dejavu

Ten years ago, Stu got a letter from the Red Cross, rejecting the unit of blood he had donated a week before. The letter said his liver enzymes were elevated and he should have it checked out by his physician.

That was the start of the roller coaster ride of his health for the past decade. At first, he went through the tests recommended by the doctors and we believed them when they said they had ruled out the bad stuff.

A year or two later, a mom of one of his friends approached me at a high school band party and told me about her husband's illness, how it had started with elevated liver enzymes, progressed eventually to a transplant, and despite my protests, insisted that we keep a close eye on Stu's health, because elevated liver enzyme are not to be taken lightly.

Gradually, over the next few years, we realized the mom at the band social was right. After enough time and numerous tests and procedures and surgeries, we found ourselves unable to deny that our kid had serious health issues. And at times, it was nearly overwhelming. For all of us. But at some point, we talked to the right people who had a plan to get him back to healthy and we focused on that plan and while he endured so very much, before we knew it, even though it seemed endless at the time, Stu came through it and seems stronger and healthier than he has in years. Nearly ten years.

The past week has felt eerily similar to those early months ten years ago. I am certain that identity thieves count on the denial factor, that extra bit of time they have when they first steal someone, to allow them to quickly take what they can before they are stopped. I suspect we will be living with this identity recovery business for a while, but we (and by we, I mean Jack) recognized something was wrong, very early on, and we started focusing and made a plan, and even though I was on the verge of shattering today, somehow, we got through it (sans medication!) and I can see us on the other side of this mess. Eventually.

As a side note, it looks like the thief is buying stuff that can be re-sold for quick cash, probably for drugs. Don't you think that drug users who steal to support their habits give non-stealing drug users a bad name?