovery because the files were too big. Through text or email.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
I was like, well, I could like upload it to YouTube, create a link and share it. And no one's gonna like see it. I had like 25 YouTube followers. And they were all doctors. MGH. And it got to the point where they're like, you don't even need to send us a link. Upload it, we'll see it.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
He's like, you need about 20 different consults. And bringing you out here for 20 different appointments doesn't make sense. You know, no one ever thought this would happen, but you've outgrown the therapy capabilities of Western Metz Hospital. He was like, they've done an excellent job, but it's time to get back into Spalding. Und ich so, ich dachte, du kriegst nur einen Schuss bei Spalding.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Und ich sagte das zu ihm auf der Face-Call und er so, typisch ja, aber es gibt extreme Umstände, wo wir einen zweiten Angriffsteil justizieren können. Und er so, ich werde dafür antworten, aber du musst zurückkommen. Er so, ich werde dich in Metzgeneral für ein bisschen leben lassen. Ich bin super gespannt, ob ich zurückkomme.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Hoffentlich ist der gleiche Chef da, weil ich nicht erwarten kann, dass ich mit ihm sprechen kann. Und ja, ich war traurig, dass ich nicht mit ihm gesprochen habe, weil ich viele Freunde hatte. Meine Therapeuten waren wirklich großartig. Aber wie alles in der Leben, besonders in der medizinischen Welt, alles braucht Zeit. Und Juni ist vorbei, es ist Juli.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Ich bin ein bisschen ehrgeizig, was da los ist. Und ich erinnere mich, dass mein Therapie-Team meinte, es ist alles gut. Du wirst hier immer besser werden. Also habe ich nicht mehr darüber nachgedacht. Und dann war es Juli 24th, 4 Uhr in der Nachmittagszeit. Leventon. Jake, I have an ambulance transferring you by stretcher 810 tomorrow morning. Get packed up. I'm like, damn. No notice, you know.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
I start becoming unparalyzed and I'm like making baby sounds and there's a video that I put on YouTube of me eating chocolate pudding with a spoon. I'm dying laughing because I thought it was so funny that I just couldn't do it and pudding was getting everywhere, cracking up. Anyway, I'm kind of... I was about to say master to the pudding, but that's a stretch.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Western Mass State Hospital is calling me and telling me. And then Eli, who's now become like helping me manage everything. Being like, yeah, we haven't received a single payment check in 15 months of you being here. And you owe us like $20,000. We're like, oh shit.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
She's unwilling to sign anything, communicate. And Eli tried texting with her. Oh, I have that text. Cool, calm, collective Eli writes out this text. thoughtful, rational text. I needed a response from her, just being like... Nicht, fuck you, aber ziemlich nah dran. Ich dachte, so viel für Rational. Ich sagte Levinson, wir brauchen einen Lehrer. Sie ist unwillig, uns zu kommunizieren.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Das sollte mein Payment sein. Und dieser Payment wird an die Krankenhäuser geworfen. Levinson meinte, okay, es gibt eine Organisation, die Justice Bridge heißt.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
But, you know, they were like, let's try a fork. And at this juncture, I could only barely hold the fork. But I've successfully got a bite on a fork from a plate that was in my lap. So I could only eat off my lap. And they were like, what do you like to eat? I'm new to eating too, and I'm like, blueberries are good for my brain. They brought in all these blueberries for me, it was great.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
My personal belongings. Mainly my mother's stuff.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
And I had a little cup of blueberries balanced on my lap. And I'm taking this fork, and I just can't get them on the fork. And it's so frustrating, so I did one of these hot tosses. And it missed the cup and it went directly in my balls. Like, like, my balls were now on the fork, kinda. And I'm like, ahhh! And these nurses come in and they're like, what's wrong? And I'm like crying.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
And they're like, you know, talking to me like, baby, did you hurt yourself? Did you hurt yourself anymore? Und sie meinte, du musst uns zeigen, du musst uns zeigen.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Und sie öffnet die Wäsche und sagt, lass mich den Wunsch-Nurse anrufen. Und ich so, oh Gott, nächstes Mal weiß ich, dass ich acht Leute in meinem Raum habe, die mich verrückt schauen. Und ich will nicht schauen. Dann gab es einen Befehl für eine Kuppe und Sicherheitsglas.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Das war das erste Mal in der Geschichte des Hospitals, dass sie medizinisch verurteilt wurden, eine Baseballkuppe für einen Patienten zu kaufen.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Yes. Oh yes. I'd even be like, can I come in the gym and use a bike when you're busy? Like, help me transfer and that's all I need, I'll be quiet. Like, I was eager. That motivation, which I must have said before, a lot of it had to do with my wife. Getting through it and getting to the point where I could live with her, that was on my mind 24-7.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
My wife, she doesn't call, she doesn't text, she doesn't visit. I've come to the conclusion that I'm just going to focus on me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Ich würde wirklich gerne mit meiner Familie reden. Sorry, ich lache. Es ist nicht lustig, aber ich hatte diese Hoffnung, dass meine Frau zu mir zurückkommen würde. Und sie hatte so viel Kontrolle über mich, dass ich fühlte, dass ich sogar, wenn ich schriftlich sende und eine kryptische Nachricht zu einem Familienmitglied senden könnte,
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Ich wusste, dass sie mich herausfinden würde und mich auslösen würde. Sie würde mich schmerzen und es wäre noch schlimmer. Ich wusste, dass Familie keine Option ist. Ich wusste, dass ich eine Wahl zwischen meiner Frau und meiner Familie machen musste. I mean, this sounds fucked up to say, but things were so bad and I was in so much pain.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Es stört mich, das zu sagen, aber ich war einfach so, so verdammt krank. Ich war so, in so viel Schmerz. Sie hat mich wirklich gut gebraucht. Sie wusste, wie sie mich bestmöglich kümmern kann. Als ich unsere Beziehung bemerkte und bemerkte, dass es nicht funktionieren würde, war ich einfach so... Ich habe angefangen, mich über meine Familie zu erinnern und über sie zu wundern.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Ich dachte, ich wäre tot und ich wusste es nicht. Und ich dachte, das ist wirklich verrückt. Und ich war sehr traurig und traurig und verbrochen. Ich habe nichts gehabt. Ich erinnere mich nicht mehr darauf. The hospital got me an iPad, but I didn't remember my Apple ID and password. I didn't even know if it still existed, even if I did. So it was like starting over.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
I had no money because my benefits weren't going to the hospital. I really had nothing, right? So like these nurses and aides and they were like buying me shampoo and snacks and just like, you know, but they were like, can we find someone for you? Do you want us to find your family? Sie fragten mich, was mein Vater heißt, was mein Bruder heißt, was meine Schwester heißt.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Und vielleicht, weil ich mein Verbrechen nicht verstanden habe, konnten sie nicht wirklich für mich etwas finden. I'm like laying in my hospital bed one evening and this number shoots in my mind. I'm like, I think that's my aunt in Texas' number. I mean, who remembers numbers now? It's programmed in your phone, even then.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
If I was to remember, there were like a few select numbers I would remember, like I asked Jake if he'd called Varda many times in the past.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Und ich drückte den Anrufknopf für die Ärztin, wie diesen kleinen Knopf. Ich konnte so schlagen, weil meine Finger mich nicht öffneten. Die Ärztin schlug mich an und ich war so schnell, schnell, schnell, krieg eine Penne, schreib das Lied, bevor ich es vergesse. Sie schreiben es herunter und sind so aufgeregt, wie ich. Und man kann FaceTime-Anrufe durch Gmail machen.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Ich habe es in die FaceTime-App auf dem iPad gelegt. Die Anrufe rangen wahrscheinlich drei, vier Mal.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Wir haben 20 Minuten gesprochen und eine der Hauptfragen war, wo ist deine Frau? Ich dachte, sie ist nicht da. Weißt du.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
They started sending me numbers. And remember, one of the main things Varda said after was, have you spoken to your dad? And this is painful to talk about. I don't like talking about this part. Have you spoken to your dad? You know, I was just very sharply like, no.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Part of me, although I never really could have seen my dad strangling my wife, I knew how much she pushed his buttons and everyone's. And I'm like, well, people break. If anyone could push someone hard enough to strangle them... It'd be my wife. You know, I heard this ordeal. I didn't see it in my mind. I was like, I don't think he strangled her. But who knows?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
At the time, I didn't see my wife lying. I didn't even want to talk to my dad. I was like, you know what? Something happened. I don't know what it is. Nope.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
The other numbers I got were my stepfather Eli Weiland and my sister and brother Sophie and Dave and my other stepsister Katie on the other side. And I reached out immediately. Probably within minutes. Ich hatte ein paar Momente, um Eli's Nummer zu bekommen. Er war die erste Person, die ich rausgekommen bin. Ich habe ihn angerufen. Aber er muss das Do Not Disturb-Tool haben.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
7: The Resurrection of Jake
Also habe ich ihm den E-Mail geräumt. Und ich habe einen von diesen, nein, ich habe einen von diesen automatischen, wie, ich kann nicht sprechen, ich rufe dich zurück, Messungen. Also hat er das getroffen. And I just replied, I think I got help. And I replied like, Eli, it's Jake, I'm alive, call me or something.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
Okay, we're going back to like eighth grade real quick. That's when I first smoked weed for the first time with my good buddy, Craig, who was a year older. And his older brother was like kind of a wild man back then. And I thought he was like the cool kid, you know. And I remember smoking weed with him once. It was, like, my first time. And it wasn't super popular with the kids in my grade yet.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
We were in eighth. He was in ninth. But it was, like, so popular with the ninth graders and above. And I just, you know, my business mind was kind of like, oh, shit, I should, like, get this and whatever. So, a little prelude to that, my parents got divorced and my mom moved to Sudbury. I was in Framingham Public Schools, middle class, working class.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
Sudbury was upper middle class and above, so when I got to these schools, I was like, I was a kid that wore different clothes and, you know, I was kind of like, all these kids have so much fucking money and... And I was like, well, I'm getting the brown bag for lunch. They're getting a hundred dollar bill to buy whatever they want in this nice cafeteria.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
And I was just kind of like amazed by the money. I was like, I wonder if I load up my backpack with a bunch of sodas, I could sell them for like two bucks, you know? And that started working and I was like making money to like literally buy like cafeteria lunch. And then I was just, I remember I asked these kids, I was like, what else do you guys want? And they're like lighters and candy bars.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I started like selling all these to these kids and I mean small money, but like shit was moving, you know? And that progressed into fireworks and
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
Got him. Sold him like instantaneously. It was like the easiest thing I ever did.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
That was summer of eighth grade. You know, when you're in eighth grade, it was like you took the bus or your parents or your babysitter would pick you up. I was having these kind of wild seniors pick me up. By the start of freshman year, I was definitely a weed dealer. This high school had groups. We had the under-the-stairs kids that would hang out under the stairs.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
They were like the gothy death metal, the athletes, the hippies, the this, the that. But what was interesting is everyone kind of got along. And I think what bridged the gap between all these groups were the drugs. I was just like, hmm, I could like sell to every group. So I'd get pounds and I would bring two hundred eighths of weed in my backpack to school.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
And I was kind of more focused on turning this $208 into $5,000 cash than my grades in one day at school. The motivation behind this was... I kind of started thinking about wondering if my mom dies, where would I go? I should be financially prepared the best I can to take care of myself.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I kind of, in retrospect, I wish I was kind of like, you know, I want to focus on building a spaceship and, like, you know, turned it into making a billion-dollar company, but I guess I didn't have much... Faith that I could do that in a short time. So I was like, what's a vast money option, you know?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Friday with Ice Cube. There's this drug dealer that, in the movie, in Compton, that has these, like, jerry curls. And he's, like, a gangster dude and sells drugs out of an ice cream truck. And he was known as Big Worm. Anyway, he started calling me Big Worm. And I thought it was really funny because he was huge and I was, like, kind of tiny.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
And he's like, fucking Worm, Big Worm. Once I started dealing with Scoopy, I started making real money.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I'm always in a rush because I'm trying to juggle dealing and personal life, visiting my mom, and I was like drinking tequila, Jose Cuervo out of the 750 out of the bottle while driving, hiding it under my seat, reaching for it all the time, smoking tinfoil, chain smoking cigarettes.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
a mile away from hospice, take a few more shots, smoke another cigarette, take a hit, and I park, pop like a breath mint, get the bags, get my blowout mattress, because I like to sleep in my mom's hospice room, walking in there, and she's so sexy, she's...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
you know I'm like hi mom you okay probably some stuff I'm gonna put in the fridge for you let me know if you want anything I'm gonna sit on my bed talking a million miles a minute and I'm like plugged in the air mattress she's like honey come here I remember she's moving her finger come closer she's like closer
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
And I understood. And I think she actually told me you're making me nauseous. I know how fucked up it was that I'm such a drug addict and mess that. I can't even go to stay with my mom because I smell too much like drugs and alcohol and cigarettes. And what do I do before I even leave the parking lot? I light up another cigarette and get in the car and drink more because I'm so fucking miserable.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
It's just like... But that's the level of like lost I was and drowning myself in substance. And it never got better. I really started dipping into my profits across all levels with my abuse, drug abuse. So instead of making 400 bucks from Moxie, I was barely making 80 off everything I was selling because I was doing so much.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I remember in the week before my mom's death, calling my dad and being like, Dad, you got to come here. You got to come to Boston. My mom's, you know, she doesn't have long. He's like, all right, I'm coming. I would sleep in my mom's bed. And I remember... He came in and I probably had just fallen asleep. It was like about 3 or 4 a.m. And he was like, I'm really sorry.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
And I had just seen my mom hours earlier. And he's like, your mom just passed away. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just broke down. I was crying. I just want to get fucked up right now. And by fucked up, definitely pain pills is what I wanted. But I opened my mom's medicine cabinet. I never dipped into my mom's meds. Like, ever. Even being how I was. But, you know, I'm like, she's dead.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
She doesn't need these. Open up the cabinet. I don't even know what's in there. And I see a box of fentanyl patches. And I'm like, holy shit, and I look at them, and it says 30-day supply on it. You put this patch on, and a dose goes into your body one hour for 72 hours. And I'm like, sweet. And I start peeling them and sticking them on me. I put the whole box on. I had them all over me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I didn't have the intent to kill myself, but I definitely knew it was a big possibility because I did a 30-day dose of fentanyl in three days. So I was getting 10 times the dose of fentanyl for an hour for three days. And I was like, I'm gonna die. Yep. I started to feel it hit me. I just get Kind of drowsy and tired, which normally I don't from these opiates.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
And I just remember getting into my mom's bed and kind of was like, yeah, like maybe this is it for me and kind of fell asleep. And I just remember next thing I know is I'm kind of being shaken, like Jake wake up and patches are being ripped off me. And yeah, didn't die. Definitely didn't clean up my act either.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
But a few days after her death, I get a notice on my mom's door, like kind of like notice to vacate type thing. You got to pack up your shit and leave. I was in no place to pack up all my mom's shit. And Adrian helped organize like 20 people, 20 high school kids to help pack all my mother's shit up while I was just besides myself. I remember going through my mom's closet.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I would say my mom's room alone for the most part. And I remember going through my mom's closet and I found this box with like a bunch of those black one subject old school notebooks. It was like poetry my mom had written over the last decade about the cancer and like how it felt
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
and I just remember reading like one passage, and I mean, it, it, oh god, it was so sad, it was just like, I feel this cancer in my bones, it's like eating away at me, and I'm, I'm losing energy, and I can't keep going, and maybe not poetry, more like journaling, and And just like, you know, my only regret is leaving my kids. And it just made me so sad. And I couldn't even keep reading it.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
And someone stole these from me. I think her best friend Lynn kind of took them. Because I think she was worried about me. And she was like, you don't need to read that. And I never got to read them. I don't think I'd want to anymore. Anyways, funeral happens. I'm like, num, num, num, num, num. And I need a place to live. My dad's like, you can come to Texas and live with me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
And I'm like, no, I got friends. And also the biggest thing that kept me around was drugs. My ability to make money. I was like... you know, I can't leave here, Eli's like, you can come live with me, but no more drugs, man, so that was out, all right, so I got my mom's dog, love this dog, Ravi, me and Adrian had him for years, and I'm in my car with the dog, crying, drunk, fucking,
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
Wondering where I'm going to stay. I'm going around to hotels. And they won't rent me a room because I'm under 21. I'm like, fuck. I finally go to the best western extended stay. One of the last ones on the strip.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
and there was kind of a younger dude behind the counter and i was like dude like i'm a mess i need a place to stay for a month i got cash and he's like all right you got id and i'm like no because i didn't want to give him like under 21 This guy kind of like felt bad and he's like, all right, dude, like thousand bucks for the month. He's like, no one's here.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
He's like, occasionally we have a convention and I'm like, I got a dog by the way. And he's like, he's like, just don't bring in the lobby. Okay. Okay, so at least I have a home base now. It was really a miserable time, actually. And shit just kept happening. Like, you know, I'm driving a bunch of weed down 85 in Mulvorrow and blue lights gone behind me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
And I'm like, fuck, probably drunk and high. Cop comes to the window and he's like, this your car? And I'm like, yeah. He's like, okay. Get out of the car. I'm like, what did I do? Out of the car. I'm like, what the fuck? Get out of the car. He's like, you're driving an uninsured stolen vehicle. And I'm like, what? And he's like, who's Marjorie Wallen? And I'm like, it's my mom.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I'm like, my mom just died. He's like, didn't believe me. He's like, nice try, buddy. I'm coughing on the side of the road. They bring, like, extra police down there. They eventually find out, you know, my mom did die. And they're like, well, they're like, we're really sorry, but this isn't your car anymore. It's hers. Signed over to her. She's dead. It's going to her estate. We have to take it.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I was left on the side of the road with my dog and they towed the car away and I was like, okay, now I got no car.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I got a good wedgie story for you. I ever tell you about the fork in my nut? Another funny story real quick. Mormon's a myth.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
Four or five years old, I remember my parents, my mother and father, just fighting a lot, having these big blowouts. And I would really hate it. It would really upset me to the point where I would start to run away or I'd clog my ears, hide in my room, and I would start to run away. And I would just, like, kind of take off my bike and, like, go chill in the woods or something.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
And, like, wait for them to cool off and then come home. They would just fight a lot. We went to, like, some breakfast place in Framingham, Mass. And, you know, they sat me down and they were like, we're going to get a divorce. I shouldn't have been that surprised, but for some reason I was. And I was like, no, no, like, don't do that. Like, what can I do to like, I don't want to.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I don't want us to be separate. And I was like, is it my fault? You know, and they were like, no. And it was kind of like presented to me like, no, it's going to be a good thing. Like, you're going to have two homes and two birthday parties, two reasons to celebrate, which, you know, I was kind of like, that wasn't important to me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
But then both my parents remarried two people that already had children from the age of like seven. I had all these like step siblings and got along with them really well. And it was it was exactly like it was presented.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
3: Wayward Son
I was always close with Nancy. The funeral was really hard and I was like flipping out because I was like, oh man, like Nancy died like within a year almost. I'm like, now my mom's going to die. Once this really happened, it kind of took a turn for a self-destructive maybe. I mean, from like 13, 14, I was angry, punching walls, putting holes in walls. Didn't care about grades that much.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
Again, hard to gauge time, but what felt like two to four hours, she came back and said, everyone else not viable have to do it again. Again, nursing was, like, freaking out. They were complaining to doctors. I could, like, hear to this. And this kept going on for what I say felt like 17 days a few times a day.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
And it got to the point where my wife, I remember this, she complained that nursing kept coming in the room. And we needed our privacy. And she wanted a sign to go on the door. I do not deserve even a heart monitor going off when this was happening. I think the logic was, like, he's gonna die by Christmas anyway. I gotta get this. I need this. I need the semen, man. Like, before it dies.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
I need it. I need it. I'm thinking of, like, a Dave Chappelle skit. Like, I need it, man. It's my crack.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
I now know it was a very big deal in this journal. I meet MJ's lawyers, ethics committee, doctors were all involved apparently. Now my wife is a very convincing individual and I'm sure she, you know, explained that this is what I wanted.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
And this happened in multiple units. So, newer ICU, the place you go to after the ICU, which is like two floors above and longer building, Phillip's house in Ellison 22. This happened like multiple units because I was being moved around a lot. So multiple nursing units were like up in arms freaking out. I actually went back to do a talk.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
at mgh and i kind of like alluded to this situation and they're like they're like oh yeah we remember that one that happened here too i'm like oh i had no idea so yeah i was being jerked off all over the hospital I know, it's like I shouldn't be laughing, but it's just like, this is like part of the way I've got through this whole thing too, is with humor.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
And like, it's just so extreme that, yeah. To answer your question, how do I go on for so long? Head nurses, charge nurses, brought this up the ladder. I remember the ethics committee and lawyers coming in the room and hovering over my face and being like, Mr. Handel, Can you tell us if this is what you want? And I'm like, fucking frozen, locked in.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
So, I knew it was a big deal because of this, and I'm gonna say something without being able to fact-check it and know it's real, but I do believe I remember a time where it was like, these nurses are really outraged by this. The MGH ethics committee, a few doctors all in the room, and... Her telling them, like, no, like, this is what we want.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
He always wanted Kit really, really, really convincing everyone. And she did. She had them. You know, for lack of a better word, eating of her palm, you know. She's convincing. She's really good, you know, at that.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
I called him, I'm like, hey, I think you might need stuff. Jake provides his wife's maiden name. They're like, yep. And I'm like, great, I need that destroyed. And they're like, uh, it's not yours. I'm like, but it is mine. And they're like, no, it's hers. And I'm like, no, but it's actually mine.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
Every little thing was extremely painful, frustrating, itchy, scratchy, sensitive. Yes, fully aware of all pain. Quality of life was not good. All I really wanted to do is be able to say a few words to the people I loved, and that would have been good enough, and I was kind of ready.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
Mrs. Handel, your husband will not make it past Christmas. Now I can't see, I can just hear people and I have a sense of where people are around my bed in the room. And I hear, okay, I think I would like to get a sample. You know, it's funny, all these other medical professionals at first had no idea what she was talking about. I knew exactly what she was talking about.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
And they were like, ma'am, what do you mean? She's like, well, we always wanted kids before he dies. I want to get a sample so one day I can have his kids. And they're like, oh, no, no, no, you can't do that. And we'll tell you why. Two reasons. Number one, he's non-responsive. He's in a coma, and we don't know if that's what he would want. You can't do that.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
And number two, the simple act might kill him in his condition right now.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
And she just goes, how dare you tell me what I will or will not do with my fucking husband. If you don't like it or you don't want to watch, get the fuck out. I feel her going to town on me. Right in front of all of them, I assume. I mean, from what I felt, she was definitely jerking me off. Now, was it under the blankets, or was it wide out in the open? I don't know. I'm not certain.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
My feeling is it was right out in the open. And I remember hearing footsteps backing up to the door. Not much was said. I think everyone was kind of like shocked what was happening and no one knew what to do. You know, first of all, it felt... So it felt... What?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
I was having intense spasms from... I mean, you can imagine if a breeze of someone walking by you was burning your skin and ultra hypersensitive. What this would feel like? And it was like... really, really intense, and I'm spasming, and I feel muscles everywhere in my body, from my toes up to the hairs on my head, contracting and freaking out, and it felt good and painful all at the same time.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
I remember hearing charge nurse saying, oh, hell no, hell no, this is rape, this is not okay, and You know, I don't really know the other talkings of what was happening in the moment.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
You know, for the record, when I was diagnosed, because we did have two miscarriages, and we did want kids, and my grandmother, my dad's mother... On her deathbed, I went down to Texas to say my goodbyes, and about two weeks, ten days, something, before she died, sitting beside her bed, she took my hand, and she said, keep the family name alive, you're the last one.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
So I'm like the last handle, so... that always, like, kind of held weight with me, and I was like, I better have a son or else the handful name ceases to exist. And I told my wife that, and right around when I was diagnosed, she got mad, left, came back within that first month. We had one or two conversations about the idea of... Well, I still kind of could talk and function freezing a sample.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
Anyway, that was not revisited until this moment. There's a lot of other complex... issues and reasons why I was kind of would be willing to do anything I guess what I'm trying to say is in that moment if I could have spoke and my wife was doing this at that point anything she said would have would have went with me
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
She had all the power, like, ah, whatever, you know, if she said we should put him down right now, I would say, yeah, like, whatever she wants. I was, like, brainwashed, I think. Like, she had a hold over me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
I can hear the snores freaking out in the hallway. My wife is just going to town. I mean, I hear my heart machine going off. I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack. I mean, I always kind of felt like I was having a heart attack, but that's really pushed me into high gear. You know, if I was a car, I was redlining for sure.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
I started having these thoughts of back when we initially talked about freezing a sample and then it went immediately to, wait, do I actually want this? Because then what started happening was I started thinking about, well, wonder if I die and I don't know if she has a kid or if she does. Will she even tell the kid about me or give him my last name? And I started having all these thoughts.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
And then realizing, like, this should have really been thought out in a more careful way. And I didn't know what I want. And very quickly went through all these emotions. Next thing I know, it came. Didn't die. I assume it went into a urinal specimen cup. Now, why do I assume this? Because I have to go somewhere, and that's in the hospital room, so I don't know. But I had a feeling.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
And without saying a word, she scurried out of the room, and two nurses come in to clean me up, I guess. I don't know. Check on me, make sure I'm still alive. They start talking to each other. I can't believe that just happened. That's rape. This is so wrong. And one says, what a dumb bitch. She thinks she can run this at Boston Cardiogenics and that will work. It doesn't work this way.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
And I'm kind of like, oh, that's where it's going. You know?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
It's my wife, you know. I had a conversation with someone about this. And this was like back when I didn't think it was as bad as it was. And someone said to me, well, can you imagine if this was a woman in the hospital bed and you did this? And, yeah, I mean, as soon as I heard that, I'm like, well, that definitely wouldn't fly. No way. Cops swatting, like, they'd shoot you, bro. Why is that?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
8: Dude, Where’s my Sperm?
Different man versus woman, it should be the same. And, like, that's when I realized, when someone phrased it to me, can you imagine if this was reverse roles, different sexes, and you did this to your wife? Yeah, I was like, yeah. Definitely rape, you know, regardless of marital status.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
So that's when I first noticed something odd going on. I would expect, oh my God, this is amazing. Honey, honey, this is great, you know. There was no, like, real communication from her to me at that time. It was just her giving the doctors what I interpreted as grief. Her giving them grief. But on the other side of the coin, every now and again...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
She'd be like, honey, I'm, you know, like when doctors weren't in the room, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it so you get into spalding. And like, so there was flashes and glimpses of positivity and supporting this from her. But it was, it was strange. I was confused with what was happening.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
And they go, is it A, is it E, is it I? And you pick the row. And then once you pick the row, and I would signal the row by, you know, saying it on my tongue. And so if I, you know, said A, they would go, is it A, is it B, is it C, is it D? And when I got to D, and then they sorted the process over. So it's really painful to do when you're trying to have a conversation.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
So I noticed Ellen, my wife, beginning to pull away. I didn't think of it as her pulling away, but I more noticed something strange or off. She had definitely not been visiting as much. Which, you know, I didn't blame her because, you know, she was my only caregiver during hospice. Her choice, by the way, being the only one. She needs a breaker. I'm viewing it that way. And...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
I'm making these kind of huge gains in therapy in the scheme of things. But to me, they're still small in the scheme of things. But coming from where I came, everyone's like, it's pretty amazing what's happening here. I'm in PT and they got me in this program.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
walking harness rolling cart machine and they were trying to see if i could like take a few steps with like tons of support on either side people moving my legs and my wife and my mother-in-law walk in and all the therapists people are like oh my god so exciting look look what your husband's doing
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
I saw her face because I haven't been vertical in quite some time, and she just looked not happy at all. She looked a little disappointed. She was mad. A few days after this, my wife and mother-in-law, I've had, like, you know, I'm getting beat up in therapy. I'm exhausted. They come in the room. And my wife's like, hi, honey. Give me a kiss. And she's like, all right.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
Mom is going to, like, say a few things. I'll leave you guys alone. Leave the room. Hey. And my mother-in-law was like, oh, honey, I don't know how to say this. I don't know why I'm saying this. Ellen kind of needs a divorce. And I'm like, I mean, I just started like, I had this very weird scream, cry thing. That was the only thing verbally I could do. I could cry, I could scream, I could yell.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
But it sounded very strange. I was told from people at Spalding that I sounded like a wounded animal.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
They thought that was the end for me. They thought I would never bounce back from that. I don't think they thought I would necessarily die, but they didn't think I'd continue recovering.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
Like, nothing has happened. Like, nothing. I'm very perplexed, and the Spaulding staff was too, because obviously there's very little secrets in hospital life. And then she proceeds to tell me, I bought us a house. And not just any house, a big house that's all decked out with ramps everywhere. It's got a pool with a hoyer lift directly in the pool. And it's time for us to leave Spalding.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
And I'm like, huh? You know, in my head. And hit my call bell or something. And I tell, I'm like, well, it looks like I'm going home, you know, non-verbally. And they're all like, what?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
Sometime later, Jake's social worker presented an alternative.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
Everything seemed good, and she's like, okay, I'll be back tomorrow to visit you and see how things are going. And tomorrow came, and she didn't. And the next day came, and she didn't. And the next day, and the next day, and the next day.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
I emailed her with help, essentially saying, like, Hey, miss you. Would love for you to visit sometime, but take your time. You know, I don't want to push her. She wrote back. I am unable to visit the hospital. It gives me anxiety walking into a hospital. Can't do it. Maybe could do it by phone call. I just wrote back with help. Okay, I understand. She sacrificed so much for me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
Trying to be a thoughtful and an understanding husband and make the best of everything, so...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
It was getting to be obvious that nothing worked for her.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
This nurse comes in to give me my morning meds, and there's like a bunch of shit. And there's this one med called Lovenox, spelled L-O-V-E-N-O-X, and that is for blood clot. It's like an ejection in the stomach, which I honestly hated. It was very painful.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
And, you know, if you're in bed for a long time, or like all the time, it's very important you get this every day so you don't have blood clots. And she gives me all my meds, but she forgot the Lovenox. And I'm like, where's my injection, you know? And I can't talk. And I'm like, just like blinking my eyes a lot to signal like, and she's like, what's up? And I'm just like, I blinked my eyes.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
She's like, letter board. I'm like, circle my tongue for yes. And I start spelling letters. I get to L-O-V-E. And she's like, Jake, I don't have time for this. Like, we can't talk about love right now. Like, I got 18 other patients. And I'm like, blinking my eyes like crazy. And I'm just getting like all frustrated. And she won't let me. She's like, let's do it again. We get L-O-V-E.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
And she's like, calls in some other people. And she's like, you just keep spelling love. And, like, there's, like, eight people in my room. And, like, after, like, 30 minutes, they let me keep going on. And I spell N-O-X. And they're like, who do you love? Like, who is Knox? And I'm just like, ah. And then someone's like... Oh, Lovenox. He's so smart.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
And in my head, I'm like, I got fucking brain damage. And I'm like, what's your excuse? Like, you know? Anyway, all this cool recovery stuff started happening in February 2019. I kind of made my first ah sound. And that was a huge breakthrough. The speech therapy was like, oh, my God, see, I told you you could do one day. I started learning vowels, and my therapist is like, those are good.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
It's time for us to start working on words. And time for you to start thinking about the first things you want to say. Easily, it was the same as the last thing I said. I love you, you know, but I wanted to throw Ellen in there. I love you, Ellen. I love you, Ellen.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
I call in the nurse because at this point I can't tap my own. I have the iPad and the holder, but I can't use it on my own. They hold it in front of me. I'm in the bed. And she answers and looks puzzled. Boom, the call ended. She hung up on me. And it fucking broke my heart, and I knew it was over. It was hard to motivate me. It's hard to get me out of bed. It's hard to get me to stop crying.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
And shortly after that, I called in a social worker and non-verbally so I could be understood, I told him it was time for me to file for divorce and asked for help with that.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
I just, I didn't get it. It was like, you, you wanted this. We want, I thought this was the plan. But you've abandoned that plan.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
Fully aware of pain. I was in constant crisis, and I felt everything. And not only did I feel everything, I was hypersensitive to everything. A nurse who walked by in a speeding manner in the breeze would burn my skin.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
I went through a couple months of definitely freaking out and pain and talking to myself. And that's how it really began, the talking to myself out of boredom. What do you do when you're locked in your own body? You got no one to talk to, no one to calm you down. You can only do so many math problems.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
I remember it really started when people would come into my room, like nurses and medical professionals, and I would start talking to them as if they could hear me, and then I would, like... say the sarcastic answer like as if they were replying to me and I would just have these like dumb conversations I know it sounds crazy and then I was thinking about
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
meaning of life and death and I was having these deep philosophical thoughts and conversations with myself and it finally got to a point where you know I was convinced that I would die or be like this forever and had to come to terms with that and peace with that I started thinking about why why I'd been so upset and depressed my entire life.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
Essentially what started happening was there was this voice that was kind of like down in my chest, my heart, and I would be talking to myself in my original voice before I got sick from my heart. And my brain was... A version of my original voice, but deeper and wiser and more calm, would answer me. And I started having these conversations, you know, two voices, same voice, one deeper, both mine.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
So I never had time to grieve. I was, like, getting real with my next steps in life. Trying to figure out, like, where I live and money. You know, survival. I just kind of went off the rails. I obviously knew what happened, but I more understood the full picture when I talked through this with two voices.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
This self-help therapy retreat that happened in my own body, in silence, in medical arrest, probably took place for two months. And when I came at the other side of it, I was more at peace. Don't get me wrong, still miserable, still in pain, still probably looking forward to death at that point, but I was more okay with it after this self-talk. My brain, he took his time with his words.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
They were not as rushed as my panicky searching for answers. It was just Very sure of himself and calm, collective, and seemed to have all the answers. Something I don't think I ever really had, but I guess this was all me. I guess I did have the answers the entire time. It came from my brain. Amazing what the brain can do in this situation.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
You know, there's a lot of distractions in life when you're able to move around, talk to people. Most people don't have to sit with the thought by themselves for too long. Even those that choose to, you know, it's an hour and then move on to something else. I had no choice. I was like, all right, Jake, why were you so fucked up? Why was it always the next thing? Why were you such an addict?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
Why did I become such a mess? But it also was like other relationships, you know, romantic ones. It's so hard to explain. I just, I grieved all of it, you know, in this time. And I thought about what I could have done differently and what I should have done. You know, I had every thought pretty much imaginable during this time. There was never any like, oh, I wish I could go back and do it again.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
It was more like it is what it is. This happened. It was just trying to get some peace with it before death. I also knew it was a very real possibility. I'd be trapped like that for eternity forever. That's when I realized there was something scarier than death. And it was being trapped in your own body, complete isolation for the remainder of your life.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
Which, at that juncture, I started realizing might be another 50 years. And a day felt like a month, and a month felt like a year.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
And he goes, he's moving something, he's moving something. Hey, I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can do that again. And I did. I didn't know I did, but apparently I did. And they were like, wow, I want them under observation. I want someone from nonverbal augmentive speech therapy to come in and teach them how to blink. And in a week or two weeks, I was communicating by eye blink.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
6: Blink Twice
My wife was around for this, and there's something I couldn't... Again, I'm looking at the ceiling, mostly. Unless when people lean over me, that's the only time I could see them. But I could tell by something in her tone of her voice, she was frustrated with these healthcare professionals. And I couldn't understand why, because they're all doing their very best to help me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
The way he answered and knowing that he's like the world's expert, I was just like, oh, wow, maybe, maybe I'm not.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
No, but I remember to said to my wife, I said, oh, I love you.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
Autonomous storming, it's like trying to drive a car without gas. For me, I couldn't regulate body temperature anymore. I'd spike fevers of 106 and then I'd go down to hypothermia of like 95. So I'd be in that range back and forth. I would have tachycardia and triple tachycardia. I would spike over 200 beats per minute. I was diaphoretic, which means I'd be dripping sweat.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I felt like I was running a marathon, but I was paralyzed in bed. I'd have posturing, severe spasms. I would at times look like I was possessed. Like I had an exorcism in my back.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
Yeah. There was a demon inside me for sure. A constellation of symptoms would happen. And these storms can last anywhere from four hours. Mine would last 16. They would stop when I would pass out. And I would think I would die. I wasn't sure. Every time. Because storms, autonomic storms, are actually universally fatal. And I stormed for a year.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I survived, but I would pass out from my heart beating so fast. Then I'd wake up in a new hospital room, sometimes transferred to the ER, an ice bath, Spalding, back to MGH. Every time they transferred me, it would set me into a storm.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I would say from November-ish 2017 to February 2019, I stormed every day. The rapid change in body temperature was wild. I remember they were bringing in a team of like eight people. They're like, oh my God, we got to get this. Tim down, his brain is going to melt. They get me in a Hoyer lift. You know what a Hoyer lift is?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
A Hoyer lift. If you're bed bound and can't be moved, it's like a pad that goes under you that has all these like tethers. And they bring this machine. It's almost like a human forklift.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
Free Jakey. They put me in a heating blanket. It was like ridiculous. And then I start to notice no one's really talking to me. Nurses, doctors would come in. Hi, I'm Dr. Harrell. I'm here to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Hi, I'm your nurse, Jan. How you doing today? I'm here to change your IV. All that stopped. And people would come in and work and they wouldn't say anything.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
There are two nurses that are coming in to clean me up because obviously when you're paralyzed and bed bound, you just kinda go to the bathroom whenever. And they're coming in to like clean up this situation that I'm sure wasn't pretty. One's on either side of my hospital bed. I can only see them when they like lean in. So I kinda have a sense of who's there.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
And they're talking to each other, not to me, and one of them goes, oh my god, I gotta tell you about this really awkward hookup I had last night. And the other one gets giggly and is like, alright, alright, maybe we shouldn't talk in front of the patient, though. She goes, oh, don't worry, he can't hear you, he's brain dead anyway. And I'm like, what? They think I'm brain dead.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I'm Jake Handel. This is my story. I was becoming horribly contracted I couldn't walk to the bathroom I had to be carried I was in extreme pain so it wasn't like some rosy picnic eating blueberries My wife, Ellen, is advocating pretty strongly with the therapist in coming up with these ideas, strategies. She wouldn't accept there's nothing. She's like, what about this?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I mean, I'm sitting there. I'm like, this is the best cross talk I've heard all month. This is great. I was like, totally entertained. Yeah. I just start to like kind of panic and freak out. Like, wait, am I brain dead? Could it be? Is that possible? How can I interpret what they're saying? How do I remember my childhood? How am I thinking about my mom? How do I remember my phone number?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I'm like kind of mind blown, scared, freaking out. And immediately I'm on a mission. I got to let them know I'm not brain dead.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
They did a bunch of EEGs and stuff to kind of figure out how much brain function and activity was. My MRI showed this catastrophic brain injury. The white matter was gone. There was no possible way any neurologist thought I was with it at all. Vegetative at best. Disconnected from all reality then. I knew that I lost everything, and, like, my brain's a muscle. I should exercise my muscle.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
So I started talking to myself about everything, doing, like, geography, thinking about places I visited in the past. What's the capital of that? What's the capital of Hungary? What was that? You know, I'm thinking about all kinds of random crap when I wasn't storming or... nearly dying to exercise the brain to keep it sharp. And that, my friends, is the beginning of Locked In Syndrome.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
She slowly disconnected me from every person I knew. It started with friends because her reason was there were bad influences. In reality, I had several groups of friends. Friends know about bad influences. Then it started with extended family.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
Slowly moved to anyone in my family she didn't feel was quote unquote a good influence or helped me the right way or helped her help me the right way or whatever reason.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
My sister would come over, and she'd be like, what can I do to help? And then she'd do something for me, and Ellen would kind of snap at her and be like, you're not doing it right. Just leave. People wanted help, but no one wanted to get verbally abused. If it wasn't her way, then get the fuck out.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I want so bad to just be like, guys, stop, stop. I can't say anything. I can't move. Can't even cry. I just am there. And at this point, that was the point where I was like, just put me in a nursing home. This is too much for everyone. Let me, let me die.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
My dad, he was getting berated by her a lot, getting calls while he was at work, do this, pick up this. And by the way, go to the pharmacy and pick up my meds. She was the boss. I think my dad was probably like, fuck this, you know?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I just remember her footsteps, boom, boom, boom, boom, storming around the house, making calls on speakerphone to my dad. It going to voicemail, leaving messages like, where the fuck are you? You're 45 minutes late. So enraged. And then I hear the door open. And I hear footsteps coming. And I hear my wife screaming at him. Screaming. And I hear my dad going, why are you so mad?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
Just, I'm here, sorry, I'm here. And then I hear, are you drunk? You smell like alcohol. And then I hear, you're strangling me, you're strangling me. And then I hear a bottle pop, not like a glass bottle breaking, like A two-liter Coke bottle being boffed off someone's head. And then I hear a human being tumbling down the stairs, crashing into the door. And I hear my dad's mumbles. Ugh, ugh.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I want to say I heard, like, what or why did you do this to me? And then I heard the door open and someone crawling out the door and the door pull shut. And then I hear more storming around the house. Bathroom door slamming and my wife calling 911 and saying my father-in-law just tried to kill me, tried to strangle me. And that's all I know.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I did not see my father ever again or hear anything about him again or anyone in my family ever again.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
She would like look up things online. And she found Spalding Rehab. And I never heard of Spalding in my life. And she was advocating to get me into Spalding Rehab.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
She had this great ability to sense what I wanted. I thought that was amazing, this telepathy connection. And she could just know things when no one else knew things. She always decorated my room pretty festively, tried to do like fun things. She brought a bunch of her girlfriends over and they brought some karaoke machine and they were like singing karaoke for me. It was kind of cool.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I remember some family coming to Fairlawn, and particularly my Uncle Michael. He was someone I was always very close to and had a partying relationship with, among other things. Shout out, Uncle Mike. What up, big dog? He had like a pint of Smirnoff vodka with him. This pissed my wife off so much. Even though I was in like no place to, you know, drink, everything has to be kept away from Jake.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
So there was like this kind of beginning of certain people aren't allowed around Jake anymore.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
It was called Parsons Hill, referred to as Parsons Hell. I was definitely concerned. I get put on a TBI floor for traumatic brain injury. And there were a lot of drug addicts and people that yelled a lot and freaked out. I saw immediately what they called a person's health. And all the while, I'm deteriorating even more. I couldn't really pee, even though I felt the urge.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
My fingers were curling in, my ankles were stretching out, and I was starting to have these contractures, which are very painful. It feels like someone's pulling and molding your bones and tendons like clay. They were adding about five medications per week to my care plan. Stuff for anxiety, stuff for pain. Kind of like heavy narcotic pain meds that I thought were fun.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
Just like this whole array of medicines to treat different symptoms I was having. Nothing was working. It was the 4th of July. At this point, I need to hit the nurse call button for every single thing I needed. But this person's hell, and they're on your staff. No one's coming in, and I'm really thirsty. I'm able to sit up on the side of my bed, and there's a cup of water on the bureau.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
And I go to reach for it, and I have no stability, and I just fall like a sack of potatoes, right? And I hit my head on the bureau, and I slid up to the floor, and everything went black. I thought I had died. Apparently, it was like a bloody mess. All I remember is my eyes kind of like come to and this guy's over and he's like, you're okay, you're okay, you're going to be okay.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
And I'm like, am I dead? It was such a weird sensation in my body of this like tingling and everything was numb and it was like my body was humming. And now my wife and my dad happened to be walking in as all this is happening. I remember she comes into the room all kind of gung-ho and happy and immediately is like, what? Oh my God. How did you let this happen to my husband? Where's the ambulance?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
All I know from that moment forward, my left side was never the same. It was kind of numbish and not responding. Not like I throw the ball too much nowadays, you know. We can show you guys on camera how that would go. I'd aim for Gordon's head and I'd break that window. Strong-willed and insanely amazing advocate wifey was like, you're not going back there.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I was two people's full-time jobs, and I could have been team of six full-time jobs.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I was trying to put on the best attitude, really for my wife and other family too, but really for the wife because she was giving up really everything, her late 20s, to take care of me. I was getting emotional. I was getting sad, depressed about how my life ended up, how it was going to end, how much my father and my wife and... how sad their family was about this.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
and my body was becoming disfigured in front of my own eyes. I was just not really in a good headspace. I also felt like I was just always asking my wife to do something else for me. I felt like I was asking too much. I also wanted to have nice evenings. I obviously wanted romantic connection and sex and kissing and that kind of stuff, which in this situation was very hard.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I'd verbally say, like, come live with me or, you know, whatever. She'd be like, I just feel like I'm going to hurt you and I don't feel comfortable. I get it, you know, and obviously I'm not going to force this upon, you know. I remember the last time I actually had sex with her. I want to say that was like before Parsons Hill.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
Yeah. She was like, I can't do this. I can't do this. I feel like I'm raping you. And I'm like, but you're not. Like, I feel like I'm hurting you. I feel like I'm raping you.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
I'm sure it was very hard. It was hard for her. It was very hard for me. But I really was in so much pain. My skin was burning. Simple touch could hurt. She would only touch me with the glove. I'm not going to say I didn't enjoy it or anything, but it also felt to me like she felt it was another one of her tasks. It's like, get this out of the way.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
It would make me tense my body up and my fingers were approaching close to my palms and my nails would start digging in and spasms and my contractures would hurt.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
My mother-in-law and wife really ran the conversation. And again, my wife at the time was an excellent advocate and she was getting all these ideas to ask Fana. And it was about an hour of them just like talking, me just kind of laying in a stretcher. She's like, do you have any questions for him? And I kind of like come closer because I can't talk loud. And I go, ask him if I'm going to die.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
2: Locked-In
She goes, he wants to know if you think he's going to die. And I'm looking at this man right in the eyes. I was studying his facial expressions to kind of like gauge if I thought he was telling me what I wanted to hear or not. He looked puzzled, a genuine puzzled look of like, why would this guy even ask me such a thing? And then like went to like, no, I don't think so.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
I'm totally isolated. There's no people. There was a visiting hospice nurse and he comes and does one of his checks.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
She would always say I could tell he's in there by his eyes. So during this time, she would ask me, is this what you want? And I can do absolutely nothing. And she'd be like, yeah, that's what he wants. It was like she could like read my mind.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
I just remember him kind of hovering over me, checking things out. And he goes, well, Ellen... I think he only has hours left. It didn't really ring the alarm for me until I got rolled or moved and my eyes glanced at my chest and it was blue. I'm like an avatar. This might be it. The hospice nurse says, there's anyone you'd like to call to say they could buy us nails that time.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
And she called her mother-in-law, and she didn't call my family. And then the hospice nurse says, is there anything else I could get for you? She goes, I think I want a priest job. Unlike Jewish, the priest showed up like it was for me, and I was read last rites. I just remember saying to myself, well, I guess I'll take all the help I can get right now.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
While this was happening, my hospice nurse took it upon himself to call my dad.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
It was pretty tragic. The cops were kind of like rushing this. My dad's like crying and coming close to me. And my wife is muttering words, nasty things, like, well, he's, like, crying to me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
Yeah. And whispering in my ear, like, it's okay. It's okay, my boy. You're going to go see your mom. It's okay. It was, like, very heavy and sad.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
I'm just like, guys, everyone, like, you can all be sad or, like, angry or, like, whatever, but just stop giving each other shit. As all this bickering is going on, I experience this very strange experience, but... I believe this was the closest you can come to death. In fact, I believe this, what I experienced, might be death. I'm looking at the ceiling.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
It was like this hum of a fluorescent light started coming. dulling out the bickering. It was getting harder to hear that, and by simultaneously, my pain began to dissipate. I'm getting this kind of calm, and the hum is getting louder, and their voices are now silent. They're like on mute, and I'm no longer in pain. I'm saying to myself, wow, this must be death.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
I have enough time to start thinking about my mom on hospice and I know she was in pain and it gave me comfort to know. I don't know, but I felt like I knew that maybe her pain was non-existent at the end. I didn't want to die, but I wasn't scared of it either. I actually felt calm and at peace.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
You know when you're watching an old school cartoon, the picture kind of gets closed and it's like this black surrounds it? It was like that, slowly. It was like, I'm losing more and more and more, and now I'm just seeing it lit. And then, like, lights out. And I had enough time to say, I just died. And I was asleep. And then I woke up and I was in horrible pain. And I said, oh, fuck.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
Still here. So in my brain, it was nothingness until I woke up. And I have no idea how many hours went by.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
5: Making Peace with Death
God, that near-death experience makes me like tear a little bit. Not cry, but you know.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
There's all these soldiers there, like probably like 400. Okay.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
That was the last pack of cigarettes that was bought for me. Life was never the same.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
My routine turned into, like, I'd wake up in the morning, before I did anything, I'd smoke heroin for hours. five to eight minutes cigarette, brush my teeth, but I would have a very productive day. So another thing, a lot of people would like nod out and be incapable of doing much. It was like a cocaine for me. I was amped up. I was ready to conquer the world, like do everything.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
It was like my spinach. Like, if I was Papa, I just needed a little more, a little more, a little more. I could be high out of my mind and put out a 250-person wedding. Easy. No issues. And then walk out and, like, talk to, like, the bride's family after and, like, oh, yeah, but I would duck off to my produce cooler, take a hit.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I'd duck off to the bathroom every time I'd be, take a hit, you know. That was just, like, you know, that's how it was for years.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I'm so sorry to tell you you have this really rare brain disease. And thank you for being honest with us about your drug use because I'm not sure we'd realize otherwise. You have something called acute toxic progressive leukoencephalopathy disease. And this was caused by inhalation of a toxin. And, you know, it's pretty catastrophic in the white matter of your brain. And they laid it out for me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
They were like, acute means is happening right now. Toxic means inhalation of a toxin. Progressive means it will only get worse, never get better. And leukoencephalopathy means disease of the white matter of the brain. I didn't know what it really looked like for me, but then they got into that and they were like, so you might survive this. You know, that would be very rare.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
But month one, you won't be able to walk. Month two, you'll have a difficult time sitting. Month three, trouble talking and swallowing. Month four and five is when you're, you know, stage four, end of life type thing. And then you'll likely slip into a coma and die. And I said that a lot. I was like...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I really fucked up and I'm just thinking about, you know, where I went wrong in life and thinking about my mom who died. And I'm just like, I really, really screwed up and not the way I thought my life was headed.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I sat there with my thoughts, lied there for 20 minutes. I kind of said to myself, well, fuck it, you're dead anyway. And picked up the phone and called my ex, Adrian. And I said, can you bring me a package to UMass Memorial Hospital? And she's like, what's wrong? I go, it's not good, but I just need a little something. She's like, yeah, of course, I got you. But what's happening?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I'm like, oh, they're just giving me six months to live. She's like, oh, my fucking God. Jake, I can't bring that to you. And I was like, I'm dead anyway. I'm going to die. And she's like, don't make me do this. I'm like, I don't want to make you do anything, but please. And, yeah, she came back. I started getting high in my hospital bed, smoking off tinfoil.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I was having a hard time even smoking it anymore. I was like deteriorating that rapidly. I couldn't even do something. I... Teed multiple times a day, you know, for years. And the nurse walks in and sees me. And she's like, what? And I'm like, what's the difference? She's like, hold on, leaves the room. And a bunch of doctors come in.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
The cops were like, we know what's going on here. You do it if you want to do it. But you should think about how you want to live your remaining days. And they left me with that. My wife came back after the cops looked around for the sash. And she was like, I'm leaving you. Like, I'm out of here. You're on your own.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I'm like, I'm thinking about, you know, when I was watching my mom die in hospice and how that led me to this rough path of self-medicating and, you know, really fucked me up emotionally. And I'm like, you know, I love my wife and. I'm just like, yeah, you should not stick around for this. You know, like, it's not good. I don't blame you. I could tell she was so angry and hurt.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
That's why she was just being rough with her words. And, you know, she's like, I'm going to Seattle. And I knew it was in Seattle, her ex in Seattle. Going back with him. She ducked off. She got a flight. She went to Seattle. She's gone. I think gone forever, kind of. After two hours smoking this, I'm just kind of like, all right. I know how I want to, like, live my last days.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I threw the shit, like, on the floor, and I was like, I'm done with that. For me, but also for my dad and my siblings and even my wife, even though she's gone. So I make the decision. This was May 25th, 2017, Memorial Day weekend, to just... you know, fight and not get high.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
There was a side of me that was like, well, I know there's no chance, but maybe, maybe if I get my shit together and do everything I can do, I could beat this. And I asked them, is there any medicine for this? And they're like, no. And I'm like, is there anything I can be doing?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
And they were also like, and eat blueberries as much as you can. Do you like them? And I was like, oh, I fucking love blueberries.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
And I would eat pints. You know, I just had that mindset of like, I'm going to try and prolong my life and or maybe beat this.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I'm losing the ability to text by now already. And hold the phone to my ear, so get a call from her. And I answer it. And she's like crying. She's like, I miss you. And I'm like, I miss you too. And she's like, can I come home? And I'm like, I'm like, well, there isn't much of a home to come home to. This is kind of it. She was like, I fucking hate it out here.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
There's too many drugs and I'm doing too many drugs and I'm miserable. And I just, I just want to come home. Am I allowed to come home? I like wanted her still. But I also like knew this would be horrible for her. So I was torn. I miss you terribly and I'm sad. And like, but this is not good. And she was like, you know, I told her, I was like, this is not really good for you.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
And she was like, I don't care. I want to like take care of you. And I was really torn. I was like, like I knew it would be a good thing for me. So like, I was like kind of like screaming in my head, just say yes. But I knew how hard it'd be for her. And she came back and she was like totally different, positive. She got so into trying to figure out the best way
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
things for me, like strategies with ways to take care of me and experimental treatments and like she was just all in.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
And advocate. She really was the best at this for a while. I may have been blinded by the love I had for her and I'm just realizing there was A lot I overlooked. Perhaps sinister stuff.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I noticed my driving was a little off. And, you know, I used to be a fairly good driver, but I was just soaring all the time. And I would say to myself, like, come on, Jake, pull it together. At this time in my life, I... You know, I was doing a lot of drugs and a lot of reasons in my life to make me sort of at the wheel or act weird. But this was not baseline at all.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
And I knew something was wrong, but I was in denial, I guess. I was just avoiding it and didn't even think it was a big deal.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
The first thing I would do before I'd brush my teeth is freebase a little heroin off tinfoil. And, um... I had no time for that and to brush my teeth that was already late. So I hopped in my car and, um, I just, you know, you need that fix when you're that hooked on the substance like this.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
So I, I decided I would smoke it while I was driving, which sounds wild and it is, but something I had done hundreds of times, um, But I was like more in a frantic rush to get to work. So I'm like driving with my knee, pen in my mouth, lighter under the tinfoil and like speeding and kind of brain damaged, you know, which I didn't even know.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
And I just kept swerving and I'm like, God, what is wrong with you? I kept saying that. And then I looked in my rear view and I noticed there were blue lights.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
As I opened the center console, I'm trying to put the stuff into it. It was like my brain froze and the connection that my brain was telling to move the arm and the hand to put it away. It wasn't working. So I'm, like, kind of frozen with all this drugs and paraphernalia in my hand as a cop is walking to the window. He didn't even say, like, do you know why I pulled you over?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
He was just like, man, you're driving like a... Like a psycho, what's going on? And then like stops and he's like, what's that in your hand? And I'm just kind of like, uh, uh, uh, uh, like I couldn't even formulate sounds. And then my brain did something else weird. He didn't even ask me for my license, but I was fixated on getting him my license and And I'm like, oh, just, like, hold on.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I'm just looking for my license. And I start, like, reaching under my seat, which obviously I've dealt with cops a lot. And I knew this was, like, a horrible idea.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
Because he thinks I'm probably reaching for a weapon. And I knew he was very nervous. I'm freaking out. Like, stop moving around. But even though I knew all this, I could not control... anything. He took out his gun and he's like, stop moving right now.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I get ripped out of the car by like six cops and like thrown on the ground and handcuffed. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not a bad guy. Like, I'm not trying to cost her. Like, I'm sorry.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
And I just start talking to the guy about like my drug use issues and I'm just blabbing to him. Something that was really off too because I mean I would never voluntarily tell a cop anything in my life.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
line of work of a drug dealer and slash user i'm like shut the fuck up jake like what are you doing jake is brought to the westboro police station and begins the booking process my fucking wife is gonna kill me
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
But I'm like, no, like, I'm high 365 days a year, and this is not, like, I'm very high function. This is, like, not me, guys.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
extremely frequent I would say hourly if I was at work I could go four hour stretches but the difference is I never got my morning 15 minutes of smoking because it was interrupted by the police so I was already feeling like not 100% to begin with but I'm like towards the end of this hour I'm like I gotta get something
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
I had trouble getting into his car, and I could tell that he knew something was off with me.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
A very big drug dealer, bigger than I ever dreamed of from my own aspirations in that category. She was my hookup and I hit her up.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
She wasn't happy when he got home. And I was, you know, weird voice, weird balance, falling apart kind of. She's like, you need to go to the hospital. Something's fucking wrong with you. I think deep down I knew probably a good idea but I didn't want to go.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
Just like junkies do, I'm thinking. Well, I'm going to be at the hospital. I better, like, get my fix in before I go. So I'm in the bathroom. And this was the moment I really knew I was fucked. I opened this, like, five gram baggie. All I would do is take the baggie and pour, like, pinch out a little of it. but I couldn't even untie the bag.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
My fingers, my hands, like, they weren't working, so I couldn't even get the bag open, so I put on my teeth, and I just pulled it off, and I go to dump a little, and I dump the whole fucking thing all over the place.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
1: Blink
This is not my husband. She's like, listen to his voicemail. She takes out the phone and plays my voicemail. I really did have like a totally different voice.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
The only reason I knew about Munchausen by proxy was that movie The Sixth Sense. I didn't think of it in the sense at the time like she made me sick or was making me sick. I thought she enjoyed the attention of people. Caring for me or the sympathy or whatever. So I did Google Munchausen breath proxy.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
So, my head went two different ways. I never thought I was malicious. Like, I don't think she wanted me dead. I don't know. I mean, maybe anything's possible. You're not true to crime. Like, that stuff happens. She really liked the attention. She really liked the control. So, I believe you asked me, would that change things? And honestly, I'm at a point in my life where everything just is...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
So I don't think it would change much. If we find out for 100% certainty she, in fact, did this to me, like, yeah, that's fucked up for sure. Is that going to change how I live my life or think? No, I don't think so. Do I want her to spend the rest of her life in jail? No, not really. But if she did do this, like, that's... It's dangerous.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Those thoughts went through my head because it was so strange for me that, you know, wonder if I could survive. No one else had. And if I could and I got there. through, then we could rebuild the life we always thought about. And then that was actually happening in its infancy, and she started backing up and distancing herself, and I thought that was so weird.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
So this was going through my head, and I'm learning new information day by day. So I googled Mudge Heslinbury Proxy, and
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
And so I sent to a generic inbox on the website. I was like, Jay Candle, I'm in the hospital. I went through something crazy. I had a question. And then he kind of, I think within 48 hours, answered, which I was shocked. And then connected me with a team of people.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
And they needed a bunch of money from me to pursue the investigation at the time that was, you know, I was trying to get out of the hospital. That was the main goal that time.