If your not sitting down - your going to want to as you read this post. It is weird...
Last Saturday our older daughter called home from college. She is done with school, finishing up a few jobs and will move home in mid August. That is not soon enough for her parents, especially after what just happened. Katie is a very responsible young adult. She graduated with a double major in journalism and elementary ed. She has a 3.9 GPA and played division one soccer for the Hawkeyes for 3 years. She generally makes good choices but not all the time.
She has 4 jobs this summer- she tutors, she is a nanny, she teaches summer science camp to kindergarteners and she is a bartender a a local restaurant/ bar. She worked on Friday night as a bartender from 9 pm -2 am. She ate dinner at her restaurant at 8:30 pm. After her shift was over she had a couple drinks with a few of the other workers and then walked home with 2 of them. At about 3:00 she left the last person at their house and walked the last 4 blocks to her place by herself. We think? Because from that moment on she remembers nothing. The next thing she remembers is walking down the street wondering "where am I and why is it light out?"
She walked around for a little while and then saw a policeman. She tried to approach him and ask him questions but he was busy with something else and kind of blew her off. When she figured out where she was, she walked home. The scary thing is she remembered nothing, nothing at all. She lives with 6 other girls so one of them went to the hospital with her where she was checked for possible evidence of s*xual assault. We have not heard back but they did not think she was assaulted- praise the Lord.
She spent Saturday racking her brain trying to figure out what had happened. She called us but did not explain the situation to her Dad- so we didn't know about it until Saturday night. I called her and she just started crying. It was very scary for her and it is so frustrating not remembering. Her purse and all personal possessions in it were missing. She had no recollection of ever having them but knows she would never leave work with out them. She did not feel under the influence of alcohol when she left work that night but of course alcohol can be deceiving. Her co- workers said she did not seem under the influence either. She did see the policeman again later that day and he was very nice, concerned and helpful.
She checked her phone records and her bank account. Her phone had not been used and her bank account showed no activity.
Her first thought and mine were that she was drugged at the end of her shift and it hit her system while she was walking home.
Our current thought is that she was not drugged but that she may have a sleep walking problem and that combined with alcohol made for a very dangerous situation. She has fallen asleep while talking to friends on the phone and has sleep walked at her place at school.
On Sunday she continued to search for any clues and for her things.
This morning (Monday) she got a call from a sorority house a block away. Her things were found by the house mother who had been away for the weekend. They were hidden with in the landscape - in fact this woman thought it was a crime scene and was afraid to touch them and wondering what had happened to their owner.
Katie is going to follow up with her Doctor and check into a possible sleep disorder, she is definitely shook up about it and thankful to God that she is okay. Me- I am more than thankful- I am forever grateful to our dear Lord for watching over her that night and protecting her from harm. Thank you, thank you Jesus!
For now we are baffled and thankful.
I asked Katie if I could post about this- she gave me the okay. I know that she has learned from this situation and we hope that others may learn, too. There have been many stories in the media with college kids and alcohol. Most of the kids are not as lucky as our daughter was. It is a dangerous combination- alcohol, being over tired, working late, socializing with people you don't even know- I do worry about my college kids. Yet they need to have independence and learn to be an adult. We think our daughter is wonderful and we are so thankful the whole situation did not go in a different direction
