James Patterson - Med Head

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

To the Angels

To Dr. Ruth Bruun, the angel who pulled us up when our own wings were broken. Your dedieation to all of your patients who have struggled with Tourettes syndrome cannot be measured, and you are loved and renowned for your profound wisdom and very great heart.

And to Jessie, our daughter, who weathered a childhood filled with great sadness and great inspiration. And yes, one day we will go to Disneyland.

Hal and Sophia Friedman

Cory's Dedication

In my thirteen-year search for help, I tr aveled to places far from home and met many people, young and old, with medical conditions so extreme that I could not have imagined they existed.

I will never forget these special friends and their heroic battles with the phantoms that inhabited their minds.

1 understand them, and they understand me.

I hope that this account of my life, which in many ways might be similar to theirs, will give them and others like them a measure of comfort and hope. And Tm grateful to my father and to James Patterson for helping to tell my story to the many people who might benefit from it.

To those like me, who are forced to travel a road that few others can even conceive of, I wish you peace, and a way home.

Cory Friedman

Introduction by Ellen Hopkins

Perhaps youre surprised that James Patterson asked me to write a foreword for one of his books. To tell you the truth, 1 was a little surprised myself. 1 write contemporary young-adult novels, while Pattersons Maximum Ride series carries readers into a world of cutting-edge sci-fi/fantasy. But then Med Head came in the mail. A nonhction story about a young man struggling to make sense of the circumstances of his life? Well, excise the word nonfiction, and the description might very well be of an Ellen Hopkins book.

If youve read my work, you know I write about young people on the edge. People whose lives are touched by addiction. Depression. Thoughts of suicide. People faced with choices. Sometimes they make good ones; often, they dont. Either way, their choices come to dehne their lives, not only in the present but also in the future.

But imagine if you didnt have a choice about something that dehned your life. Something you were born with that set you apart from the mainstream. Something that forced you onto the fringe. Something you had no power to control. Eor Cory Eriedman, that something is Tourettes syndrome combined with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Both

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involve unusual ways that certain chemicals react in the brain.

Someone with OCD has intense obsessions and compulsions that interfere with his or her daily life. Obsessions are often irrational; for example, someone may believe that something awful will happen if his clothes arent arranged by color in his closet. (My son doesnt care whether his clothes are hung up at all. In fact, he doesnt care whether theyre picked up off the floor!) Compulsions are rituals that relieve some of the anxiety caused by obsessions. For example, someone whos obsessed with germs might wash her hands over and over again.

Tourettes is a condition that gives someone uncontrollable tics. A tic is a sudden and repeated physical action. Tics include coughing, clearing the throat, and grunting. Another verbal tic is coprolalia, which is saying obscene words without wanting to. This might be what you think of when you hear the word Tourettes, but it is a relatively rare tic.

Think for a minute how either of these disorders might affect your life. What if you couldnt walk out the front door without returning to the kitchen five times to make sure the stove was off? Thats an OCD compulsion. Or what if you stood up to read in front of a classroom and your head kept jerking to one side? Thats a Tourettes tic.

Now think how your life would be if you had them both. No wonder Cory also experienced major depression. No wonder, for a time, he self-medicated with alcohol. No wonder he was often without good friends who could understand his condition.

Youre probably wondering why Cory didnt just take

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some sort of medication to keep things under control. The simple answer is, he did. From the time he was diagnosed with Tourettes when he was a little boy, his doctors prescribed several different drugs, in many dosages and combinations. But trying to regulate brain chemistry isnt easy, and individual patients respond in unique ways to medications. Corys doctors spent years tr)dng to come up with the exact right treatment. The results of their efforts varied. Now and then, for a brief time, Cory seemed to be doing better; at other times, not so well. For a short while, he used a wheelchair.

Doctors and nurses dehnitely have had their important places and times in my life, Cory says. But when it comes to matters of the mind, cognition, OCD, et cetera, we really know relatively little compared to our knowledge of the rest of our bodies.... Sometimes it felt like Id become a guinea pig in an experimenters lab.

Corys parents stayed resolutely by his side throughout a thirteen-year nightmarea recurring cycle of hope (when some new treatment was offered) and crushing blows (when it didnt work, or made things worse). Corys father, Hal Friedman, says, Cory himself became the reason we didnt give up hope, because through it all he never did. It wasnt as if he believed that the next medicine or next doctor would cure him. I think he turned cynical about that before we did. It was his never-say-die attitude, the conviction that he would make it the way he was.

As with all teens, however, there was a side to Cory that his parents didnt see. The side that dealt with pain, loneliness, and rejection with increasing amounts of alcohol. He had a basement room where hed chill, sometimes with

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friends but often alone. One night, he passed out with a lit cigarette in his hand. He woke up choking, lungs aching. The cigarette was smoldering inside a couch cushion. The room was hlled with smoke. Cory had almost burned the house down.

It was a striking moment of clarity, one that forced him to rethink not only the choices he had been making but also the way he was dehning his life. He decided to quit accepting the role of victim and to hnd a way to overcome his Tourettes and OCD, not with drugs and alcohol but rather with the sheer force of his will.

Cory checked into a wilderness challenge program (much like the one in my book Impulse) and went on to conquer mountainsnot only in the literal sense but also the metaphorical rifts and peaks of his life. He says of living with Tourettes, There will always be ups and downs, but were forced to become soldiers, and our passion for the joy thats possible in life is what keeps us going.