Vic – Did you ever consider suicide?

It’s a hard question to say yes to, but yeah.  I can remember laying in bed here, and thinking, “Wow, this is just—I’d probably be better off dead.  I’m half dead; I’d probably be better off dead, because I’m just going to be a burden on everyone, especially my family and all that for the rest of my life, or as long as I live.”  And so I thought, “Why not just get it over with?”  In fact, my wife—I didn’t discuss that specifically with her, but I think she knew I would get kind of depressed at times—she was a little scared to let me drive by myself for a while there, and I guess that was the reason now that we talked about it.  But, she was a little afraid that I was going to hit the wall or something like that with the van.  But, I never acted out on anything.  I can remember looking at the bottle of pills going, “I wonder if there’s enough in there just to take me right out?”  At one point in time, I remember thinking that question, if I wanted to go out.  And then when the pharmacy switched over from these 30-day things to this 90-day things, I’m thinking, “That’s enough to take me out there, that’s a huge pitcher of medicine.”  So, yeah, I did, I have to admit I did.  I haven’t in a long time, and that was in the first year, which I think was the hardest, it really was.