When words are hard to find… you write anyway.
When I think about the moment of my life I have the most trouble putting into words, it’s this one.
If you know me, you know words are usually my thing.
So, you have some idea of the heaviness, the fear & the lingering terror that surround what I’m about to share.
On October 1 2017, I’d been in the hospital for several days battling a severe Crohn’s disease flare. A hospital error between my doctor, the resident & the nurse caused an incorrect medication dose to be communicated & dispensed - and under the “watchful eyes” of hospital staff, I was overdosed on Fentanyl while alone in my hospital room.
There are 36 hours I’ll never remember. I can recall blurry moments on the ends into & out of that state, but that’s all. When I regained consciousness, I was intubated with a machine breathing for me. Without my knowing, I’d apparently been moved to a bed in the ICU, a space I didn’t recognize, with just a curtain separating me from another patient also in a dire state. I couldn’t find my phone. I couldn’t talk. And I was alone.
The next thing I remember? The news coverage of the Vegas Music Festival mass shooting blaring across every patient’s tv all the way down the hall. Clearly multiple traumas happened that night.
This moment will stay with me until the end of time - the time that was almost taken away without my consent. The time that changed all the rest of my life.
I don’t know how to wrap this up, or to put a bow on it, because it’s not wrapped up. It never will be. I’ll never not be afraid. I’ll never allow fentanyl in my body again, even as a part of monitored anesthesia. I’ll never stop flinching when it’s brought up on Chicago PD & Law & Order.
I guess I share it as a warning, a reminder & a vulnerability. Ask questions. Check what your doctor prescribes is what is actually being administered. Remember time is not guaranteed to anyone-just like my friend Jordan who died from a fluke incident on this same day one year prior.
& finally, we’ve all been through things we dont talk about. But talking about them is the only way that we can keep trying to heal. I guess thats what this is. I guess I’m trying to help myself start the path to healing.
