It’s amazing how every day we read stories in the newspaper about accidents caused by drunk drivers or drugged drivers and so many times it is the innocent victims who get hurt the most while the impaired driver walks away unharmed. Such was the case with Cole, who after a mere stomach pumping got a clean bill of health. I suppose he’s going to be living in his own private hell now that he knows just how much damage his reckless behavior has caused.

I understand that he was distraught over losing his mother and then when he finally got her back she wasn’t really his mother, but Cole had a very big support system surrounding him and chose not to take the love and help offered to him. Sure, it wasn’t the same as having the old Marty back and having her choose not to deal with him was very hard. Maybe a more mature person would have been able to give the situation more time to see if his mother would come back to her old self, but Cole made choices that had horrible repercussions.

Poor Matthew. This kid has been through the ringer at school, badgered by everyone because of who his parents are and now he’s lying in the hospital paralyzed from the waist down because he was running away from a humiliating situation and trusted Cole enough to get him away from it.

It was hardest to watch Nora and Bo since at first Matthew didn’t know what was going on. I applaud the acting of Hillary Smith and Bob Woods. You could really feel Nora’s pain and Bo’s quiet anguish.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to see that happen to your child. As if it wasn’t bad enough to find out about Matthew’s injuries, Nora had to deal with Marty telling her that Cole not only was on drugs but that he overdosed and got behind the wheel with Matthew in the car. Who could blame Nora for totally losing it and going after Cole for what he did to Matthew? I did feel sorry for Starr, Langston and Markko because they felt horrible when Nora went after them for not telling someone that Cole was on drugs. Actually, Starr did tell Mr. J that she knew someone who was on drugs and he figured out very quickly that it was Cole. He even offered Cole a way to get help but Cole wasn’t interested and everyone knows that someone in that condition won’t get help just because someone pushes him into it. No one could have made Cole get help if he wasn’t receptive to the idea. Sure, now he sees the light and he has been arrested. We’ll see where he goes from here. At least now he has his mother at his side, who swears she has memories of him as her son now.

On a lighter note, what happened to Matthew is probably going to bring his parents closer together, which in my book can only be a good thing. And for once, I didn’t mind Clint opening his mouth when he chided Bo and Nora for having a defeated attitude before they even got a second opinion. Clint was right to push them to look toward the side of hope and to make Matthew believe that it will be possible for him to get on his feet again.

Okay, I haven’t gotten one positive response to the addition of Stacey to the show. Everyone who has written in hates her. That is everyone’s word, hate. Let’s face it; this girl is about as disgusting as they come and she is either sick in the head or nasty enough to believe that Rex is her longtime love just because he picked up her books from the ground when she was eleven years old and was nice to her. Oh sure, who wouldn’t agree that he should be hers forever? Give me a break. Her story about Rex getting so drunk that he made a pass at her and pulled her all over him in bed was laughable. Although Gigi was very confused and wasn’t happy with Rex when she walked in on them in bed, she wasn’t a fool when it came to buying Stacey’s story. Gigi was furious that the phones were all turned off when she tried to call Rex and Stacey from the hospital after she and Shane were in the accident and she knew Rex wouldn’t deliberately turn off his phone. She also was smart enough to look Stacey in the eye and tell her that no matter what situation she walks in on, Stacey always has her hands on Rex. I was glad that Gigi threw Stacey out of the house, but we haven’t seen the last of Stacey’s reign of terror, not by a long shot.

Rex was so convinced that he didn’t wind up in bed with Stacey over a few beers that he went and had his blood tested. Of course, we all knew that before that blood test could prove that Stacey had drugged him, she would somehow get to the hospital and destroy the evidence. Stacey is one of those famous soap opera lurkers who hides behind walls and doors and easily finds out how to make the most trouble for the people that are in the way of her getting what she wants. So it was no surprise that she would be standing at the desk in the hospital when a nurse conveniently broke all the rules leaving a patient’s personal file and test results out unattended in plain sight. It took her about five seconds to confirm that the test showed Rex was drugged and toss the whole file in the trash. Oh, aren’t soaps ever going to surprise us and make these things more realistic?

So Stacey winds up flopping in Schuyler’s room at the hotel and he has her number right away. He figures there was a good reason that Gigi kicked her out and he also figures out right away that Rex is the guy Stacey has been pining over her whole life. Schuyler was lucky that Stacey didn’t wind up with him permanently. He was lucky to get her out of his life in the past, but he was dumb enough this time to agree to let her crash at his place. I guess he doesn’t have enough problems, having been put on suspension from his teaching job without pay and being under investigation. This guy does not make good decisions.

Now we have to deal with Shane being sick. Rex innocently goes to the hospital to find out the results of his blood test and finds out from Michael the results of Shane’s tests instead. Shane has leukemia. Rex had to call Gigi to the hospital and she was devastated when she heard the news about the son she loves more than anything in her life. It was painful to watch Gigi deal with the truth. Thankfully, she and Rex have each other to lean on.