1: Blink

Blink is intended for mature audiences as it discusses topics that can be upsetting, such as drug use, sexual assault, and emotional and physical violence. Content warnings for each episode are included in the show notes.
Resources for drug addiction and domestic abuse can be found in the show notes and on our website, BlinkThePodcast.com. the testimonies and opinions expressed by guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily

reflect the views of myself or affiliates of this podcast. Any individuals mentioned in the episode are presumed innocent until proven guilty in the court of law unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Imagine being told you have six months to live. You have a terminal progressive disease that's eating away at the white matter of your brain.
You'll soon lose your ability to speak, walk, feed yourself, and eventually, you'll slip into a coma and die. No one has ever survived this.
Surely, you won't either. As the months progress, the doctor's warnings come to fruition.
You slip into a pseudocoma, laying there in total darkness for months. The nurses chat about their bad dates in front of you, flip through television channels, and discuss the certainty that your death will soon be here.
They don't know that you can hear them. They're certain you're no longer in there.
Friends and family visit less and less. Now your only visitor is your wife, a wife who is certain you'll never recover and who begins to whisper strange admissions in your ear.
It is here, helpless in your hospital bed, that you realize what may have gotten you here in the first place.

The scariest thing in your room is no longer the potential of dying, but rather the person sitting right next to you. Let's get into this, man.
This is Jake Handel in the building where he and I first met.

We lived in the same apartment complex in Boston.

I had walked onto the elevator and asked how he was doing, a cordial hello to a neighbor I didn't know.

Not good.

This sort of raw and honest answer describes Jake well.

While Jake didn't feel great in that moment, what he was accomplishing was miraculous. For the first time in four years, Jake was standing, holding on to his walker, hands gripped and arms strained.
The problem being, he was only supposed to go a short distance. And now he was stuck alone in the elevator.
After helping him to his apartment and Jake repeating that I saved him, which is certainly a hyperbole, we parted ways. The next time we spoke was two months later and Jake told me his story.
A story involving drug deals, death sentences, medical miracles, and more than one suspected murder attempt. A story of survival with Jake being the only person in the world to ever make it out alive.
What happened to Jake was so astonishing, it felt implausible. Every detail trumped the next, and rarely could I predict what was coming.
It felt like a Jordan Peele movie, and I just couldn't understand how Jake was now sitting here, drinking beers with me on our rooftop, and describing his life events with such nonchalance. If what Jake was telling me was true, this could alter the medical world as we know it, change people's lives forever, and unlock the answers to phenomena we don't have explanations for.
Things we deem supernatural. I couldn't understand how no one was talking about this, how Jake's face wasn't plastered on the cover of every medical journal, and how his inbox wasn't flooded with inquiries from true crime documentarists.
But his story is convoluted. The timeline of events is a bit of a complex web, and the few journalists who have spoken to Jake in the past have sometimes struggled to follow the story.
But I needed to know more. And so for the following months, I set out seeking answers.
The first question I needed to answer was, how did Jake get here in the first place? This is Blank. I'm your host, Corinne Vien.
I'm Jake Handel. This is my story.
I noticed my driving was a little off. And, you know, I used to be a fairly good driver.
But I was just sworeing all the time. And I would say to myself, like, come on, Jake, pull it together.
At this time in my life, I, you know, I was doing a lot of drugs and a lot of reasons in my life to make me swarve at the wheel or act weird. But this was not baseline at all.
And I knew something was wrong, but I was in denial, I guess. I was just avoiding it and didn't even think it was a big deal.
The first time Jake noticed something was off was in May of 2017. Five days later, on May 20th, he woke up in a panic, late for work.
At the time, Jake was working at a liquor store in Westboro, Massachusetts. He hopped to his feet and began his morning routine.
The first thing I would do before I brush my teeth is freebase a little heroin off tinfoil. And I had no time for that.
And to brush my teeth, I was already late. So I hopped in my car and I just, you know, you need that fix when you're that hooked on a substance like this.
So I decided I would smoke it while I was driving, which sounds wild, and it is, but something I had done hundreds of times. But I was like more in a frantic rush to get to work.
So I'm like driving with my knee, pen in my mouth, lighter under the tinfoil and like speeding and kind of brain damaged, you know, which I didn't even know. And I just kept sorbing and I'm like, God, what is wrong with you? I kept saying that.
And then I looked at my rear view and I noticed there were blue lights. Jake was no stranger to the police and this wasn't his first time being pulled over while there were drugs in the car.
As he pulls to the side of the road, Jake plans to simply stash away his drugs in the center console, concealing it from police. As I'm opening the center console and trying to put stuff into it, it was like my brain froze.
And the connection that my brain was telling to move the arm and the hand to put it away wasn't working so I'm like kind of frozen with all this drugs and paraphernalia in my hand as the cop is walking to the window he didn't even say like do you know why I pulled you over he was was just like, man, you're driving like a psycho. What's going on? And then like stops and he's like, what's that in your head? And I'm just kind of like, uh, uh, uh, uh, like I couldn't even formulate sounds.
And then my brain did something else weird. He didn't even ask me for my license, but I was fixated on getting him my license.
And I'm like, I'm like, oh, just like, hold on. I'm just looking for my license.
And I started like reaching under my seat, which obviously I've dealt with cops a lot. And I knew this was like a horrible idea.
Right. Because he thinks I'm probably reaching for a weapon.
And I knew he was very nervous and freaking out like, stop moving around. But even though I knew all this, I could not control anything.
He took out his gun and he's like, stop moving right now. Jake is extremely nervous and he knows he's in a dangerous situation.
No longer in control of his body's movements, he's worried he'll soon be a headline on the local news. 28-year-old shot during traffic stop in Westboro, Massachusetts.
But no matter how much he concentrates on sitting still, he can't. The officer radios for backup and multiple unmarked police vehicles arrive quickly to the scene.
I get ripped out of the car by like six cops and like thrown on the ground and handcuffed. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not a bad guy.
Like, I'm not trying to cost her out. Like, I'm sorry.
Jake is handcuffed and thrown into the back of an officer's SUV. He watches from the cruiser as other officers search his car.
What Jake does next surprises him. And I just start talking to the guy about, like, my drug use issues.
And i'm just blabbing to him something that was

really off too because i mean i would never voluntarily tell a cop anything in my

line of work of a drug dealer and slash user i'm like shut the fuck up jake like what are you doing

Thank you. line of work of a drug dealer slash user.
I'm like, shut the fuck up, Jake. What are you doing? Jake is brought to the Westboro police station and begins the booking process.
My fucking wife is going to kill me. Jake's wife had been the first to notice that something was off with him.
A few days before his arrest, she raised her concerns with the sudden changes in his speech. His words were slurred and higher pitched.
He sounded drunk. Initially ignoring his wife's observations, Jake now worries his wife will be upset with him.
She knew that Jake was struggling with addiction and stuck by him during the few times he tried to get clean and then relapsed. Hearing of his arrest will surely upset her.
While Jake wonders how he will explain his arrest to his wife, his body continues to shut down. I'm sure they just thought I was high.
Yeah. But I'm like, no, like I'm high.
365 days a year, and this is not, like, I'm very high function. This is, like, not me, guys.
At that point, how frequently had you been using? Extremely frequent. I would say hourly if I was at work.
I could go four-hour stretches. But the difference is I never got my morning 15 minutes of smoking because it was interrupted by the police.
So I was already feeling like not 100% to begin with, but I'm like, towards the end of this hour, I'm like, oh, I gotta get some.

The bail bondsman arrived and Jake posted bail.

His car had been towed, so he needed a lift from the station.

He calls his dad, Darone, and asks him for a ride.

When Darone arrives, Jake doesn't ask to be taken to his car.

He doesn't ask to be driven home.

He asks for a lift to his friend's house.

He needs another hit. I had trouble getting into his car

and I could tell that he knew something was off with me. Jake's father agrees to drive him to his friend's house.
The friend? His ex-girlfriend, Adrian, who was, in Jake's words, A very big drug dealer, bigger than I ever dreamed of from my own aspirations in that category. She was my hookup and I hit her up.
Adrian and Jake had dated during a very difficult time in Jake's life, the period after his mom had died from a nine-year battle with cancer. Jake and Adrian remained good friends, so when she sees Jake struggle up the stairs to her apartment, she too inquires about his health.
He assures her he is fine, and then freebases heroin off of tinfoil. Jake takes as many hits as he can in the three minutes he's inside.
He then goes back to the car and is driven home. Jake had used his one phone call at the police station to let work know that he wasn't coming.
Still, his wife had somehow found out about his arrest, and she is waiting for him when he gets back. She wasn't happy when he got home.
And I was, you know, weird voice, weird balance, falling apart kind of.

She's like, you need to go to the hospital.

Something's fucking wrong with you.

I think deep down I knew probably a good idea, but I didn't want to go.

Just a day later, Jake's wife calls an ambulance for him.

Just like junkies do, I'm thinking, well, I'm going to be at the hospital. I better, like, get my fix in before I go.
So I'm in the bathroom. And this was the moment I really knew I was fucked.
I opened this, like, five-gram baggie. All I would do is take the baggie and pour, like, pinch out a little of it.
But I couldn't even untuck the bag. My fingers, my hand, like, they weren't working, so I couldn't even get the bag open.
So I put on my teeth, and I just pulled it off. And I'd go to dump a little, and I'd dump the whole fucking thing all over the place.
Jake's attempt to smoke heroin had failed. The contents of the five-gram baggie now scattered across the bathroom floor.
The paramedics enter his home, and his wife directs them to the bathroom. The paramedics get Jake into the ambulance and begin tests.
They theorize he may be having a stroke. Once in the emergency room, Jake undergoes a series of tests.
They give him fluids, some time to rest, and assure him that he is fine. The hospital is preparing to discharge him when his wife pleads with the staff to take her concerns seriously.
This is not my husband. She's like, listen to his voicemail.

She takes out the phone and plays my voicemail. And I really did have, like, a totally different voice.
When Jake and I decided to create this podcast, he raised a concern about his voice. Despite the miraculous accomplishments he's made in speech therapy, this new voice is something he's still getting used to.
It's slower, wobbly at times, and he occasionally loses control over the volume. Jake shifts uncomfortably when hearing recordings of his current voice, but smiles proudly when showing me a clip from before his diagnosis.
This clip is from a video he had posted on his YouTube channel called The Many voices of Jake. There are a few sound effects, but in the start of the video, you're able to catch a snippet of his old voice.
There's all these soldiers there, like probably like 400. In the hospital, an emergency MRI is ordered.
Jake assumes he will get to go home in the morning, so to make it through the evening, he calls his dad to bring him a pack of Marlboro Reds, his cigarette of choice. That was the last pack of cigarettes that was bought for me.
Life was never the same. Hearing that Jake had assumed life would continue as usual, that he'd go back to work the next day and resume his regular drug use, I asked him how he'd been able to keep a job, how he could have lived a high-functioning life up until this point.
My routine turned into, like, I'd wake up in the morning before I did anything. I'd smoke heroin for five to eight minutes, cigarette, brush my teeth.
And, but I would have a very productive day. So another thing, um, a lot of people would like nod out and be incapable of doing much.
It was like a cocaine for me. I was amped up.
I was ready to conquer the world, like do everything. It was like my spinach.
Like if I was Popeye, I just needed a little more, a little more, a little more. I could be high out of my mind, put out a 250 person wedding, easy, no issues.
And then walk out and, like, talk to, like, the bride's family after and, like, oh, yeah, so she, oh, yeah, yeah. But I would duck off to my produce cooler, take a hit.
I would duck off to the bathroom every time I beat, take a hit, you you know? That was just like, you know, it was for years. This hidden world of high-functioning heroin users amazed me.
I had family members whose lives were ruined from the drug, and classmates who lost their lives to it. And so I always thought of it as this thing that debilitated people and then killed them.
Learning that Jake and many others in his circle could function on heroin and present themselves in the world just like me or you was brand new information for me. Did people really not know something was wrong? For Jake, this lifestyle was something he would never partake in again.
And he was about to learn why. Early the next morning, Jake wakes to multiple doctors in his room.
One sits on the bed next to him. Jake remembers the somber expressions across each of their faces.
The doctor seated next to him, placing a comforting hand on his knee. It's like, I'm so sorry to tell you you have this really rare brain disease.
And thank you for being honest with us about your drug use, because I'm not sure we'd realize otherwise. We have something called acute toxic progressive leukoencephalopathy.
And this was caused by inhalation of a toxin. And, you know, it's pretty catastrophic in your, in the white matter of your brain.
And they laid it out for me. They were like, Acute means it's happening right now.
Toxic means inhalation of a toxin. Progressive means it will only get worse, never get better.
And leukoencephalopathy means disease of the white matter of the brain. I didn't know what it really looked like for me, but then they got into that, and they were like, so, like, you might survive.
You know, that would be very rare, but month one, you won't be able to walk. Month two, you'll have a difficult time sitting.
Month three, trouble talking and swallowing. Month four and five is when you're, you know, stage four, end of life type thing.
And then you'll likely slip into a coma and die. And I said that a lot.
I was like, I really fucked up. And I'm just thinking about, you know, where I went wrong in life and thinking about my mom who died.
And I'm just like, I really, really screwed up and not the way I thought my life was headed. toxic leucoencephalopathy is a very rare disease that causes progressive damage to the white matter of the brain.
Drug abuse through inhalation and extravenous injection can both lead to this disease. But it's not just heroin that causes it.
Alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy, chemotherapeutic drugs, and even environmental toxins can lead to this diagnosis. For Jake, it was heroin.
Inhalation of heroin. The disease is complicated, and the research on it is sometimes conflicting.
Some researchers believe that heroin-induced leukoencephalopathy may be caused by a contaminant in heroin, a bad stash, but others disagree. Here in the hospital with doctors surrounding him, Jake is told that for his particular diagnosis, acute toxic progressive leukoencephalopathy, only a few people have survived past diagnosis, and no one has ever survived after entering stage four of the disease.

The odds are stacked against him. He is given six months to live.

I sat there with my thoughts, lied there for 20 minutes. I kind of said to myself, well, fuck it, you're dead anyway.
And picked up the phone and called my ex, Adrian. And I said, can you bring me a package to UMass Memorial Hospital? And she's like, what's wrong? I go, it's not good, but I just need a little something.
She's like, yeah, of course, I got you, but what's happening? I'm like, oh, they just gave me six months to live. She's like, oh, my fucking God, Jake, I can't bring that to you.
And I was like, I'm dead anyway. I'm going to die.
And she's like, don't make me do this. I'm like, I don't want to make you do anything, but please.
And yeah, she came. I started getting high in my hospital bed, smoking off tinfoil.
I was having a hard time even smoking it anymore. I was like deteriorating that rapidly.
I couldn't even do something. I did multiple times a day, you know, for years.
And a nurse walks in and sees me and she's like, what what? And I'm like, what's the difference? She's like, hold on, leaves her own. And a bunch of doctors come in.
The hospital police and a team of nurses accompany the doctors. The doctors tell Jake, yes, he has about six months left to live.
But if he keeps smoking and doing drugs, that window will shorten significantly. The cops are like, we know what's going on here.
You do it if you want to do it. But you should think about how you want to live your remaining days.
And they left me with that. My wife came back after the cops looked around for the sash.
And she was like, I'm leaving you. Like, I'm out of here.
You're on your own. I'm like, I'm thinking about, you know, when I was watching my mom die in hospice and how that led me to this rough path of self-medicating and, you know, really fucked me up emotionally.
And I'm like, you know, I love my wife and I'm just like, yeah, you should not stick around for this. You know, like, it's not good.
I don't blame you. I could tell she was so angry and hurt.
That's why she was, she was just being rough with her words. And, you know, she's like, I'm going to Seattle.
And I knew it was in Seattle, her ex. Going back with him.
She took off. She got a flight.
She went to Seattle. She's gone, I think, gone forever, kind of.
After two hours smoking this, I'm just kind of like of like all right I know I want to like live my last days I threw the shit like on the floor and I was like I'm done with that for me but also for my dad and my siblings and even my wife even though she's gone. So I make the decision.
This was May 25th, 2017. They begin to just, you know, fight and not get high.
Two weeks after admission, Jake is moved from UMass Memorial Medical Center

to a rehabilitation center,

where he becomes progressively more sick

while simultaneously going through withdrawals

from heroin and nicotine.

He is sick, dying, and in extreme pain.

There was a side of me that was like,

well, I know there's no chance, but maybe,

maybe if I get my shit together and do everything I can do, I could beat this.

And I asked them, is there any medicine for this? And they're like, no. And I'm like, is there anything I can be doing? To start, Jake has put on extremely high doses of three vitamins.
Co-enzyme Q10, vitamin E, and vitamin C. And they were also like, and eat blueberries as much as you can.
Do you like them? And I was like, oh, I fucking love blueberries. Easy.
That's medicine. And I would eat pints.

You know, I just had that mindset of like,

I'm going to try and prolong my life

and or maybe beat this.

Jake spends two weeks in UMass Memorial Medical Center

before being transferred to Fairlawn Rehabilitation Hospital.

It has now been 10 days since his diagnosis, and before his transfer, Jake receives a call from his wife. I'm losing the ability to text by now already.
And hold the phone to my ear, so I get a call from her, and I answer it. And she's, like, crying.
She's like, I miss you. And I'm like, I miss you too.
And she's like, can I come home? And I'm like, well, there isn't much of a home to come home to. This is kind of it.
She was like, I fucking hate it out here. There's too many drugs and I'm doing too many drugs and I'm miserable.
And I just, I just want to come home. Am I allowed to come home? I like wanted her still, but I also like knew this would be horrible for her.
So I I was. I miss you terribly, and I'm sad, and, like, but this is not going to, and she was like, you know, I told her, I was like, this is not going to be good for you, and she was like, I don't care.
I want to, like, take care of you. And I was really torn.
I was like, like, I knew it would be a good thing for me.

So, like, I was, like, kind of, like, screaming in my head to say yes.

But I knew how hard it would be for her. And she came back, and she was, like like totally different.
Positive. She got so into trying to figure out the best things for me.
Like strategies with ways to take care of me. And experimental treatments.
And like she was just all in. Threw herself into the caretaker role.
And advocate. She really was the best at this for a while.
I may have been blinded by the love I had for her and I'm just realizing there was a lot I overlooked, perhaps sinister stuff.

Jake's health continues to rapidly decline. Not only will he have to find a way to survive

this terminal death sentence, but he will soon have to figure out who around him he can trust. Thank you for listening to Blank.
This podcast is hosted and produced by me, Corinne Vienne, alongside my co-creator and

survivor, Jake Handel. Our original music is composed by the brilliant and talented Michael

Marget. We're so grateful for your support.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating,

reviewing, and sharing this story with others. For additional resources, updates, and behind

the scenes content, visit our website, blankthepodcast.com. Blink will return with a new episode next Sunday.