Amber Jelderks' Story

The Worst Week It was in Winter of 2012, when this happened. Me and my brother have a pretty close relationship. Kinda weird right? Well, he's a big part of my life. His name is Ronnie and he has Down Syndrome. Ronnie is always there for me and tells me what to do and not to do. He tells me to stop smoking, which is now hard to do because I'm around everyone who does. We're around our mom so much, it's impossible, but he never will do anything bad to himself. He's a buff, smart, man. We have fights here and there the regular brother and sister, but ours is different. Ours don't get physical of emotional. We'll be mad at each other for like an hour and we're over it. One day, I was mad because my mom pays so much attention to Ronnie, so I stopped talking to them. The next day, Ronnie was in the hospital with a bad fever and pain. I felt so bad that I didn't talk to them and was mad. I no ride to go see him, so the only way I can talk to him is that I call him. I told him I was sorry and he says "I'm sorry." He always repeats what I say and he thinks he did something wrong. I said "Buddy, don't be sorry. Just get better and I'm sorry for yelling." I kept asking about him and the next day, he was vomiting and not breathing normally. My mom said that he made himself worked up that he got red spots all over his face! I was so frightened and I really didn't want to go see him now. It scares me because my brother never gets sick. About a week later, he recovered and came home. He was fine! All laughs and smiles and then he told me "I'm sorry." I said "No Ron, I'm sorry." I spent the weekend over there. Then I came home and my dad needed to be rushed to the hospital. I was like great, another one of my loved ones to the hospital. My dad has Multiple Sclerosis, which mean he can't walk and his muscles are very weak. My dad cannot walk. He is paralyzed from the waist down. It was hard. I only lived with him, so I had to live a lone for the past couple weeks. I had people who would help me and buy my food. I just didn't want to live with my mom. It was pretty bad and they don't know if they want to leave me home alone again. I don't wanna say what I did, but I don't think it was that bad. I mean everyone tries something different, right? But they gained my trust back after I worked hard for it. My dad was so sick, he had pneumonia. It was terrible because he can't move and breathe. Today he's on oxygen because he had pneumonia again. He's doing worst today than ever. I thought this was one of the worst weeks I ever had. Two of my close ones in the hospital the same week.