After a bit of a break, I am back at it again discussing how I got where I now am and how it interacts with my chronic illnesses. Unlike other parts of my story, which are able to be easily segmented this one does not really have that ability so I apologize in advance for its length and choppiness as I have tried to cut down what I can without screwing up the story/events.

If you are new or have missed any of the previous parts here are the shortcuts to them. Part Ones Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five

While others may love the idea of moving and taking a jump into the unknown... I absolutely unequivocally HATE moving. Everything about it sucks from the packing to the unpacking and all the spets in between. While I would have a roommate and he was providing a ton of the common area furniture, since he already owned an apartment worth of furniture, my parents wanted to keep what I had in my bedroom there instead of paying to ship a bedroom set across the country and then have to buy and have it carried up to my bedroom on the second floor. 

Since my parents were making the logical choice not to pay extra money shipping everything around I had to go out with them and find/purchase things like a bed and have them shipped to DC instead of my house. Thankfully for everyone, I am not picky when it comes to bed frames/types I just wanted a moveable bed so I could rise it and lower it as needed for my health. Funny enough though it was not going to be there when I got there so I would need to spend I believe it was 5 days on an air mattress.

In total, I think I had 8 maybe 9 boxes of stuff that were able to fit in the Uhaul and Uhual trailer. I wasn't exactly given/allowed too much space because there were two staffers for the Congressman, the Congressman himself, and I all moving together in a caravan more or less. The other things that I "needed" were either going to be brought to me by my parents when they came to visit or were going to be brought back by myself when I would fly home next.  

The move itself took 3 days (two nights spent on the road) with 3 vehicles and 7 people traveling from Southwest Houston to Washington, DC. Unknown to me we did not take the most direct route because the "adults" wanted to stop at the casinos in Louisiana of course! I had been on road trips before but for the most part, they had been confined to Texas (you can drive 14 hours from Houston towards El Paso and still be in the state for what it's worth) so it was a pretty interesting journey for me. Factor in that this was in the middle of the world being shut down it was again a pretty wild time to not only move but move across the country. 

While Texas has a number of different terrains for the most part it is pretty basic and bland flat landscapes so this road trip was a great eye-opening adventure for me! This helped me with the whole being cramped in a car for hours upon hours at a time for some stretches only stopping for gas and not even having enough time to get out of the car. The vehicle I was in was hauling a Uhaul trailer and two other guys were driving a Uhaul truck so that was a pretty interesting experience. Would I ever do this again? Nope, but for a one-off thing, I will say it was pretty cool! I learned enough watching them navigate the mountains and yeah I can drive a trailer but with those roads, I would never want to. 

We arrived in DC late morning/early afternoon and were able to drop one guy's stuff off first before we went across the street to our apartment and dropped off everything else. The Congressman ended up moving into an apartment literally two doors down which was cool but also... did we want him that close?!?! All I had to unpack were clothes and unroll my air mattress as it was a couple of days before my bed and other stuff would arrive. As I unpacked the little other stuff I had I made note and quickly ordered needed stuff off of good ol Amazon. To kill the rest of the time I ended up helping my roommate and the Congressman move in since I didn't have anything else to do! 

The next few days as things from Amazon and furniture arrived I continued to take care of those things but also ran around with the rest of the group that I came in with. Congressman Nehls had tons of different things he was supposed to attend as well as things he was hosting we would be able to go to as well. Honestly between the time we arrived and when he was sworn in on January 3rd was nothing short of a whirlwind and something that was really cool to go through once but again not something I would do again because it is pretty chaotic.

Looking back at this move I have pretty serious doubts on if I would be able to do it the way I did again. Given what my life is like now I know I would struggle immensely because I am in a highly stressful job and what my body needs now has changed significantly over the last ~4 years. In many ways, I am healthier than I have ever been but that is at a tradeoff of not doing things like sitting in a car for hours upon hours, staying up late and waking up early, and by far the most important thing, letting other dictate the pace we are going at and how far we push it. I easily overdid it but given the mixture of being in a new place and starting essentially a new life, I pushed my body's needs out of the way. 

Going into 2021 I had a ton of hopes of quickly finding a job, even though the workforce situation was pretty terrible. My roommate at the time started work on January 3rd, as soon as the Congressman was sworn in, so I had a ton of time to myself and even in the first few days, I would get asked to run something up to him at work. I think you can see where this is leading so let's get into the day that will be seared into my head for the rest of my life.

It was no hidden secret that there were going to be protests on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, as this was the day that the rally was scheduled and when Congress was due to ratify the Electoral College results. Some measures had been taken like the short metal fencing had been put up around the capitol and due to how some of the George Floyd protests had been in DC some businesses did board up their windows and close for the day. Looking back at the time we knew it was going to be rough but I had never lived in a downtown area where a protest of any sort of scale would take place. 

The day itself started out just fine nothing crazy was going on. It was a work day so my roommate went to work like normal and I submitted some job applications and kicked up my feet to watch some TV. Since we lived so close to the Capitol and my roommate had wanted to take pictures but was stuck at work I decided I would go walk around a bit take some photos and leave. Before I left my apartment I reached out to him to make sure the coast was clear and that there were not any issues and he responded that everyone said it was calm, that there were no issues. 

I got to the Capitol around 1 pm and for the most part, everything was calm and quiet. I took some videos and pictures from the east side of the building before realizing that the west side was where people were gathering and headed over that way. On the way I ran into a nice police lady and talked to her about how the day was going and she surprised me by being so concerned that I was there by myself and encouraged me to leave. Within a couple minutes I heard the first bangs of the police firing crowd dispersal guns and at that point started walking back home not even wanting to see if there was an issue or if it was a preventative thing. 

I didn't get far though before my roommate called me. The Congressman had left his voting card in his apartment so he and the Communications Director had gone back and gotten it. Everything shut down when they drove the car on the 5-minute round trip. So here I am walking past the House Office Buildings with a roommate calling me driving around freaking out because neither of us really knows the area and they have also closed several streets that we did know. I circled back to try and find him so at least we were together and right around that time I received two phone calls one from my friend who was a Marine stationed at Quantico Virginia and the other from his wife. Since they were lifelong friends (I went to pre-k with one and first grade with the other) and ran around together since then they had my location. I missed the husband because by the time I hit accept it was the wife's call I answered and she told me I needed to go home right now it was bad. Her husband immediately called me back and so I told her I was getting off to talk to him and I could hear the helicopter firing up in the background as he was yelling into the phone I have to go now to grab my roommate and get back to our apartment. 

I went into overdrive then just running following Find My Friend after my roommate and after a solid 10-15 minutes of running I found him. In between us and our apartment was the Capitol and against my better judgment my roommate wanted to walk kinda sorta by it to take some pictures. When we got home I was just blank I had no emotions I had no energy I was just meh. I was struggling to process it all. Everything that I had seen because even when I thought back to okay it could be bad it was never this bad. 

At around 3 am the next morning, mere hours later, my roommate and I woke up to some pretty sturdy knocks on our door. It was the Congressman and his Comms Director. They had just gotten back from finalizing the election and needed a beer something we kept plenty of. Ironically, he seemed to think we were still awake when both of us were trying to gather our senses because we had been out cold. They stayed for about an hour before he headed out to his apartment two doors down and the Comms Director went home. Even now looking back on the events it is surreal given the complete and utter chaos that had ensued. 

After a few weeks of interviewing and a ton of waiting only for nothing to happen and jobs to ghost me the Member of Congress I moved up to DC with offered me an internship. Since I was going stir crazy being in my apartment all the time I was happy to accept as I worked to get my foot in the door.

Unlike most people who decide to work for Congress, I came from a super odd path caused by COVID. This wasn't something I initially set out for instead it was just something that landed in my lap during a time when nothing was landing in anyones laps. When I started I did everything I could to be a sponge and absorb all the information and details I could, but it was during the height of COVID lockdowns. The Dem offices were working from home for the most part and the House Physician had "implemented" some runs to try and limit the number of people that an office could have at work at one time and some Republican offices abided by this while others like mine ignored them. 

With everything shut down, I later learned that while I loved the internship and met great people who helped me take the next step and land the next internship I missed out on a ton because there were no networking events. You couldn't email or call someone and set up a coffee or anything because well nothing was open and those places that were you couldn't stay at to sit down and talk. In DC that is a critical thing regardless of being on The Hill or off it. You have to have a network or a base group of people that can help connect you. I moved up here not knowing anyone besides my roommate and even with my internship I was not able to fully experience it like the interns I am in charge of get to. 

In the toward the end of this internship, I was hit with the largest gut punch I have ever been hit with. My dog Rusty, who had been with me since my second concussion when I lost 8 months of memory and through the three brain surgeries and my graduation from college suddenly deteriorated health-wise and passed away in just mere hours. He had been chugging along, esp. given we were told he had a couple of weeks left in December 2019 and it was April 2021 when he passed, so my parents figured they would go on a quick vacation to South Padre Island for a few days. 

When they got the call that something was wrong and Rusty was acting like he had a stroke my Uncle who lived less than half an hour away rushed over while my parents packed up and started to speed home but they were 5 hours away. Within 45 minutes of the first call to my parents, Rusty was at the emergency vet who took the phone and told my parents to pull off the road, they were not going to make it back in time even if the vet's office did all that they could. My parents pulled over and FaceTimed him as the vet gave him the shot to put him down. Rusty was given the shot because while he was not in any visible sign of pain and his heart rate was rapidly falling my parents and the vet did not want to take the chance that he was even in the slightest discomfort. 

I was unaware of this whole thing because it of how fast it had happened. My parents and I had talked about this over before, but since I was moving so far away there wasn't the possibility for me to quickly get there to say my goodbye. From what I remember from the phone call it was one of those as soon as I answered I knew what had happened. My only questions were he was surrounded by people he loved and for my parents to please get his paw and nose print for me. I know at the time it didn't hit me and later on in the day when my parents FaceTimed me this time at the vet with Rusty that is when it hit me and I just lost it. 

Prior to his passing, I had just had to move because my roommate had been "reassigned to the district." This is also known as firing someone from the DC office but giving them the ability to work in the District office if they would like. If they don't want to well then they have no job up here so they have to find a new one. My roommate was always homesick so he happily took the job back in the district quickly packed up and moved home. I had only been moved for a few days by the time this had happened and was missing a ton of furniture from my apartment since I didn't have a living room set and only had roughly half of the kitchen set. 

Needless to say, it was a really really rough time for me and work was something that was actually the stable place for me and I poured myself into it. I busted my butt and even took my work computer home with me so I could use LinkedIn Learning to add additional skills. As it got closer to the end of this internship though I wasn't facing too many options given the still ongoing lockdown. The scheduler had a friend he went to college with who worked for Congresswoman Kay Granger, at the time the Ranking Member of the Appropriations Committee, and they were looking for an intern and were extremely interested in me. My single interview was over the phone before I got the internship and started I believe a week after my first internship ended. 

Taking care of your body AND your mind are extremely vital things something I failed to do when it came to immediately starting this next internship. Most people will take at least a week if not longer break between internships. My "genius" move had me take not even a whole week. If I remember correctly instead of starting on Monday I decided I wanted a three-day weekend and started on a Tuesday!

Part of the reason for this choice to just keep rolling with it boiled down to the same issues I started with. I didn't have many friends, I lived alone since my roommate had been "reassigned", and getting your foot in the door and meeting people during COVID was extremely challenging. Plus this was a considerable "step up" the ladder compared to Rep. Nehls office since he was a freshman member and Rep. Granger had been a figurehead on The Hill. Her office was also run much much differently with interns being slated into one of just a handful of jobs most of which could be knocked out in an hour or so. During this internship, I actually started to post here (Publish0x) a TON writing up three articles a day. Phones in this office rang maybe two or three times a day so with three interns it was pretty hard to get the phone call before the others picked up.

For the first month or so of this internship, the Capitol finally started to show signs of life again which to me was kinda odd because I got used to places various places being empty but that was no longer the case. I stayed in touch with the Nehls office people and befriended their interns and that was a key thing for me looking back at it. One of the interns went to Texas A&M so we got along great and would meet up and shoot the shit while the other went to Texas Tech and combined there was a group of probably 10-15 of us in total.

A little over a month in I "threw" a party on the roof of my building and by that I mean I bought a whole bunch of wine and got hot dogs and hamburgers to grill and invited all of them over. This time around though they brought someone around who I had never seen before named Meghan and she really didn't fit in at first. Once I got to talking with her it all made a ton of sense as she was getting her Masters after having gone to West Point, doing her active duty service and getting her DD 214. In my mind all I could think was "ahh finally someone who isn't 21 finally someone who understands life a little more". It was nice to have someone just a year older than me doing the exact same crap I had to do for these internships if we are being honest!

During that first time meeting and hanging out, we hit it off and have a good friendship to this day! That night though when she was talking about her rooming situation I felt bad. She was not only living in Virginia which means you have to leave 45 minutes to an hour early to make it to work but she was 27 living in an apartment with three 20-year-olds so I just threw out that if she ever wanted a place to crash. I won't lie it might have been the next day that she first crashed at my apartment and by the end of the week we went to the apartment she was staying in and moved all her stuff out and she moved in with me. 

Everyone thought I was trying to get with her or I had some grand plan when that was not the case whatsoever. As a person Meghan was great but being pretty fresh out of the service and more importantly, having only recently gotten out of a 6 year relationship she had a ton of red flags that I saw. She had an enormous impact on my life for those 2ish months we lived together I mean she yelled at me about the way I washed my own clothes the way I folded my towels all sorts of stuff and changed the way I did things honestly for the better. I would never admit this to her though because I do not need her holding that over my head somehow!

In a typical day, we would leave for work at the same time (or I would be tasked with waking her up which was a dangerous job honestly) and then not see each other until after work. I had a second set of keys which I had given to her and we just carried on. Something we would have plans with other people/groups after work and not see each other until much later at night no matter what we mostly go along... Since we didn't sleep in the bed at the same time, the other person slept on the couch sometimes if she didn't respond to me and I was going to bed I would get a little bit snappy since I gave her first pick of bed or couch.

There were two occasions where we both slept in my bed and each time when she woke up the next morning I thought she was going to kill me even though it was fine earlier. In the apartment I lived in during that time the living room was oddly designed and just had no outlets so when my neck was acting up and I needed to use my heating pad I had to sleep in the bed since my bedroom had 5 outlets... on four walls mind you. Typically she would sleep on the couch but twice she made the choice not to and would either tell me to move over or lay down as far away from me as possible. She might have driven me crazy and had all sorts of weird quirks but looking back I do kinda miss them because of the fun we had regardless. 

It was when she was living with me that I had my first significant health setback in years. Even after the neurosurgeries, I would occasionally have these odd experiences and I didn't know if I was passing out of having seizures. It was so rare that my mom did not think it was actually happening but one night during the last couple of weeks she was living with me she was getting ready to go to some fancy dinner and I was feeling awful from thunderstorms and planned on going to bed. While getting ready in the bathroom I guess I suddenly either leaned or fell into the door and told her "Meghan I'm about to have a seizure" before immediately sliding down the wall and starting to seize. 

Well, this did not come with the Cody instruction manual so she immediately called my mom for help and to figure out what to do. I did not have a lot of seizures from what I remember being told and my mom told her that once I was done to move me to my bed and put me on my side so that she could go out. No clue on how she did it or if I was even able to help but all 5'3" of Meghan picked me up and carried me to bed and tucked me in. When I came to sometime later I had a note or a text from her saying what had happened and my mom sent me texts saying to call her. 

It was the first time that anyone had ever seen me seize though I do not think it was the first time that it had happened. Through this and some of the previous ones I thought I had had we were able to create a preliminary list of possible triggers something that we have been able to refine much much more ever since. From what I can recall this happened on a Friday because I did not miss any work for it. Even though this was a significant health issue at the time I was still thinking I could bounce back from this stuff and that seizures didn't really take much out of you. Hindsight is always 20/20 because that was obviously stupid as shit and I failed to let my body heal from the effects of the seizure. 

The internship ended a little bit before she left and once again while I did not land a job I did get another internship offer that honestly I couldn't pass up. This time I had two and a half weeks between internships, a move I thought was more than enough time, to both help me healthwise since I was starting to feel the effects of these internships as well as spend as much time as possible with Meghan before she returned to College Station. 

What all we did.... well I am not so sure but one weekend we did go to her cousins place in Maryland that was off the beaten path which was fun and we watched a metric ton of the TV show Survivor. At one point during this as well she found me on the floor between my living room and kitchen which since you don't just go to sleep there we figured I had another seizure. I did not expect to be as sad as I was though when she left. I mean in all honestly it was like my heart got ripped out and again not for any romantic feelings but because this person had become such a huge part of my life and made such a big impact. 

All these years later we still keep in touch and even talked today with her congratulating me on getting a bill passed on the House floor easier this week. It is funny though in that we have not seen each other in person since she went back to College Station and then graduated and move to New Mexico to work but we will still Facetime and make sure the other is still breathing. Having my apartment back to myself again was pretty odd but by the time she left I only had a couple more days before my next internship started. 

I mean this will all the love in my heart but this last internship I took was almost the death of me. To me this internship was just another perfect opportunity I couldn't miss and it was interning for Republican Whip Steve Scalise where I would split time between his personal office and his leadership office in the Capitol. It was during these 4 months that I realized how screwed up a lot of people are. 

During this time in 2021, the Democrats were in charge of both chambers of Congress and the Presidency. In Congress, on both the House and Senate side the personal office phones were "rolled" meaning people did not answer outside calls. Those went to voicemail where if you needed help with something they would be addressed but if you were just calling to issue threats they would go in another pile to be handed later. Rep. Scalise though did not believe in that and so we got calls from both domestically to internationally and from far right to far left.

In his office, we had two full-time interns including me and three part-timers who only came in on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. When it was just the two of us the days were often pretty rough. I would say a "normal" day we would get between 50 and 60 calls roughly split between the two of us. If we were in session and big legislation was being hashed out say the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law we would get well over 150 to 200 calls and often it would spill over into salaried staff having to answer calls as well. Personally the record I had was 84 answered calls in a day and there were some weeks where I was consistently getting 60+ alone. 

What mentally destroyed me though was the sheer number of death threats we would get. Since Rep. Scalise had already almost been murdered in a shooting years before practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game these were extremely serious and always reported to Capitol Police. It was mind-blowing though that these death threats almost never were against Rep. Scalise himself and instead were directed at whoever answered the phone... aka interns aka me. The awful stuff that was said and how frequent it was made me realize how broken society is. Other staff would try to help us out when they saw it was a bad call or we were struggling and would often just take over the calls for us but they still had tons of legislative side stuff to do and couldn't aways throw us a lifeline. 

There were some days I would walk out of the office and head home and just be blank. I didn't feel anything I didn't think anything I was just a shell of myself from the mental beatdown I had taken. Always trying to leave the best impression on the staff I also didn't take days off because at the end of it getting a recommendation for Rep. Scalise was a huge feather in the cap. By the time December rolled around though I didn't know what I wanted to do though. I was beyond burned out and mentally broken and needed to get away. To add icing on top of the whole internship my very last call I got was from some crazy lady who told me "I hope the black SUV hits you when you walk home today". Just wild mind-breaking shit. 

I left DC and went back to Houston not knowing when I was going to be good enough to come back. I think I had booked a three-week stay at home and people from the Scalise office actually thought I had moved back because of how brutal it has been and how my body and mind were getting burned out and destroyed.