Eight Years Later: The Fentanyl Overdose That Almost Took My Son, with Brenda Zane

EPISODE DESCRIPTION:

Eight years ago a miracle happened. Today’s episode is one from the vault - originally published in 2021, which I’m resharing today in honor of my son’s eight year anniversary of starting a new life.

While it’s longer than my usual episodes, this series of story chapters allows you to drop into the ICU with me, among other places, as our family hung onto hope that my son Enzo would not be one of the statistics you read about in the news. You’ll be along for the excruciatingly long ride to the hospital, through hushed conversations with doctors, unexpected laughter with nurses and more as we spent 30+ days in some very dark places.

Lace up for a long walk or listen chapter by chapter during your busy days this week - and remember, if they are alive, there is always, always hope.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Get in touch with Enzo Narciso, mentor with Not Therapy, email: enzo@nottherapycoaching.com
• You can read the written version of this story here

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Find us on YouTube here
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.

Chapters

• 0:00 Snippet & Introduction
• 4:20 Chapter One: The Storm Before The Hurricane
• 10:16 Chapter Two: The ER
• 16:16 Chapter Three: What Happened?
• 21:56 Chapter Four: ICU...Waiting
• 29:45 Chapter Five: 72 Long Hours
• 37:15 Chapter Six: Reflection
• 46:36 Chapter Seven: Thumbs Up
• 52:44 Chapter Eight: Another Day
• 55:47 Chapter Nine: Moving Up
• 1:01:05 Chapter Ten: Room With A View
• 1:03:43 Chapter Eleven: The Amazing Body
• 1:08:06 Chapter Twelve: The Chosen One
• 1:12:23 Chapter Thirteen: #Miracle
• 1:16:02 Chapter Fourteen: What Happens Now?
• 1:19:30 Chapter Fifteen: Hospital #2
• 1:22:39 Chapter Sixteen: Not What We Expected
• 1:27:10 Chapter Seventeen: I'm Outta Here
• 1:32:41 Chapter Eighteen: Doing The Hard Work
• 1:35:32 Chapter Nineteen: Navigating New Waters
• 1:38:09 Chapter Twenty: Starting Again
• 1:42:46 The Last Chapter: Answers, Hope and a Long Drive
• 1:46:37 Wrap up and Resources

Transcript

 [00:00:00] I listened to the now normal machine beeps and whooshing of the ventilator, and I wondered if John was absorbing any of this. I assumed not because every few hours the nurses and doctors would give him a pretty rough shake and shout into his face.

John, squeeze your eyes. If you can hear me. Give me a thumbs up. John. John, let us know you're there. Squeeze my hand and on and on. With not even as much as a twitch. I held my breath each time they ran through this drill because I so badly wanted him to do something and it was torture to watch him lay in complete stillness through the shouting and the shaking.

Maybe just not yet. I kept saying to myself, maybe he just needs more time. 

[00:00:45] Introduction

Welcome to Hopestream, the podcast and community created specifically for parents of teens and young adults who are misusing substances and struggling with mental health. I'm Brenda Zane, and I have been in your shoes with a child who was addicted to a high-risk lifestyle and all the bad things that came with it.

Listen, every week to gain clarity and understanding. Learn new skills and best of all experience, real hope for what might feel like a helpless situation. We want you to not just survive this experience, but potentially find unexpected growth and meaning through it. You are [00:01:30] not doing this alone anymore, and we're so glad you're here.

After the episode, hop over to Hopestreamcommunity.org for more resources.

Hi, friend. I have a very special episode for you today that I pulled from the Hope Dream Vault because this Easter weekend marks the eight year anniversary of my son Enzo, coming off of life support and out of a coma after his second Fentanyl overdose in a span of three days.

In 2017, I got the phone call you never want to get, and our family found ourselves where literally hundreds of thousands of other families have found themselves wondering if the person they love is going to be with them any longer. After experiencing an overdose while I lived in a recliner, first in the ICU, then on the stroke unit.

And eventually on the acute care physical rehab floor of hospital number two, I began to write. It was my way of processing what was happening. Hour by hour, minute by minute,

about three years after this experience, I gathered all the scraps of paper and notebooks I had been scribbling on and tried to make sense of them in a short series of writings. I called in the grip because that's where we were, and that's where we had been for so many years in the grip of [00:03:00] fear, anger, confusion, and exhaustion, these words were my attempt to drop you into our world for just a short time as a way of acknowledging and sharing the fight.

So many are enduring. A couple of things to note before listening. At the time of this recording, I wasn't publicly using my son's name, so you'll hear me call him John today. He's working in this field mentoring young men who are working toward recovery and is fine with me sharing his identity. And I'll put a link in the show notes if you'd like to get in touch with him.

The second thing I wanna highlight is that when I recorded this in 2021. I wasn't as aware of the impact that language has on stigma around substance misuse. I no longer refer to someone with a substance use disorder as an addict because it's derogatory and an unnecessary label.

You'll hear me use that term though in the story, and it's actually a good reminder for me that we are always growing and learning and that we can always do better. With that, I hope you'll listen and be filled with hope and renewal as my family and I celebrate the miracle we were gifted eight years ago.

Enjoy. 

[00:04:20] Chapter One

The storm before the hurricane, an April Friday night at our summer house on an island an hour north of Seattle. I'm [00:04:30] with my husband. My parents and their best friends who I've known all my life we're kid less, which is rare, and it feels like a grownup, relaxing kind of way to spend an evening, even though not all as calm in the background of life.

For these few hours, things are good, meaningful conversations wander from work to travel, and of course to kids. My mother's best friend and I are sunk deep into a red 17-year-old couch that's now pink from the sun's intensity, but it's so comfortable we can't bear to replace it. I ask her about her daughter's, partner's, cancer, and shockingly learn that she died several months ago.

A tragic loss for them all. I feel so horrible that I don't know this already. She understands. She asked me about my son, who she knows has been in and out of drug treatment programs for the last four years. It's the same question everyone asks, always with trepidation, a semi smile, slightly raised eyebrows, and a sad question mark at the end.

So, how's John? How's John? This is a question that used to stump me because I didn't know if I wanted to answer it truthfully and encounter some very awkward scenarios as a result. Or did I wanna make it easy on myself and whoever I was talking to and say he's good with a smile and an exclamation point, and then move on quickly to other topics.

Tonight, [00:06:00] I decided because of the safe company and no need to hold myself together, I'd answer truthfully, well, he's alive, which to me sounds good, and to others sounds like a completely insane and sad way to answer that question, but it was true. When you have a child who is an addict, nothing in life makes sense.

Nothing takes place without that torturous feeling that he or she may not be alive today. It's like driving to work in the morning, knowing later that day you're going to be in a fatal accident on your way to book club. Being present and clear is so far beyond exhausting that you're too tired to try and explain it to anyone.

Only another parent of an addict can relate. Talking with one is like finding an ocean in the middle of a desert. It lets you go on one more day. My mom's best friend reaches over and squeezes my curled up leg and with the love of a mother, says, honey, I'm so sorry, but I'm glad to hear he's alive. I nod and wholeheartedly agree.

Things get pretty simple when your life is in a state of havoc. For years, we got up from the ancient couch, set the table, and all six of us sat down to eat. I had cooked, but I have no idea what I made because then the phone rang. Hi, is this John's mom asked a young scared voice. Two miracles happened here.

One was that my phone [00:07:30] actually worked, which most of the time it doesn't because there's not a cell tower in range of our place on the island. And two was that I answered a call from an unknown number. It's a amazing to me how my brain processed the situation without me even knowing it. Phone rings, I find it, it's an unknown number, but it's from our area code.

It's a Friday night at 9:00 PM and I know where my younger son is. So as the mother of an addict, I immediately answered because I knew it was John or related to him. The scared voice blurts out. I, I just wanna let you know, John overdosed and he's at Northwest Hospital in the emergency room, and then she hung up, paralyzed for a few seconds.

My body and brain disconnected and the only thing I could do was call her back. I tapped her number on the screen in my phone. Hand shaking and eyes closed. Tight. Please answer, please, please answer. Hello? She answered. Who is this? What happened to Sean? Where are you? The words run outta my mouth without my directing them.

I'm still paralyzed, but need information from my brain to process. Unfortunately, I got none. I'd rather not say he's in the er. I think you should go. I stumbled out of the bedroom where I'd answered the fateful call with what must have been a ghost white face because everyone at the dining table turned to look at me.

John's in the hospital. He overdosed, was all I needed to say, and everyone went into motion. There was no [00:09:00] what? Response of disbelief, because I think we all knew somewhere in our hearts and minds that this was a possibility. The response was Go, just go. We'll take the dogs. You go. I headed straight for the car, but luckily my husband had the rational thought to tell me to put on shoes, grab my purse and computer, and throw some clothes in a bag.

He grabbed the keys and started the car while I gathered things. The island house is an hour and 15 minute drive from the hospital. She had said John was at a drive, which can sometimes feel long when headed there for a long weekend away from the city. But the drive that night felt like 19 years as I remembered each and every one of John's growing up.

Somewhere between leaving the house and arriving at the hospital. I spoke to my ex-husband in San Diego, John's dad, and he'd been able to talk to an ER nurse who didn't give any more information. Other than that, John was there. The mind can go a lot of places in an hour when you don't know what you're walking into, but you know there's a good chance your child isn't going to be alive when you finally get to your destination.

Every stoplight was a red torture beacon, and when we finally got to the emergency room entrance, my husband dropped me and I ran 

[00:10:16] Chapter TWO

chapter two. 

The ER mom is here. I ran through the double sliding glass door into a waiting room full of sadness and sickness. I must have looked lost, although I'd been [00:10:30] here many times before and slightly crazed because the woman at the reception desk immediately asked who I was there for and I told her I was John's mom.

She jumped up and put her head through a door behind her and simply said, mom's here. She turned back around and said that the doctor would be right out. I'm not new to the er, and I knew that normally a nurse retrieves you from the waiting room, not a doctor. This made my stomach turn another knot, and I waited and looked around and wished I was there with one of the very sad and sick looking people sitting in the battered generic hospital waiting room chairs, reading 3-year-old magazines because I knew that they were way better off than my son.

When the doctor came through the doors that led back to the ER rooms, he looked grim and serious and said that he wanted to talk to me in a small conference like room off to the left side of the hallway. My husband was still parking, but I followed the doctor into the room and sat and tapped my legs up and down to keep myself from running down the hallway looking for John.

My husband was finally escorted back to the little conference room, and the doctor sat down next to me, lowered his head, and leaned forward on his knees. He looked up and asked what we knew. We explained that we knew John was here because he'd overdosed, but that was all the doctor nodded and asked. Did you know this is the second time your son's been here this week?

I stared at him like he was a martian with three heads and was [00:12:00] trying to process his question in my brain, which was already jumbled from the news I'd received an hour and a half ago. What I asked, I wasn't even sure I'd understood what he was saying. John was here 48 hours ago on Wednesday also for an overdose.

The doctor was purposefully talking slowly to let my brain catch up with the information that he was giving us. He OD'ed on Fentanyl and Xanax. He made it through, but he was here and he also had a very serious case of pneumonia. I take it, he didn't tell you by now, my head was throbbing and I was wondering if this was one of my incredibly realistic dreams that happened on a regular basis and are usually not happy and often about John, my husband, squeezing my hand tightly.

It was my only clue that this was likely actually happening and that my son had now overdosed twice in three days, and I still didn't know if he was alive. I shook my head no, but I don't think any words made it out of my mouth. The doctor didn't seem surprised that we didn't know about John's first overdose that week.

How would we? He's an adult and apparently he had someone else pick him up when he was discharged from the er. The only way I would know is through the insurance claim that would've come several weeks later. I'm grateful that I did know otherwise. That explanation of benefits would've been a horrible shock to my system.

The doctor nodded, took a deep breath and carefully told us that John had overdosed again on Fentanyl and Xanax, [00:13:30] but was alive and probably several other things, but all I heard was alive and my whole body shook, and my husband squeezed my hand even harder. My heart was pounding so hard. I thought I would literally jump out of my chest.

He's not breathing on his own. The medics did CPR for 25 minutes and had to intubate him in the ambulance. The vent is breathing for him right now. It's touch and go, but you can see him. I just wanna warn you about the tube. It doesn't look good unfortunately, because I have a friend whose son was in a tragic accident.

As a teenager. I knew exactly what to expect and told the doctor that we wanted to go see John. His room was at the very end of a long ER hallway, which was the definition of chaos. Friday night, almost 11:00 PM by now. The weekend was definitely kicked off and the hospital was responding. We got to John's room.

It was huge and sterile with just one stretcher towards the back wall and a lot of machines running and making lots of noises. I went in heart still pumping, like I had just run a marathon on the stretcher. All I could see was John's head. His mouth propped open by a clear plastic accordion like tube that disappeared into his throat.

The ventilator made a rhythmic sound when it sucked air in and pushed it out to fill his lungs. Some collection of machines were beeping in various tones, and there were multiple IV bags hanging behind him. He looked like he could just be asleep [00:15:00] taking a nap, except for the array of noisy machines connected to him in the hospital room setting.

His hair looked longer than I had expected, but I hadn't seen him in over a month. We'd made plans several times to get together for breakfast or lunch, but he'd either not showed up or canceled. Last minute. I crossed the room and stood by the side of the stretcher just trying to comprehend what was going on.

A surreal attempt to put logic or sanity to something that cannot make sense besides his head. The rest of John's body was buried in layers of white blankets. A nurse who was orchestrating the numerous machines told me he was very cold when he was found, so they were trying to warm him up and stop him from shivering.

I don't remember if I cried or not. Shock was probably setting in, and I got as close as I could and bent over to kiss his forehead, squeezing my eyes, and still hoping I was going to wake up. I wanted to hold his hand and burrowed under the blankets and the tubes until I found one and IV poking out and tape covering most of it, but I curled his cold fingers around mine and started new prayers.

Instead of prayers that he be alive. I asked that he somehow pull through this and have some sort of quality of life. 

[00:16:16] Chapter THREE

Chapter three, what happened? The next few hours are a blur of doctors, nurses, beeping machines, IVs, phone calls, sitting, waiting, [00:16:30] praying. Spending several hours in the ER on a Friday night was like watching a very serious and sad circus play out with a cast of incredibly interesting characters from the medics running in with bodies on stretchers to nurses who handled everything with a calm coolness.

That meant they'd seen it all before to the doctors who were ping ponging back and forth from room to room, looking at patients and dealing with the frantic people who were there with them. The worst scenes were the ones where no one was there. Somebody was playing out this craziness all by themselves.

It was almost midnight, and I knew by now my parents would be panicking to know what John's status was, but I couldn't leave him and I wasn't allowed to use my phone in his room. So I asked my husband if he would call my parents and also my ex-husband to give them an update. We didn't have much. At least we could confirm that he was alive and that was enough for now.

This relay of telephone calls to family and friends via my husband became critical for my sanity and for everyone who was praying for John. My focus had to stay on him, but I knew word would spread quickly that he was in the hospital and wanted to be sure that the right information was communicated to the right people.

There were definitely people we didn't want information to get to. Mainly John's drug friends who we were sure would [00:18:00] be coming to the hospital or trying to get information very soon. We didn't know a lot about what had been happening in his life over the past few months, but we knew it wasn't good and there was likely a chance that John owed people money or had other issues going on that would potentially bring people around who didn't want the best for him.

My ex-husband has sent me a text saying he'd been getting messages from various people, asking where John was, how he was, and if they could come and visit. He didn't answer them, but it was clear that word was spreading. Which for John's safety was exactly what we didn't want. The curse of social media's instantaneous ripple effect had kicked in, and I knew it would be hard to keep things quiet about where John was and what had happened.

The good news I figured was that anyone who had been with him may have assumed he didn't make it, which if that word spread among his friends, I would've been perfectly happy. Somewhere between the time we arrived at the hospital in midnight, facts about how John was found and what had happened started to emerge.

We cobbled together the story from ER nurses, text messages, and a few cryptic phone calls from the people who were with him earlier that night. It was disturbing and unreal to me, but it helped put some context around how we'd ended up where we were. Of course, we weren't sure of the accuracy of the story because John obviously couldn't communicate with us, so we [00:19:30] had to go with the bits we learned along the way.

To this day, he doesn't remember any of this. John had been hanging out with friends that day, and in the late afternoon was at his friend Nick's house, waiting for him to get home from work. Nick's sister and a few other people were there as well and wanted to go get some food. They asked John if he wanted to come along and he said no.

We later learned that he was supposed to be going out to dinner with a girl. He'd started dating and her parents, maybe this is why he said no to going along. Then for some reason he decided to go with them, but wanted to wait in the car while they went into the restaurant. Again, maybe because he was planning to go to dinner later.

We don't know. His friends all went in to eat and John stayed in the car. He must have taken the pills just before they left Nick's house or in the car, but were not sure. While his friends were in the restaurant, they met up with a few other people and when they were done eating, decided to go do something else and didn't go back to the car for another three hours.

When they returned, John was laying in the backseat, no pulse, foaming at the mouth. My boy was clinically dead. Nick's sister probably saved his life because she knew CPR. They pulled him out of the car onto the sidewalk and she started pumping his chest and blowing in his mouth while one of the other friends called 9 1 1 medics arrived, although we don't know how long it took them to [00:21:00] get there, and they took over CPR for an additional 25 minutes.

It is unclear if CPR was done on the street or in the ambulance. Probably both. But because he wasn't able to breathe on his own, the medics inserted the ventilator down John's throat on the way to the er. We didn't have more than this, but for a parent to envision the scene where their child is in such pain laying on a sidewalk dead was more than I could handle.

I had to block the vision and also my anger at friends who would leave. Somebody they knew was taking massive doses of drugs in a car alone for three hours, and the fact that they were texting us to see if they could visit him in the hospital made me angry and disgusted and sad. So sad that this is where drugs had taken my son,

[00:21:56] Chapter FOUR

chapter four, ICU waiting.

While it did help to have some detail about how John ended up in the hospital, it was still a surreal experience to be standing by helpless, just waiting. We didn't even really know what we were waiting for, and the steady stream of nurses, aides, doctors, and other busy looking people rushing in and out of John's room didn't fill us in.

So we waited while pacing, sitting, pacing, and sitting some more. I [00:22:30] received a text message from an unknown number that said it was John's girlfriend and she was asking if John was okay and if she could visit. It seemed like everyone thought he'd bumped his head and was going to be sauntering out of the hospital any minute.

Now, more texts provided some detail about the planned dinner date, but I was too scared and tired and confused to reply. What exactly do you say to somebody you don't know via text in the middle of the night when your son is on life support in the er. Somewhere around 2:00 AM a doctor came into John's room and asked to talk with me and my husband.

We went outside to his room because although John was nonresponsive, we were told to speak to him exactly as if he was present because there was no way to know what he could be potentially processing. Apparently the doctor didn't want John to hear whatever he was going to tell us in the crowded and noisy hallway.

The doctor told us they felt John was stable enough to move to the ICU. This was huge. I'd been under the assumption that we'd be spending a lot longer in the emergency room, so to hear that he'd be moved was reassuring until I really thought about it. When moving to the ICU is a step up, that means you're not doing too well regardless.

It was something, and literally before we were done talking with the doctor, John was being wheeled out of his room by three people, one moving the stretcher, one on the ventilator, and one wrangling the numerous [00:24:00] tubes connecting him to his IVs. It could have been a scene from ER only. It was happening in front of me with no cameras rolling, and my son in the bed.

We quickly grabbed everything from John's room, including a large green plastic bag with a thin rope handle that cinched the top together that was sitting in the corner of the room. When I picked it up, it was fairly heavy and smelled strongly of smoke and a stench that I recognized as the smell of someone who's using and not taking good care of their hygiene.

This I thought was whatever John was wearing and had with him when he was found. I lugged it along as we followed the trio of Lifesavers through the hallways and doors and more hallways and into an enormous elevator, all the while passing people on stretchers, standing, sitting in chairs, all in various states of consciousness and physical wellbeing.

Seeing all of this pain and hurt, I started to feel even more panicked, but forced myself to refocus on our journey to the ICU, realizing I needed to save my sympathy and energy for our nightmare, not anyone else's. The freight sized elevator stopped at the third floor, and we all rolled out and into another long, dark hallway, but this one was significantly more quiet and felt more serious than the er.

We were met in one of the rooms by a male nurse who immediately took charge and [00:25:30] started reattaching tubes and things as if he was putting away groceries. He had a kind smile and was clearly so confident at what he was doing that I immediately felt a tiny bit better. I realized it had been over an hour since I'd updated John's dad on what was happening.

So while the nurse was simultaneously getting the room and John settled, I called my ex from the darkness of our new location and I gave him what I felt like was good news. We were in the ICU and John was still alive. An intensive care unit when well run is an incredibly humane machine that cranks out compassion and competence.

24 7 patients who are on the brink of death being cared for and kept alive by people so calm and reassuring that if you didn't know what they were doing, you might think they were working in a busy day spa. But these people thrive in the frantic moments, and I learned after days of conversation, they wouldn't work anywhere else.

For this, I was humbly grateful knowing that John's life and future was being decided with each procedure, each decision by the nurses and doctors for whom this situation sadly wasn't new. There was no sleeping, only the constant beeping of machines, people in and out. The room dim and the ventilators whooshing marking time as it kept John's lungs in motion.

While he wasn't [00:27:00] sometime early Saturday morning, I realized that this was likely not going to be a short stay and that I wasn't going to be able to think and remember and process information like I normally do. So I looked around for anything to write on finding an important patient information folder propped up next to a box of blue medical gloves on the side of the sink.

The folder had a sticker on the front with John's personal information, and inside was a welcome letter from the hospital's executive director, along with various pages related to financial and visiting policies and fact sheets about the flu and pneumonia vaccines that had been administered. I. I found it slightly odd that in such a serious and uncertain environment, someone had determined the need for a welcome packet, which I guessed a lot of patients themselves probably never saw given the situation in which they received it.

Finding the backside of the folder blank. I dug a pen out of my purse and started writing down everything I could clear outta my fuzzy brain. Stunned to realize that it had been more than 12 hours since I'd received the 22nd phone call that summoned us here. By this time Saturday morning, I had sent text messages to family and my closest friends to let them know what was happening and to ask for prayers.

Of course, people wanted to come, but the doctor heading up John's care required that we not have anyone for the [00:28:30] time being, he wanted the room quiet and calm. He informed us that they were going to be cooling John's body temperature to 63 degrees Fahrenheit to help avoid swelling his brain and organs.

This seemed to be the opposite of what had been done in the ER where they had had him bundled up trying to get him warm. I didn't have the mental or emotional capacity to try and sort that one out, so I nodded and just tried to stay out of the way of these life-saving maneuvers. The cooling was achieved by wrapping what looked like giant cold packs around John's calves in his midsection.

We learned that this was going to be a 72 hour process and during this time they would have John under sedation to help him not shiver violently and also to avoid a scenario where he might start to come to and try to pull the vent out of his throat. It now made sense why his wrist had been tied with soft terrycloth straps to the side railings of his bed.

Since he arrived in the er, I pulled one of the metal folding chairs to the side of John's bed, found his hand and wrapped his fingers around mine and laid my head on the side of his bed, and I prayed 

[00:29:45] Chapter FIVE

chapter 5 72 long hours. At some point on Saturday, one of the many doctors came in and said that they were going to take John for a CAT scan.

I wasn't exactly sure what a CAT scan would [00:30:00] tell us, but assumed it was a way to check his brain for damage. By now there were even more wires and machines connected to my boy. So to watch the team detangle and detach and then reattach everything in mobile format was impressive, to say the least. They said it would be about an hour, and a nurse knowingly suggested that I either eat, sleep, or spend some time out of the room, or better yet, all three.

None of her ideas sounded very optimal, but walking seemed less torturous than the thought of sleeping and possibly missing something, and eating was out of the question. So I patted out to the hallway in my newly provided the hospital socks to see what else was happening in this world within the world.

I felt a bit like I was in Las Vegas where you don't know what time it is or have a good sense of reality because the world you are operating in isn't really attached to anything that makes sense. I definitely would've rather been in Vegas once the team had navigated the obstacle course that was John's room and wheeled him down the hallway and out a set of double doors.

I followed signs to the waiting room to see if I could locate my husband in the blur and hurry and wait and hurry again. We kept ending up in different places, him usually making calls and sending text messages to my ex and other family members while I sat in John's room waiting. For anything. There was another set of double doors leading to the waiting room.

Each one had a poster on it with a picture of a [00:31:30] very cute little blonde-haired boy and a caption that read Silent hospitals help people heal. I almost laughed out loud because the last way I would describe the ICU would be quiet, let alone silent. It was a nice sentiment though, and I push open the doors only to be blinded by what I forgot would be daylight.

The surreal Vegas like world I'd been living in since 10:00 PM the night before hadn't consisted of daylight, so it was disorienting and refreshing at the same time. My husband was there on one of the requisite 1980 looking couches on his phone, looking so tired and stressed. He was fielding the barrage of incoming questions that kept growing as our friends found out what had happened.

Everyone was so worried and offered words of kindness and prayers, which we needed more than anything. I sat down next to him and tried to relay the jumble of information I'd gathered over the past few hours. CAT scan and progress problems, drawing blood due to John's low body temperature, organ damage, possible need for kidney dialysis, MRI whenever possible.

Pneumonia, still very bad. High risk for infection. It went on and on. We sat in numb silence for a while before we both headed back to John's room for whatever was going to happen next in the hallway. We met up with the head ICU doctor who said he wanted to talk with us. We stayed outside the [00:33:00] room for the same reason we did in the er.

The doctor asked where dad was and when he heard that he was still in California, he said in a very authoritative voice, he needs to come now. We nodded and said we'd get that going. My youngest son had just flown down two days before to see his dad on spring break, so we needed them both to find flights and get to Seattle quickly, which we didn't take as a good sign.

A hospital stay will test the patients of anyone to their outer limits. And it's arduous in a way that's hard to explain because your world is in a state of crisis, but you have to simply sit and wait and nothing you do will speed up the recovery or lack of recovery process. And if you have wonderful and caring friends like we do, they all want to help, want to be given some small task that will help you because they know they can't help the one laying in the bed, which is ironic because when your child is an addict, you don't tend to get casseroles delivered or people offering to clean your house or run your errands even though you're in the same state of neediness and desperation as other parents whose children have a terminal illness, your needs lie under the radar because people don't know what to say or do.

So you suffer alone. My parents were allowed to come visit and my mom, a retired rn, who knows the ICU drill, was a calm and comforting presence during the long stints of waiting. She and my dad also worked magic by cashing in credit card [00:34:30] miles to fly both John's dad and my 17-year-old son up from San Diego the next morning.

Thankfully, somebody had given me a small black leather notebook by Saturday evening because I'd filled the back of the welcome packet with jumbles of notes and facts and had run out of writing space. I made notes like 5:00 PM turned in bed and oral care done. No visitors still Ricardo, getting hand lotion at the mall.

Staying here tonight, nurse bringing blanket and pillow shivering a lot. It now looks like a second grade level of documentation, but it was helpful to get it out and I'm grateful now to have this piece of raw emotion to hold onto. Looking around at the hundreds of tubes and wires and all the machines that were keeping John alive, I noticed the green plastic bag in the corner again, it was still with us, and I decided to see what clues it might contain.

I unc cinched the cord at the top and pulled out damp clothes that had that horrible, sad smell I caught wind of in the er. There was a brown leather jacket striped Ralph Lauren button-down shirt, khaki pants, a leather belt, and brown leather loafers, no socks, wallet or phone. Who knows what had been taken before the medics arrived.

The jacket and shirt were splayed open where the medics obviously had cut from waist to neck to gain access to John's chest for CPR. The clothing choice told me that John was definitely dressed up for [00:36:00] something. This wasn't his usual saggy and true religion Jeans, fake Gucci belt and baggy t-shirt, which seemed to be the standard uniform.

Lately, he had lost so much weight over the past months that when we did see each other, I just wanted to force feed him large volumes of high calorie foods. People who are addicted to drugs when given the choice of chemicals or food, almost always chose the chemical. I laid everything out on the floor of the hospital room and stared at what easily could be the last outfit my son ever wore.

Knowing him, I could envision him rummaging through the stacks of black plastic garbage bags. He kept his clothes in wherever he was staying, and deciding that this was a good fashion combo for whatever was planned now, damp, ripped, omitting a disgusting stench and crumpled on the floor. It looked so desperate and so hopeful at the same time.

At least there had been some thought put into it, which counted for something. The smell was awful, so I shoved everything back in the bag and tightly closed the top and kicked it back to the corner, not being able to decide if I should throw it out or not. At that point, I didn't know if or how sentimental it might become.

[00:37:15] Chapter SIX

Chapter six, reflection. You have a new job. When you have a lot of time to think about life in a situation where life isn't a given, some things get really clear really quickly, [00:37:30] like priorities and what's worthy of getting stressed out over. When the head doctor saw me in the hallway that Saturday, he stopped and asked me if I worked to, which I answered yes full-time.

He looked me square in the eye and said, I'll write a request if I need to, but you are not going back to work for a while. You're taking FMLA leave for as long as possible. He is your new full-time job. And then he nodded his head towards John's room. It was unexpected, but also extremely comforting to have somebody tell me something definitive.

He was very clear and that felt good. It also meant we weren't leaving soon and that John was likely going to need care for a while. I. At that point, it occurred to me that I needed to let my office know that I wasn't going to be at work On Monday. I worked for an advertising agency and headed up several large accounts, so the thought of just dropping everything as it had been when I left the office on Friday seemed crazy, but also like the only option sitting in the recliner that one of the nurses had somehow gotten brought into our room.

I pulled out my phone and in the dark, tapped out a cryptic message to the office manager saying we'd had a family emergency, and I wouldn't be at work on Monday or probably Tuesday either. She immediately sent a text back saying not to worry about anything and to get in touch when I could. It was the first interaction I'd had with somebody outside the hospital except for John's dad, and it felt oddly exhausting to communicate [00:39:00] outside of the sterile bubble that we were living in.

The recliner was huge and my husband had brought a blanket for me, so I pulled it around me as tightly as I could and leaned back into his plastic-y relief. I listened to the now normal machine beeps and whooshing of the ventilator, and I wondered if John was absorbing any of this. I assumed not because every few hours the nurses and doctors would give him a pretty rough shake and shout into his face.

John, squeeze your eyes. If you can hear me. Give me a thumbs up. John. John, let us know you're there. Squeeze my hand and on and on. With not even as much as a twitch. I held my breath each time they ran through this drill because I so badly wanted him to do something and it was torture to watch him lay in complete stillness through the shouting and the shaking.

Maybe just not yet. I kept saying to myself, maybe he just needs more time. As often as I could. I pulled a chair next to John's bed so I could sit and hold his hand, but between bed adjustments, stomach tube, suctioning, oral care, blood draws, IV bag changes, and lots of other procedures, I didn't understand.

It was hard to be very present in any consistent way. I. I felt like although the goal was to keep things calm and quiet, it was more like a perfectly orchestrated yet subdued circus act in constant motion. My husband, parents and a few family members were able to visit now, which added to the activity level, but was at least [00:40:30] distracting and comforting at the same time.

There was sort of an odd feeling when somebody would walk into the room because I had cried my tears by this point, but others hadn't. And seeing John in the bed attached to a room full of machines with startling and horrific for them. Yet I was very focused on watching his heart rate monitor and ventilator, and tracking all the ongoing procedures.

So I probably appeared less emotional and more businesslike. I was busy writing down each temperature check, nurses' names and medication doses, trying to keep track of what was dripping down from the three IV bags that hung above John's head and alarmed boldly each time they got close to being empty.

It was early Sunday morning when my dad sent me a text saying he was on the way to the airport to pick up my ex-husband and younger son, and I was so glad and scared at the same time for them to start the process of processing this whole thing. We were on day three, but they were going to get the full on ICU experience in just a few hours, and I knew it would be painful.

I asked my dad to let me know when they arrived so I could intercept them in the hallway to prep them for what they'd see, which sounded like a good plan only to completely not work because things were hectic. And plan at this point was a ridiculous concept. So the door to John's room opened and his dad and 17-year-old brother walked in fresh off a plane from San Diego.

I jumped up to hug them both, and the tears [00:42:00] started all over again. Somehow with all of us there together, the emotions skyrocketed. And watching my youngest son stare at his older brother laying there, non-responsive on life support, was something I can't accurately describe. It was so wrong and so unfair and so real.

I hugged him from behind and laid my head against his back and felt his silent gasps and attempt to choke back the cry. He probably wanted to let rip. He'd been dealing with this for so many years, and we had had some pretty bad times already, but this was the worst. And again, he was watching his mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, cousin, stepdad.

Everyone suffered the impact of John's addiction. It was sickening and heartbreaking and confusing and scary. Addiction always is I being trained. 72 hours have never felt so long, but that's how long John needed to be kept cold with the hopes that it would lessen the swelling in his brain and reduce the amount of damage to his organs.

His kidneys were showing positive signs of recovery by Sunday, so the doctors held off on dialysis and a medication adjustment calmed his horrible shivering. My closest friends came to see us and one of John's few remaining good friends heard about his overdose and immediately drove 80 miles from her [00:43:30] college to sit with him for hours.

By Sunday, the ICU seemed like home and the charge nurse even let me sneak into the staff bathroom so I could shower. Any sense of self-care had vanished when we arrived at the er. So I'd been walking around in loose gray hospital socks with white grippy strips on the soles, and a mismatched pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt that my husband had grabbed for me on a quick trip to the house.

Of course, that was all irrelevant, but the shower did provide a moment of normalcy, even though it was far from normal. My little corner of the room was starting to resemble a mountain, blankets and pillows and gifts and food and clothes, towels, computer phone, iPad, all stack crazily on the recliner, which turned out to be a lifesaver.

Flowers aren't allowed in the ICU. So people were bringing snacks and small things that ended up all over the place, but were so appreciated and meaningful. And as I sat in that mountain of love in the recliner for hour after hour, I realized that God had prepared me for this. I learned that my friend of 35 years on Saturday morning was the one who roamed the ICU hallways and demanded that somebody bring me a recliner, which doesn't sound all that significant until you really need one.

And the reason she knew I needed one, and the reason I realized I'd been in training for this is because she needed a recliner for 10 years. So is [00:45:00] technically an expert in the field of waiting. Her son, Luke, who was like my own, fell off his skateboard when he was 15 years old and spent three months in Seattle's largest trauma centers pediatric ICU, and then six months in children's hospital, and then 10 years in a coma at an assisted living family home.

And then she lost him. We all lost him in 2014. It was a 10 year marathon of pain. I only endured a small fraction of what she did during almost a full year of living in a hospital. But those hundreds of hours in Luke's room identical to John's filled with machines and noises and constant stream of caretakers had been a proving ground for me.

This was why seeing John in his current condition wasn't quite as jarring to me as it was for others, for me and for my friend. It was literally deja vu. Down to the smell of the pungent foamy antibacterial soap and hand sanitizer that you're required to slather yourself in every time you enter or leave the room.

Over the course of Luke's 10 year fight to live, I'd seen this plus his tracheotomy, severe atrophy, so many infections round after round of pneumonia and countless surgeries including one to remove a large portion of his skull. Those experiences provided me with an ability to function at a level that I might [00:46:30] not have been able to otherwise.

I had been trained and I didn't even know it. 

[00:46:36] Chapter SEVEN

Chapter seven, thumbs Up A New Life. Perched in my recliner. I watched endless procedures happen and after a while sort of settled into the rhythm of care. There were several exciting, but then also disappointing moments when the nurses would test John's ability to breathe on his own by lowering the output of his ventilator, only to find out he wasn't able to continue breathing, so they would reset it to full capacity.

To know that this big machine sitting next to me was keeping my child alive was humbling to say the least. There was a semi steady stream of family coming through with everyone talking in very hushed tones and not really knowing what to say. What do you say at this point? I had to face the reality that like Luke John might not come out of this, and if he did may not have any quality of life, given the amount of time he'd been without oxygen.

I remembered the 10 years of watching Luke in a coma, lying in his bed or having been moved to his recliner, but not responding to voices or actions. It was torture to watch it when it wasn't my own son. So thinking of John in a similar state was something I didn't think I could bear. My prayers then turned to God, please let him have a decent quality of life, or please take him home.

I wasn't giving up, but I knew from [00:48:00] experience the reality of what life would be like for him and for our family if he remained non-responsive, and I had to be realistic about what was fair to him. These are the thoughts you never think you'll have. This stuff happens to other people, not us. The situation wasn't good and the doctors were very reframed in their willingness to give us any prognosis.

More waiting. I. For anyone who is divorced and remarried, you never imagine, at least I never did. You may someday be in a small, chaotic ICU room with your child in touch and go status with your ex spouse and current one for days. This is when the work my ex-husband and I did as parents to maintain a healthy and positive relationship for our boys.

Paid off in spades. There was enough tension in the situation already that if we had had to navigate around each other, it wouldn't have worked. My husband and ex-husband also have built a good relationship, so I was extremely lucky to have the support of both, and I needed it. As promised, the main doctor came into John's room 72 hours, almost to the minute after they had started the cooling process.

He said they would stop the cooling and let John's body temperature come back to normal, then slow the sedation medication and see if he would start responding. I suddenly thought about the withdrawal symptoms. John might feel if he did come around and ask the doctor what would happen. He felt that John had been out long enough that any withdrawal symptoms would've [00:49:30] passed and that they'd been watching for anything that would indicate that he was in pain.

I couldn't really imagine how he couldn't be in a lot of pain, but had learned to trust the people who do this day in and day out, and so I let that drift to the back of my muddled mind. A few hours later, the nurses were changing shifts and were going through the handoff process. The nurse coming on checked John's vitals and wanted to start tapering the sedative medication even more.

As a result, John started moving his head and arms were moving, but his eyes were closed. The nurse quickly got the wrist restraints in case he woke up. She immediately tested his breathing ability again, and it had improved to the point where she called in a team to remove the breathing tube. It all happened so fast we didn't have time to even process what was going on, but the room was suddenly full of people again, and myself, my husband, ex-husband, and son, all backed out of the way to let them do what they needed to do.

I'm pretty sure I held my breath for the better part of five minutes, wondering which way things were about to go. Watching the team prep for, and then also removes John's breathing tube in the span of only a few minutes. Was dizzying and loud, but amazingly orchestrated. When the nurse finally pulled the tube and it started coming up from John's throat, he choked and coughed and started moving around.

He was clearly in pain and agitated by the process. His lips were hugely swollen and raw by this time, and I could only imagine how sore his throat must have been. [00:51:00] The tube came all the way out and he was trying to reach up with his hands, which were thankfully strapped to his bed. I wasn't sure, but this seemed like a good sign that he was clearly very uncomfortable.

One of the nurses stepped close to his bed and leaned over talking directly into his ear. John, open your eyes if you can hear me. John, squeeze my hand if you can. John, give us a thumbs up. She commanded. My eyes were glued to his hands, and I thought I was imagining things when I saw his left thumb move a little bit in an upward direction.

He moved. I said, only half believing it again. She said, John, give us a thumbs up if you can hear me. And this time he did. It was a halfway thumbs up and very slow, but it was definitely intentional and it meant that at least he could connect voice with action, which was all I needed to know at that moment.

We all just kept repeating. He moved. He moved and watched the team work to suction lots of junk from John's throat and mouth. He kept coughing and spitting up, which to me was the best thing I had seen in three and a half days. A social worker came to the room a while later and was talking about next steps and insurance, and I'm sure I probably seemed really slow because for the life of me, I couldn't understand what she was talking about or needed or was telling me to do.

I thought maybe she had the wrong room because she was talking about resources and programs and in-network. But all I knew was [00:52:30] my son could lift his thumb after two overdoses in three days, and my brain was maxed out right there. So she left and said she'd come back another day, which sounded great to me.

[00:52:44] Chapter EIGHT

Chapter eight another day. Now what? After John's breathing tube was removed, they also removed his catheter and started running more tests to see how his organs were doing. My husband immediately notified the small army of family and friends who were praying for John to let them know that he was responding a complete miracle in every sense of the word.

By evening, I'm not sure who was more exhausted, but John wasn't really interacting with us, although we could tell he knew we were there. I managed to drag the recliner close to his bed so I could lay next to him and hold his hand hoping that we'd get some rest overnight and not having the slightest idea of what the next day would hold.

Turns out it wasn't a restful night in the least. The good news was that later that evening, John actually opened his eyes and recognized me, although he didn't know where he was or why he was there. I had asked one of the nurses what information I should give him when and if he did come around, and she said to tell him the truth that he needed to hear it.

So later, as I was drifting in and out of sleep, I felt John squeeze my hand and I looked across at him in his bed. At this point, he wasn't restrained, so he was pulling himself up, trying to sit up in the bed. [00:54:00] He was very agitated and seemed angry. I told him to relax and asked if he knew where he was again.

And again, no, he didn't know where he was or why he was there, so we started the story again. His voice was a very quiet horse whisper. Because of the damage to his vocal cords, his lips were so swollen and chapped from breathing through the tube for three days, it looked painful, and I rubbed Vaseline on them constantly.

Such a mom thing to do. He calmed down a little bit and I explained that he was in the ICU because he had overdosed on Fentanyl and Xanax three days ago, to which he looked stunned and completely confused. Three days ago, he sly whispered out of his damaged lungs and throat in total disbelief. I explained what I knew of his trip to the hospital and the time in the er, and now the time that he'd been in the ICU.

He couldn't believe it, but he was clearly confused and not processing Normally, I left it high level and tried to get him to rest, but there was none of that. I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill Parker. He sold me heroin. I'm gonna kill him. He knows I don't do heroin. John was trying to shout, but his throat only let out puffs of air with words attached, and it sounded so pathetic to hear him be so angry about such a serious thing, but be barely able to get the words out.

While I was ecstatic, beyond belief that he was [00:55:30] alive and functioning to some extent, my heart started to feel the dread of the old life coming back. If these were the first words out of his mouth after being clinically dead, I assumed things might not just bounce back to normal pre drug life for any of us.

[00:55:47] Chapter NINE

Chapter nine, moving up long nights, longer days. The first night John was conscious was the longest of my life. He was confused and angry and couldn't talk, and the only thing he wanted was water, which I couldn't give him because the doctors didn't know if A, he could swallow properly, or B, if he could swallow, would the water go into his lungs or his stomach, so no water allowed.

In his sliver of a whisper, he begged and begged and begged all night to please give him some water, which I could understand. Since his mouth had been open for over three days with a tube down, his throat and lips swollen and cracked a couple of times I dozed off in my recliner only to wake up to him trying to pull himself out of his bed to get to the small sink in the corner of the room.

Of course, with tubes and lines and machines still connected, there was no way he could accomplish this, but his determination was impressive. Finally due to complete exhaustion and motherly empathy, I dipped the corner of a washcloth into a cup of ice chips and let him suck on the end of the washcloth.

We tried it the first time with only a [00:57:00] tiny drop of water on the washcloth because I was scared to death I was gonna choke my child who had just survived two overdoses, not something I could even fathom. He just held the moisture in his mouth and seemed to be able to swallow the tiny drops. So there we sat four hours, me dipping the washcloth and ice chips, and him desperately watching and then sucking on it as if it was liquid gold.

By morning only recognizable by light because there had been no sleep. John's doctor was talking about the possibility of moving him off the ICU and up to a normal floor. On the one hand, that sounded great, but on the other, we were sort of at home in the ICU by this point, and knowing the routine and nurses and aides and doctors was very comforting, even though it was constant chaos.

But we knew that physically this was a good sign and started another long process of waiting for various tests to be done, starting with swallowing and paperwork to be filled out and filed. John's dad and brother, as well as my husband and parents were all gathered in the ICU waiting room and moving between there and John's room and the hallway as we got filled in on what would be next.

I. There was a sense of positivity and yet also uncertainty because we had no way to assess what level of brain or internal organ damage had been done as we waited. There were a few encouraging moments that came, like little gifts wrapped in guarded optimism. The first was a comment from John [00:58:30] as we sat holding hands in the semi dark room.

He still wasn't able to speak well, but kept pulling at my left hand and touching my wedding ring. I couldn't understand what he was doing or trying to communicate, so I leaned in close so that he could whisper to me. He asked, where'd you get that ring? I was immediately caught off guard, realizing he didn't even know, and I told him it was my wedding ring from his stepfather, to which he replied.

Those are pretty small diamonds. He had a tiny smile on his swollen, cracked lips, and I knew he was giving me a hard time. Recognizing that he managed to find the strength and cleverness to make this comment made me incredibly happy and I half laughed, half cried at this tiny achievement. The next slice of hope came oddly via John's speech therapist who came to the ICU to test his ability to swallow.

She had a cup with ice chips and a foil litted cup of applesauce. The kind you pack with your grade schoolers lunch with the hopes that they'll eat some fruit. The nurses sat John's bed straight up for this test that if he passed, would finally allow him to have something other than the corner of a washcloth to quench his pain in full thirst.

One ice chip at a time. She intently watched and commanded him not to swallow, but to suck on it until it was fully melted and then try swallowing each time he would cough and cough, and I honestly thought he was gonna choke. But it seemed that she had done this a thousand times, and each time helped him [01:00:00] recover and rest.

After the exhausting effort, recognizing that the water was too liquid for him to swallow safely, she decided to test the applesauce since it was thicker and less likely to slip down his throat uncontrolled, she peeled back the foil and dipped the tip of a spoon in the cup while instructing John that again, he wasn't to immediately try to swallow it.

When she put the tip of the spoon in his mouth, he held it there as instructed and then successfully swallowed it without choking. He looked at me and then at her and forced out a quiet whisper. I haven't had that shit in forever. I'm not sure who was more surprised at this reaction from someone who had just laid non-responsive for three days, but we both burst out with a laugh that got us through the rest of a long day.

Immediately after those humorous words, John proceeded to start heaving and throwing up, but of course there was nothing in him to throw up, so it was just a horribly painful episode. One of many he would have, as we finally did move off the ICU and up to the stroke unit,

[01:01:05] Chapter TEN

chapter 10, room with a View. The vortex emerging from the ICU to travel two floors up to the stroke unit felt like a ceremonious pilgrimage.

As nurses and aides gathered tubes and machines and IVs to ride alongside John's bed, it felt like I'd been in this room for weeks. A bit of a vortex were time and the world at large were suspended while we waited to learn [01:01:30] the fate of our son. My ex-husband and younger son accompanied John and his medical posse to the new room while I attempted to stuff everything we'd accumulated over the last four days into large plastic hospital bags to bring to our next destination.

I hadn't been outside the ICU, let alone interacting with the real world since Friday night. So I experienced the emotional equivalent of a bright light induced squint as I exited the familiar dark room and lugged the three big green plastic bags with me down the hallway. I tried to find the various nurses and aides that had literally been lifesavers to us, but as usual in the ICU, they were frantically saving others, and I finally gave up resolving to come back down and say thank you to these incredible people.

I left the floor through the door with the sh sign on it for the last time and pressed the up button for the elevator in the waiting room area where a sad, empty aquarium stood. And as I looked closely, I saw one lonely fish swimming around the bottom of the tank. I took this as a good sign and headed up to the fifth floor, the stroke unit.

We had told John that he was going to be moving rooms, but it didn't register with him, and of course it wouldn't because he didn't remember where he was or why he was there from hour to hour. When I got to the new room, he was sleeping exhausted from the 10 minutes of activity and moving from one floor to the next.

The fifth floor was notably more quiet. The first thing I noticed [01:03:00] was there was carpet in the hallways and the rooms were all positioned around a central station that acted as air traffic control for 20 plus rooms full of patients who had had strokes or various things that would have a stroke-like impact on the brain.

It didn't occur to me that we were on the stroke unit for a reason. I just knew that the room was much larger triangle and shape, and had a peekaboo view of downtown Seattle through the thick trees on the hospital campus. I thought about how much John would love that he's a kid who loves his city passionately, and I hoped that when he woke up and saw the iconic top of the space needle, it might help him remember or recover whatever it was that he needed to get better.

[01:03:43] Chapter ELEVEN

Chapter 11, the Amazing Body Samuel. After a long nap and some more ice chips, John was a bit more alert and while he recognized us, when he woke up, he still didn't remember where he was or why he was there. We patiently told him again what had happened and why he was in the hospital. His reactions and processing time were very slow and his eyes weren't fully looking straight ahead.

They tended to drift up and off to the side, and it was the scariest thing to think this might be his new permanent state. He couldn't focus his eyes on anything. They drifted back and forth slowly as if they couldn't find anything familiar enough to land on. It was like he had been put in slow motion and [01:04:30] everything was clearly confusing and new.

I tried to swallow the panic that kept rising in my chest when I thought about what the rest of John's life might be like, what the rest of our lives might be like with him like this. It was only the first day out of the ICUI kept thinking things will get better. His first non ICU nurse. Julie was very efficient and after getting his room situated and going over the rules of the floor with us, she informed us she was going to have PT come at some point in the afternoon.

I didn't really understand why a physical therapist would be coming today, but I had learned that the whole hospital world was one I didn't know much about. So I just said, okay, and went back to INE with John. A bit later there was a knock on the door and a 30 ish looking man who was no more than five foot seven or so, but all muscle entered the room.

He was carrying a variety of different apparatus and had what looked like an extra long seatbelt draped around his neck. He was all business, and even though John had nodded off again, he looked at us and introduced himself as Samuel. He was there to start physical therapy. I looked at my ex-husband as if Samuel had just told us he was there to put John in the circus.

It seemed a little lot soon to be putting John into a physically demanding situation. But what did I know? My ex had a similar reaction, but we went to John's bed and gently woke him up. This time we not only had to explain to him where he was and why he was there, [01:06:00] but also that he was going to be doing some physical therapy with Samuel.

It seemed at this point, nothing was making sense to John anyway, so he just stared at this fitness poster, child with his eyes drifting up and glazed and nodded. Okay. Samuel was the most interesting combination of tough, but gentle, direct, but not overbearing, and it was obvious that he had done this many, many times.

He explained to John that he was going to have him sit up and put his feet on the ground. This seemed like a basic task, but John had been immobile for four days now, and what was left of his muscles was minimally functioning. He was so weak. It was exhausting for him just to move around enough for Samuel to get all of his tubes and cords untangled enough for the first attempt at movement.

The mom, gene and me wanted to tell this man to leave my son alone. He had almost died twice now in the past week, and couldn't we just do this in another week? But I suppressed that urge and stood back in the corner by the sink and just got out my phone. One of the ICU nurses had told me that I should be taking pictures and video because John wasn't going to remember this.

It was the best advice she could have given me because she was right. Samuel put the long strap that looked like a seatbelt around John's waist and cinched it uptight. He used it to pull John into an upright sitting position and literally had to hold him there as John couldn't keep himself vertical.

Samuel held him there and explained how he was gonna turn John so that he could lower his feet to the ground. [01:07:30] John just looked at him like he couldn't figure out who this guy was or why he was in a hospital bed trying to sit up. We took it slowly and after a painful 10 or 15 minutes, John was sitting on the side of the bed with his feet on the floor.

It was so incredible to see this, that we were almost cheering. Samuel was also pleased with his progress, and he asked if John wanted to try walking. I gasped after just watching the level of ordeal and involved to sit up, but John looked at him blankly and after about 20 seconds of consideration, he nodded.

Yes,

[01:08:06] Chapter TWELVE

chapter 12, the chosen one, walking and learning. John's brother, dad and I watched in quiet disbelief as Samuel fetched a walker from the hallway and brought it to the side of the bed. It had the tennis balls on the feet, just like you would see someone in a nursing home to use, and it was hard to accept that John at the age of 19 would need this to walk.

Samuel slowly explained to John what he wanted him to do, and John seemed to be trying to process the information, although it was hard to tell how much was actually connecting with his brain. He kept looking at me with my phone poised to capture this epic event as if he wanted to tell me to put it away, but no words came out of his mouth.

Regardless. I kept my phone at the ready, hoping this was going to be something worth documenting. You could see a look of absolute determination on John's [01:09:00] face as Samuel tightened up the strap around his waist even more, and then helped place his hand on the handles of the walker. Samuel pulled John's straight up and it was a good thing.

He was a solid block of muscle because there was no way John could have stood on his own. Even with the walker supporting him, his legs looked like toothpicks poking out from under the hospital gown, and it was hard to believe they would even be able to support his scrawny 115 pound body. Samuel instructed him to just stay there for a minute and get his bearings and to see if John could move his toes a bit to make sure he had control over his legs and feet.

We saw his big toes wiggle a tiny bit, which was a good sign, and then Samuel told John to pick up his right foot and put it down a bit in front of where it currently was. This seemed like a lot of information for him to process, and John slowly blankly moved his gaze from Samuel to the ground and then to the walker, as if he was trying to put together a really complex puzzle.

I was afraid that he all of a sudden didn't remember where he was again, but then we saw his right foot, slowly slide forward on the ground, about a half inch, and then stop. Samuel encouraged him to do the same on the left, and miraculously with a lot of help, sweat and patience, John painstakingly shuffled his way, the long six feet from the side of the bed to the door of his room.

Back to [01:10:30] his bed. I had tears in my eyes watching what looked like a very painful exercise, but was so outrageously proud of my boy for doing this just one day after his breathing tube had been removed. It seemed impossible, but it was a glimmer of hope that I hadn't seen coming, and it was so welcomed.

Over the course of the week on the stroke unit, John had so many caring, talented people taking care of him and helping him relearn everything from swallowing and eating, to telling time, writing and using a phone. During one night shift, we heard a soft knocking on the door, and when it opened, there was a massive hulk of a man in scrubs coming toward us.

He had to have been almost seven feet, 300 pounds and zero body fat. His name was Sal and he was from Gambia. We learned over the next few days, Sal was the kind of guy whose looks were so intimidating. It was hard to believe he was a nurse. He was strong beyond belief and had a kind, caring nature. He also had John's respect because he told us the story of how he came to be working as a nurse in a hospital in Seattle.

It turns out Sal had moved from Gambia to the East coast with his mother and siblings when he was in middle school, and had eventually become the top Xanax dealer in Maryland. His mother finally forced him to move to Seattle to live with his aunt, but he continued with his dealing career regardless.

Eventually, he got a girl pregnant and suddenly he [01:12:00] realized he needed to live a better life. He had street cred. And after hearing John's story, Sal looked him straight in the eyes and said, you are the chosen one. No one lives through what you did. You are here for a reason. I couldn't have agreed more and thanked God for sending this unlikely angel to us at just the right time.

[01:12:23] Chapter THIRTEEN

Chapter 13, hashtag miracle. Learn, relearn, repeat. We were on the fifth floor stroke unit for five days. Those days were filled with occupational speech and physical therapy naps, and for me finally spending nights at home. John's dad and brother stayed in his room on a full-size rolling bed, and I was able to go home late at night and return in the morning.

The hospital is only 15 minutes from our house, so although I was hesitant to leave, I very much needed the calm of our home, my husband's support and cooking, and an actual bed. On one of the first afternoons, I drove home from the hospital. I was in a daze at the wheel, probably not the smartest move, trying to process everything, which was still so difficult.

I was sitting at a red light and looked out my window to see an incredible rainbow bright in the darkish spring sky. It felt like a colorful hug from above, and it was the first time I sensed a tinge of solid hope that things might turn out okay. [01:13:30] There was nothing logical to indicate that things could possibly turn out okay, but I knew it was a sign that I wasn't alone, and neither was John.

John's eyes started focusing more and he started tracking movement and conversations. It was like he was somewhere between slow motion and neutral, but not in the reverse anymore. So we were ecstatic. We got into a bit of a rhythm between therapy sessions, tests, meals, and naps. One of the most critical tests happened on the second day of the fifth floor, a barium swallow test to see if food would go down to John's stomach or to his lungs.

So far, he was only allowed to have applesauce and thickened water or nectar, which was a goopy substance that didn't satisfy thirst and was according to John, stupid sweet, so he wouldn't drink it. Such a simple thing as thirst and a very sore throat seemed like welcome problems at this point. So we just waited for the swallow test to take us to the next phase in the recovery process.

Speech therapy included writing in a notebook. John's first few attempts at writing were approximately a second grade level, but gradually improved to where he could write down what he wanted to order for his meals. And then after relearning how to dial a phone and give the kitchen his name and room number, he could read what he had written, which seemed incredible and hopeful.

Reading and writing. But even the smallest thing like putting on socks was almost impossible and completely exhausted him to where he would [01:15:00] get up the strength to sit up, put on the ugly gray hospital socks, using a long gripper claw tool that looked like something from the as seen on TV store, and then sleep for 30 minutes before Samuel or one of the other physical therapists came in to get him upright and practice with the walker.

He relearned how to tell time on an analog clock, how to add and subtract simple numbers, and finally began to remember where he was after waking up. This was a positive sign, but we noticed that as he realized where he was and why he was there, he seemed to be very sad and only talked if he was asked a direct question.

One of his nurses said it was normal for a person to feel depression when they've had a traumatic brain injury. So we tried to keep as normal of a routine as we could in that completely un-normal environment, and hoped that the swallow test would tell us that he could graduate from applesauce to some real hospital food, which would be a major move forward.

[01:16:02] Chapter Fourteen

Chapter 14, what happens now when the body starts working again? The Barium Swallow test was a success and results in hand. We felt like our son had just completed the Boston Marathon real, not gelatin. Fluids and semi-solid foods seemed like a giant graduation of sorts, closer to a normal existence, whatever that meant in the surreal world that we were living in.

The step up to [01:16:30] cranberry juice and oatmeal was monumental, and it was at this point that I started to dare to think that things might keep getting better. There was still confusion on John's part about where he was and why he was there, but the gaps were shorter, and with the help of amazing therapists, he was slowly regaining the simple things we all take for granted.

Reading, writing, dressing ourselves, dialing a phone, but receiving doctor's approvals for full liquids and semi-solid food was enough encouragement to keep going. Another hour, another shift, another night to the next day. The stroke unit was such an experience. Amazing nurses, PTs, OTs, sts. It was crazily the most calm, secure, and sense of safe I had felt for John in a long time.

We knew where he was. He was eating slowly and safe in a place that no one outside our family and the closest friends knew of. He was listed anonymously in the hospital system, so even if his homies called around, which they did. They would be told there was no one registered in his name. After a few days on the fifth floor, I realized I had no concrete idea of the details of John's overdose.

The past week had been a complete blur of just keeping him alive, and it strangely hadn't occurred to me to ask anyone specifically about what and how much John had taken the night he arrived in the situation. I felt a little negligent because that [01:18:00] seemed like such an obvious question, but I realized that everything was probably happening in its proper time.

It didn't really matter if I knew this information in the past week, it wouldn't have changed anything, but as I came up for my first few breaths of air, knowing that he was alive and miraculously doing very well in relearning so many things. And his organs and body were responding well, it finally occurred to me to seek out his primary doctor and ask some pretty basic questions.

What I interestingly learned was that because John was legally an adult, I didn't have the right to find out anything from his medical records given his state of mind and physical situation. I thought this was completely crazy, and I knew I needed to step up for my child and make sure decisions being made in the future were informed and safe.

After a few conversations with nurses and doctors, I was allowed to view John's record on the computer screen only. Nothing printed out or discussed due to privacy issues. This was somewhat helpful, but my ability to retain the information was limited, and I finally just decided to focus on what was next.

In a way, I wished that he could stay here safe, being cared for by loving people forever. The realization that at some point in the near future he would be well enough to possibly leave the stroke unit was frightening and overwhelming. Where does an addict go after they overdose and then come back to life?

[01:19:30] Chapter Fifteen

Chapter 15, hospital number two, from the stroke unit to rehab, kind of. As soon as John was able to work regularly with the range of therapists at the hospital, occupational, physical, and speech, there was a definite sense of hope and relief and freaking outness on my part because it suddenly occurred to me, to all of us that he wasn't going to be able to stay in this safe bubble much longer.

I had many hushed hallway conversations with the neurologist, his primary doc, and every specialist I could corner even Sal, the giant nurse, to find out from them what could or would be next. It was clear that John still needed round the clock medical care. He wasn't able to function on his own, tell time accurately, remember events from the day prior.

But according to his care team on the stroke unit, he was a success story. And on Thursday, seven days after having arrived with barely a pulse, John was likely going to be discharged on Monday. It may have been Friday when the social worker reappeared eager to help and provide more recommendations in our blurry state of consciousness.

We listened to her options and it sounded as if the best possible one was for John to transfer to the University of Washington Hospital's inpatient acute care rehab unit. I heard rehab and was immediately encouraged. I clarified that he'd be getting rehab therapy as in mental health addiction therapy, and was told [01:21:00] that he would have a team custom constructed around his specific needs.

This sounded like an amazingly perfect situation, and we started working on the checklist of things he'd have to accomplish in order to be admitted to this very special and hard to get into program. This included putting on his own socks, walking unassisted twice around the fifth floor unit, ordering and eating a meal on his own, and various other tasks that would never register in a normal adult's sphere of accomplishments.

Over those next few days, we tried explaining to John what was coming next, but that was a little bit like talking to a distracted 2-year-old. We had no idea if he was processing what we were telling him, and if he did, the next time he woke up, we had to start all over again with why he was even in the hospital.

So we decided to just proceed and hope for the best. All I knew was he was still going to be safe in a controlled and unlisted environment for a while longer, which was critical. His quote unquote, friends still didn't have access to him, and our goal was to keep it that way for as long as possible. We camped out in his corner view room for the weekend and tried to mentally prepare for Monday, not having the slightest clue of what that meant or what was coming.

The focus was on that transfer checklist because if he didn't accomplish those things, we only had two choices. Transfer him to an adult living nursing home or bring him home to my house. [01:22:30] Neither of those seemed remotely logical or feasible, so we buckled down and made it through the weekend,

[01:22:39] Chapter Sixteen

chapter 16, not what we expected.

He didn't fall off a ladder. Incredibly. Once things got put into motion for John's transfer to the next hospital, it seemed like everyone except us knew what was happening. I was still in utter disbelief that he was able to leave the care being given by this amazing team, but since he was no longer in need of any IVs or breathing assistance and had met the criteria from the various physical speech and occupational therapists, it seemed like he was medically qualified.

I wish that there was a qualification list for the parents of the person being discharged, because by this point, all I wanted to do was crawl into John's magically maneuverable bed and have people bring me food and drinks all day and night. I most definitely wasn't ready for this transfer, but his care team efficiently processed all that needed to be processed and around 11:00 AM 10 days After arriving in the ER with little chance of living, our son was in a wheelchair, headed off the fifth floor stroke unit down to the driveway where we helped him into the seat for the ride across town to the next hospital, which as it turned out, would be home for another 11 days.

On my way to the elevator, a nurse handed me a manila envelope about two inches thick, and told me it was all of the paperwork and [01:24:00] records from both overdoses and that John would be needing this in the coming months. As he visited different specialists during his recovery process, I shoved it into my bulging bag that also contained different apparatus that John needed to pull on his socks, pick up things from the floor.

He couldn't bend over and still didn't have the coordination or flexibility to dress himself entirely and perform other day-to-day tasks. Currently out of his range of function, John was moving along with the transfer process and we told him where he was going, but I couldn't tell if he was actually processing the information.

The University of Washington hospital is only about 15 minutes away, and after a long and confusing check-in process, we were told to go to the eighth floor where John would be staying. The acute inpatient physical rehabilitation unit, the eighth floor is a section of the hospital that looks and smells ancient and compared to the stroke unit, it felt like what I imagined a mental institution would be.

My heart sank when A CNA led us to the first room inside the unit doors. It was so close to the hallway, you could hear everything and everyone. There was also another person in the room, no privacy. John was looking exhausted and unhappy, so I tried to be as positive as possible about the new place. His nurse showed up a few minutes after we got into the room and transferred John to his bed and told him lunch would be coming up soon.

Several times John asked about the rehab he was going to be [01:25:30] getting as he believed we were tricking him into drug rehab and was getting more and more agitated as we waited for his lunch. I wanted to talk to somebody about this exact subject because the unit was clearly for physical rehabilitation, but I wanted to know when someone, like a therapist or a psychiatrist would be entering the picture.

All of the patients on the floor had experienced some sort of traumatic injury from car crashes to workplace accidents, and some included TBI traumatic brain injury. What John had experienced, the combination of the physical damage to his body and the brain injury from lack of oxygen was incredibly scary, and I was glad to learn that he wasn't alone on this journey.

Luckily, a psychiatrist did show up and took John's dad and me down the hallway to another patient room to talk while John ate lunch. It was the first time we hadn't been with him while he was eating and it felt so strange, but also like a move in the right direction. He was eating a meal on his own.

The psychiatrist explained that he specialized in helping people recover from extreme physical injuries, which often left a person disabled for life. He worked with the patients there to mentally adjust to whatever new life they were going to be experiencing. Since we didn't know the extent of John's injuries, this seemed like a good thing.

But when would he be talking with a mental health professional? I asked. It wasn't like he'd fallen off a ladder. He had overdosed twice in a week. [01:27:00] I wanted to scream. So where is the addiction specialist? Oh, we don't have that here.

[01:27:10] Chapter Seventeen

Chapter 17. I'm out of here. This can't be happening. With two options for the specialized care that John needed.

We had chosen the hospital closest to my house rather than the state's trauma center, Harborview, which was Inconveniently downtown. And as we sadly found out, also the only hospital with a combination of physical and mental health rehabilitation while this unexpected news sunk in, we heard someone at the door of the room we were talking in, and I literally almost fell over when I turned around and saw John standing there.

He was wearing a pair of jeans that we had packed for his transfer a t-shirt, and had his shoes and backpack on. He was so skinny. The jeans were sort of hanging off his hips and he was swaying a bit, but it was very clear when he told us he was out of here. I looked incredulously at the doctor, assuming that he was gonna tell John this wasn't possible, but since he was an adult, there was nothing we could legally do to keep him in the hospital.

He was very angry and hostile and said he had already gone to the elevator, but remembered he didn't have his wallet, so he'd come back to ask us for it. I was speechless that a patient in his condition could have done this without alerting anyone on the staff and gotten to the point where he was going to leave on his own.[01:28:30] 

He could barely stand up, but was adamant that he was leaving, and if I wasn't going to give him his wallet, he was going anyway and would beg someone to give him bus fare. I asked him where he was planning to go, and he said to his friend's house back in the neighborhood where the last OD had happened.

I. At this point, two things were racing frantically through my mind. The first being that John was apparently more mentally alert and functioning than we had thought. Good. And also that I had better pull out every psychology tib I had learned through five years of therapy because the only way he was going to stay was going to be through talking.

We had no way to physically keep him there. John came into the room and leaned against one of the beds. He was so weak from the process of getting dressed and walking down the hallway, but he was leaving and that was that. The next two and a half hours were the longest in my life. Between the psychiatrist John's dad and I, we tried to understand why he wanted to leave and rationalized with him about his current situation.

We reiterated that he was there for physical rehab, not drug rehab. To my dismay. His brain wasn't entirely right, and I'm convinced he was feeling some symptoms of withdrawal, and he was done with hospitals. He knew he was weak and not functioning at a hundred percent, but he was determined to go find his friends.

As we talked, he was getting weaker and finally sat down on one of the beds. I have never [01:30:00] prayed so fervently in my life. I knew and told him that if he walked out these doors, he was going to be dead in 24 hours. I knew he would go back to his friends and use something, something that would kill him if he even made it that far with his damaged body and brain.

Nothing was connecting with him, and he tried to get up to leave, but his legs wouldn't hold him. He leaned against the bed again and I suddenly knew what to tell him. Divine intervention. One of John's friends had committed suicide two years earlier, and it shook our neighborhood and his circle of friends to the core.

His friend had been the straight A student captain of the varsity soccer team. Good looking. Mr has it all. Since his death, his family struggled to make it through each and every day. And all the kids in our happy little village where John grew up were shattered. I took a deep breath, John, I understand you don't wanna do this, you don't wanna be here and go through the physical rehab, but think of Ryan.

He doesn't even have the option of getting better. He was hurting and he made a choice that wasn't right and wasn't good for him or anyone. You at this very moment, have the chance to get better for Ryan. If you're not gonna do it for me or daddy or yourself, do it for him. Do it. So his mom and dad know that his life made a difference for someone else who is hurting.

I was sobbing and could [01:31:30] barely speak, but I knew if there was anything that might break through to him. It was Ryan. John just stared at me like I was someone he didn't even know. He sat and stared right at me for at least five minutes while I cried. It wasn't the small, exhausted cry I had been doing off and on for the past week.

It was hysterical, loud, heaving, wailing, crying because I knew if he left, we would never see him alive again. I knew he would be the next statistic on a website. Teen overdoses and dies after being discharged from hospital or something generically tragic like that. It couldn't happen like this. Then in an answer to the most intense prayers I have ever offered up, John tipped over sideways and laid on the hospital bed backpack still on jeans, sagged low below his hips.

His eyes closed and he surrendered to the support of the bed. We all looked at each other and at him and waited a few more minutes until we exhaled a relief that I will never forget. One more day, he's going to be okay for one more day.

[01:32:41] Chapter Eighteen

Chapter 18, doing the hard work, the road back. 

Sleep. All I and John's dad wanted was to sleep without the worry that we might wake up to find an empty hospital bed.

So the first few nights we took turns [01:33:00] sleeping and keeping watch. Then between the nurses head, hospital psychiatrist, and a host of other people, we had a fairly tight system in place to minimize the risk that our strong-willed, weak bodied young man would be able to pack up and walk himself out of the hospital.

We did learn that if the head team of doctors determined that it would be detrimental to his health to leave, they could physically keep him there. But I really didn't want to find out what that looked like. We quickly fell into a new daily hourly routine, which was much busier and louder than the previous hospital.

The acute inpatient physical rehab program occupies about half of the eighth floor of the hospital and looks like a cross between a psych ward and a not fancy gym. And for some reason it seemed that every patient was using their call button all day and night, so there was never quiet. It was a constant chaotic symphony of bells ringing machines, beeping and worrying, and hushed hallway conversations.

It was nerve wracking for a healthy person, so I can't imagine how the patients dealt with it, along with their attempt at getting well, a huge space across the hall from the patient rooms contained every kind of equipment imaginable. It was a maze of devices that the therapist used to coax, battled, and damaged bodies back to functioning.

It was painful to watch John try to perform his required exercises. He couldn't bend over and was in constant pain from his leg. Muscle atrophy. [01:34:30] The first few days it wore him out just to walk to the gym, so he had to rest before he could even start to try his routine. In addition to the physical rehab, he also had speech and occupational therapy every day between the appointments, meals and naps.

The days were full, but I could see that John was getting more depressed and would barely speak while the therapist meant well. It was ridiculous to listen to a session where my 19-year-old addicted and recently overdosed son was being told things like climbing on ladders was dangerous and that he should be thinking about getting a job that didn't require physical labor due to his injuries.

Seriously, I was dumbfounded and so angered by the fact that not one person was speaking to him about addiction or treatment or rehab. If you didn't know why he was there, you would've thought he'd been in a car accident. So mama went to work trying to figure out where could John go from here. That's when I learned a lot about treatment options and health insurance.

[01:35:32] Chapter Nineteen

Chapter 19, navigating New Waters, calling all resources. As the days in hospital number two went by, John kept getting more and more quiet and depressed. He participated in the numerous types of therapy sessions, but other than for the torturous physical sessions in the gym, he was playing along just to get the specialist out of his room so he could go back to sleep.

His leg muscles were causing him so much pain. [01:36:00] The doctors finally relented to giving him some oxone at night so he could rest. The days were long and grueling and very, very boring. The most unnerving and frustrating part was not knowing how long John would need to be there. Some days it seemed like he would make big improvements, and then others, nothing.

I was personally thrilled with the fact that John was safe and sound and getting medical attention. I knew his priority was to get out, but that very thought struck fear through me and filled me with dread because we didn't have a plan for what was coming next. We realized we weren't getting anywhere asking the team at the hospital for help.

So I started calling everyone we'd worked with or encountered in the past five years along this horrific journey. I called other parents who had been through our same nightmare. Therapists, counselors, wilderness staff, you name it. I called. I also got a quick PhD in insurance coverage, not coverage.

Trying to find out what scenarios might look like if John would agree to go to a program somewhere. There was a small nurse's station right outside John's door where I set up office with my laptop, phone and notebook and went to work. I'm pretty sure the nurses were not thrilled with my intrusion, but they knew I was a determined mama and left me alone.

I may have also done things like bring donuts to the staff to help our families position on the floor. Between my office and John's negative and sometimes rude behavior, we needed all the points we could get. One of the contacts I made yielded an [01:37:30] incredibly helpful attorney, and another put me in touch with an addiction specialist who ran a program locally that sounded like a potential place to start once John was discharged from the hospital.

The problem we really faced though was finding a place away from Seattle, away from the people and places that were waiting with open arms, and we knew would suck John back into the lifestyle that landed him here. Finding resources outside of our home, city and state took the frustration and confusion to a whole new level.

But in the end, we were blessed with a miracle that provided a situation for John that was better than anything insurance companies could offer.

[01:38:09] Chapter Twenty

Chapter 20, starting again, you're going home. John had been in a hospital room in bed for 20 days when the panel of doctors, nurses, and therapists felt that he should start preparing to be discharged.

It was a Friday when they concluded that he was recovered enough to leave this acute care level of therapy and come on an outpatient basis. He wouldn't get this taste of freedom until Monday, but at least he had something to look forward to as the weekends were the longest and the most boring, with only one or two sessions versus three every day.

There was, however, a very sweet occupational therapist who was the most approachable and empathetic of the team, and she took John for a walk outside around the grounds of the hospital. That doesn't sound terribly exciting, but he hadn't breathed fresh outdoor air since his overdose other than when we transferred [01:39:00] him, which he didn't even remember.

That walk was the first time it really, really hit me that John was going to be on his own without medical supervision. Very soon, none of the resources we'd contacted seemed to make sense for John. So the plan was coming home with me where he'd continued to recover and do outpatient physical therapy three days per week.

I was terrified of this arrangement, but his dad had to get back to work in California and there were no other options at this point. John could walk at a slow pace, and his short-term memory seemed to be almost a hundred percent intact. He was able to get dressed and eat on his own, shower, use the toilet, and read and write.

This was all astounding to us given the fact that he'd basically been dead just three weeks earlier to help make the last days in the hospital go faster. John's cousin came to visit from Portland and she was able to get him talking and cheered up a little bit. I was still worried though about his depressed mood, and the psychiatrist from the unit said that it was very normal for people with traumatic head injury.

That and sleep problems. Good to know. Monday finally arrived and after a flurry of paperwork and visits by therapists for final words of wisdom, we wheeled John down the hallway to the elevators where he had attempted to flee on day one here and out to the circular drive, which was its own level of chaos with patients coming and going in cars, taxis, ambulances, and vans.

I was shaking and my heart was racing. As John got [01:40:30] into my car and we started the short trip to my house, the feeling reminded me of the day, 19 years earlier when we'd brought him home from the hospital after being born. You can't actually believe any sane medical professional would allow you to take this fragile being out the door, put them into a vehicle, and just bring them to your home.

No training, no manual, no app to help you, guide you through the mystery that sits in front of you. This was more terrifying than dealing with a newborn for sure. We had reconfigured our home office as a bedroom for John since it was on the main floor of the house and he had not attempted stairs yet. A few hours after getting home, he asked to use my phone.

Thankfully, his had disappeared in the chaos of the second overdose, and while every fiber in my body told me to try and keep him as isolated as possible from the world, I knew that would be a useless battle. I was relieved to hear him calling the girl who had contacted me the night he OD'ed, who said she was his girlfriend.

I could hear through his side of the conversation that she hadn't known whether he had lived or not. He just kept saying, I'm alive. I lived, stop crying over and over. I knew there were a lot of people who were wondering the same thing because we had kept John's status to a very small circle of our closest friends and family with the request that friends not even tell their kids if they were from our neighborhood.

Amazingly, the biggest threat to our son's safety at this point wasn't medical. It was the group of people he had been sucked into who would gladly hand him a pill the moment [01:42:00] they saw him, and that would almost guarantee his death despite the heroic effort he had made to live over the past three weeks, this frightening dance with friends and the unknown physical and emotional impact of the overdose held its grip on the whole family.

Suddenly this was all happening in our house, not in the safe bubble of a hospital, but moment by moment every single day and every day. John's dad, my husband and I kept searching and digging and praying that we would find somewhere safe, supportive, and healthy for this at-risk young man to go somewhere he could heal and rebuild his life without the distraction of everyone at home who would pull him down possibly further than he'd be able to come back from.

[01:42:46] The Final Chapter

The final chapter answers hope and a Long Drive. There are no coincidences. There are times in life when you know for certain that a higher power is working on your behalf. I've been fortunate enough to experience this several times, and it's always reassuring to know you're not on your own. Along this crazy journey called life as if surviving two fentanyl overdoses wasn't enough miracle working in our lives.

We received another one in the weeks after John was discharged from the hospital. It was clear that staying in the same city where his friends and triggers were, wasn't setting John up for success. So he'd been frantically [01:43:30] searching for an out of the area housing solution that would allow him to continue healing physically, but to also work on a new sober lifestyle.

When John's dad called from California to say that overnight, one of his roommates had packed up, emptied his room and vanished, my heart skipped a beat. Okay. 10 beats because I knew this was our answer. We agreed that we'd rent the room for John so he could be in a safe, positive environment away from old people and habits, and have a chance at a life reset.

Thinking back there couldn't have been a more perfect solution for a very, very scary and fragile situation. As it was, John still had pt, ot, and speech therapy appointments booked and needed a few more weeks of rest and rebuilding strength before he could move. As we started to put logistics into place, it made the most sense to drive John's car from Seattle to California so he'd have transportation once he was settled.

The therapist at the hospital didn't want him to drive for a year after his head injury, but that seemed fairly impossible to impose and miraculously, just five weeks after our son had laid in the ICU on life support, he and I packed up his old Volkswagen Jetta, applied a little duct tape where needed set a prayer that the car and we would survive the journey and pointed south to a new start.

The three-day transition was just the right amount of time to get some distance from the sterile hospital, [01:45:00] the old memories from home, and to start thinking about what life would look like now. I'll forever cherish that drive. As John and I hadn't spent that much time together outside of the hospital in years, there was laughter when we had to stay in the middle of nowhere at a truck stop, motel pain when John's legs cramped up and quite a bit of silence, but all of it was healing and necessary.

As any parent of a child battling addiction knows there's a lot that goes on between parent and child that needs to be forgiven, and it's not easy. Lies, manipulation, fear, anger, deceit, the list goes on, and it doesn't just vanish in the terror of a crisis. It lives on, it takes work, and each day is a decision to work on it.

The move has been a change. John needed so desperately to get out of the vicious cycle of addiction and all of the horrors that came with it. He did the hard work of a very intensive program and is working part-time and going to college. Something I don't think any of us could have even remotely hoped for during those long hours, days, and weeks in the hospital, or the five years of hell leading up to them.

That's a whole nother story to be told, but for now, we're focusing on a new life, a sense of hope, rebuilding, discovering new things, and just living. Just living is the best. For those of you who reached this last chapter, [01:46:30] thank you for listening. I hope our story provides some insight and empathy for the millions of families that are fighting this war.

[01:46:37] Wrap up & resources

If you'd like more information about this episode or resources we provide for navigating this journey with your child, go to Hopestreamcommunity.org. Click on podcast to get the show notes for today's episode, and that's where you can also find playlists and can search the entire episode library of over 260 shows.

You can also download a free ebook I wrote called Worried Sick. It's a compassionate guide for parents who are on this journey and will help you find new ways of approaching this difficult time with your child. Just go to HopeStreamcommunity.org/worried to get that. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for listening to our story, and please know you are not alone in this. Take extremely good care of yourself today, and I will meet you right back here next week.