A Year Ago Today (part two)

(please excuse all the typos in this post!!!  i am leaving them to remind myself what matters in life and what's trivial.  typos are trivial.)

Before I recount what happened last year, I want to point out the positive things I am grateful for that have come about in the last 365 days:

- My son has 129 days clean, he wants recovery, he wants to be well.  Last year at this time he didn't.

- My son is in the same hospital that he's was in last year, but this time he was admitted voluntarily because he knows he needs help.  Last year he arrived in a straight jacket via ambuulance from another hospital.

- I have grown and learned a lot.  Last year I was still so naive, just coming out of denial and didn't have the support I've found through the community of bloggers I know today.

December 29, 2008.

I was feeling very happy because I had just put the finishing strokes on my first ever attempt at painting (see below).  I heard my son walk out of the bathroom and announce to his girlfriend that he had just taken 24 Trazadone and ???? (not sure what else, it was an unfamilar drug to me).  In the next moments of chaos I had called 911 and K bolted out the house running, his girlfriend trying to catch up to him.

I ran also with 911 on the phone with me.  K headed to the nearby park and within minutes the police helicopter was hovering, shining its bright light to try and locate my scared son.

Then K came running past me down the hill and at the same time the cops arrived in a patrol car.  Its hard to say how much time had passed - ten minutes?  20?  I honestly have no clue it was so surreal.

But because the drugs were starting to take affect K slowed down and the cop and I managed to reach him at the same time on the corner of our street.  His vital signs were taken, the cop was super nice (knowing it was a suicide attempt) and assured K he was not in trouble, he just wanted him to sit in the car till the EMTs arrived.

They pulled up and lots of questions were asked and answered.  K was no longer to stand up on his own so they put him on a gurney, turned on the sirens and headed for the ER.  The police talked to me for awhile and told me it would be best to wait an hour before going to visit him.

When we got there we had to wait another hour.  It was my sister, me, his gf, and his three best male friends (non-drug users, still safe and wonderful friends to this day and hopefully forever).

Finally they allowed me to see him.  He was in and our of consciousness.  He had charcoal smeared around his mouth.  He was pale and clammy.  My sis and I sat with him for over an hour, stroking his arms, his hair, telling him it would be okay...

At one point he opened his eyes and looked at me and said "Mom, is this real?"  It broke my heart.  He was a little boy in a bad dream, but it wasn't a dream and he had created the nightmare himself.


Turns out he'd been "snowballing" all day (shooting coke to go up, heroin to go down).  He came home and wanted to die.  He felt like a failure, like he'd never be able to stop using.  Like he'd be better off dead.  Yet, he also admits it was a cry for help since he told us what he did immediately (thank GOD!).

The next morning I went back to visit him and stayed by his side for hours as a guard sat at the end of his bed on "suicide watch".  He was more coherent but still in and out sleep most of the day.  The nurse (big male nurse)  and I tried to get him to stand up to give a urine sample, but he was like a rag doll.  He was still so out of it.  It was determined that he needed to be in a psychiatric ward in another city, so they strapped him up in a straight jacket, loaded him on a gurney and off he went for a "5150" (72 lock down to evaluate him).

The love I had for my son that day - seeing the confused, scared look on his face as they took him away...he'd just turned 18 two weeks prior.  He was just a kid!  Off he went.

It was not the worst moment in this "adventure" of drug addiction, but its up there in the top ten :)

He was allowed to come home on New Year's Eve.  It was a fresh start, a new year. He started going to meetings and it yet in my heart I knew it was only the beginning.  I just knew it.

Part Three of this story will be told on January 6th.  As most of you know, it ususally gets much worse before it gets better.

This is the painting I drew that night, and the painting I drew a few days later.  I haven't felt like picking up a brush again, but maybe one of these days:

Peace, Hope and Love,
Barbara