Decisions she made as a teenager still reverberate for Noelle Dunnan

CHAPTER 1: TAKING HER LIFE ON THE ROAD?

Noelle Dunnan lived in at least eight cities before she turned 18. She attended three high schools in three years.

Her parents, Don and Ronda Gilger, are ministers for the Salvation Army and move around as if they were in the U.S. Army.

She grew up shy, barely making friends in time to say good-bye. In 10th grade she was befriended by a party girl, who introduced her to drinking. She tried to hide the booze from her parents, pouring screwdrivers into Big Gulp cups.

But they knew, said her father, the Salvation Army’s El Paso County coordinator.

The Gilgers took their daughter, then an above average student, to counseling, but at 17 she ran away from her home in Torrance, Calif., with “some guy” she met who was headed to San Francisco.

“She was high on drugs and drinking all the time, which is why she left because she couldn’t do that in our house,” Gilger said.

She panhandled for money to feed a budding drug habit that began with pot, mushrooms and acid, then progressed to methamphetamine.

Her parents found her a month later in Hollywood, and chased her through the streets. She left again, her parents found her again. A week later, she was gone.

Dunnan ended up in Washington state, after traveling to a Seattle concert with a friend.

Usually at night she stayed drunk or high to stay awake in parks. The night she couldn’t, cops rousted her from the bushes and hauled her into the station, she said. They let her shower and gave her a Cup o’ Noodles. They should have called her parents, but she said they agreed to let her go because she showed them a Greyhound ticket to California — a ticket she would never use.

Instead, she continued drinking and getting high.

“In the end you can blame it on anyone you want to,” Gilger said. “In the end it was Noelle’s choice. She chose to go and do that — to live that way. We didn’t want her to, but that was what she chose to do.”

CHAPTER 2: LOW PAY, AND A BABY ON THE WAY

The only jobs she could find were low-paying positions, usually in telemarketing. Though drugs often competed with employment, Dunnan managed to keep the two in balance for at least a few weeks at a time. While living in Spokane, Wash., with an uncle, she finished her GED.

She stayed in Washington a few years, eventually moving into a low-rent apartment with a boyfriend. One night, while drunk, she slipped while holding a pair of scissors, and stabbed herself in the right eye, she said.

Three days after the eye was treated, an infection developed. Doctors removed the eye. In the midst of the medical chaos, she forgot to call work and lost her job.

She moved to Portland, Ore., and spent the year getting high and living with a new boyfriend nicknamed “Troll” — until they got kicked out of their apartment for skimping on rent payments. They hitchhiked to California.

Dunnan discovered she was pregnant shortly after Troll was arrested in Hollywood. She can’t remember for what, she said. She was 19 and wanted to get an abortion, but Troll convinced her to keep the baby. Her father says the decision saved his daughter’s life.

She moved in with her parents and kicked the drugs — no rehab, no nothing, she said. Dunnan moved back in with Troll awhile, but they broke up after six months.

CHAPTER 3: FINDING SOME STABILITY

The Gilgers arranged a job for Dunnan at the Salvation Army, doing janitorial work. She later took a bookkeeping position. Eventually she started dating a new guy, Angel, an illegal immigrant who conned her into marrying him for legal status, she said. After six months of marriage that Dunnan said was abusive, she took her son, Renton, and moved into her sister’s house. Her parents offered to find her housing in Colorado Springs, where they had moved in 2004.

When Dunnan arrived in Colorado, she finalized her divorce from Angel and began working as director of the Salvation Army community center on Yuma Street — a job she still keeps.

She met Shannon while he was looking into after-school daycare for his children, Alyssa, 12, and Devin, 8. She says Shannon helped her rediscover her faith.

“Even when I didn’t believe in God, I think God was there,” Dunnan said. “I have friends who are dead now, who OD’d and people who went missing and somehow I came out of that with no scars.

Dunnan and Shannon dated a few months before marrying. She admits it was fast, but their kids were OK with it, she said. Both Dunnan and Shannon are studying to be Christian counselors at Nazarine Bible College, putting them $8,000 in debt with school loans this year.

With a $100,000 mortgage and a $26,000 grant from Rocky Mountain Community Land Trust, the Dunnans moved into a three-bedroom house off Fountain Street. Though the mortgage is a few hundred dollars higher than the rent on their previous apartment, the place is better for the kids because they each have their own rooms, Dunnan said. She and Shannon sleep in a converted bedroom in the basement.

For school this year, their children received clothes and supplies from two Salvation Army programs, and were approved for reduced-fee lunches. But money is still tight. And three months ago Dunnan found out she’s pregnant again.

Her job provides health insurance, but she can’t afford to add other family members to her plan, and Shannon doesn’t have benefits. Their children are covered by Medicaid.

Dunnan’s insurance has helped fund doctors visits and pre-natal prescriptions, but she’s still worried about the loose ends. Like how to afford diapers.

And milk.