If someone is standing on the edge of a cliff, it only takes a tiny push for them to fall. My push was small but significant. As was mentioned before, I was not able to go on the summer trip to Israel that was hyped up to me for years, because I wasn't well enough. You can hardly travel across the globe when you're asleep for the first half of the day everyday. It seemed I had another chance to see my friends, in the form of a trip to Syracuse over the span of a few days. Since I was devastated about missing the Israel trip, I wanted to at least compensate by going on the Syracuse one to see the friends I hadn't seen in a year. I hadn't had a real social life for quite awhile at that point and so was desperate to hang out and try to feel like a teenager again, if if just for a few days. I was told I couldn't go because my family was going to Montreal that weekend. This created a nasty argument between members of my family and I. Tensions were already strained by comments that questioned the effort I was putting into getting better. This event alone isn't much, but in my drug-addled mind it symbolized the destruction of my social life. I had to leave my hebrew school, and so hadn't been able to see school friends I'd known since nursery. And now I was being told I wasn't allowed to see camp friends either. I wasn't able to go to school and wasn't even able to walk my dog. I couldn't form coherent thoughts and I was unable to distract myself with video games or books because I couldn't concentrate to due perpetual exhaustion. Every time I'd try to relax in a Jacuzzi to get rid of tightness, I'd faint thanks to low blood pressure from medication side effects. The doctors weren't able to help, giving me the illusion that there was no hope. I hated my pain, and I hated my life. After months of mental preparation, I felt ready to die. Immediately following the fore-mentioned nasty argument my parents left to give someone a ride. I was home alone again.
I knew what I was going to do as soon as my parents left. I had learned what happens when you overdosed on morphine and found what I was looking for. "A large overdose of morphine can cause asphyxia and death by respiratory depression if the person does not receive medical attention immediately." In a mental battle lasting months, I had turned the idea of death from something to be feared, to something to be embraced. My previous suicide attempt had been foiled by telling someone goodbye, so there would be none of that. At least no human, who could stop me. In my mind I would do one last thing before I died: say goodbye to my dog. I cried then, and for the first time I'm crying while writing this book. My dog Chelsee was still a puppy, and knew something was wrong when she looked at me, but couldn't understand what. I sat down next to her and took her in my arms. I pet her as I sobbed and will never forget the concern on her face as she looked up at me. I was too set on dying for a look from my dog to stop me, though. I went back upstairs and as I walked into my bathroom once again, I stopped crying. I stopped because I knew I would no longer be in pain soon. I would no longer be sad, no longer be angry, no longer be anything. My pill box for the week was bursting with medications. For the second time, I emptied each packet and swallowed them 3 at a time. Morphine, sleep medications, and antidepressants, all went down. There might have been as many as 60 pills in total. When the task was done I locked the doors of my bathroom and lied down with my back against a wall. I felt the blackness coming and did not cry, I only smiled as I slipped into oblivion. For what felt like 30 seconds I didn't feel my pain anymore. In the 3 years since my pain had started I had never felt more blissful than during those 30 seconds. The pain that had been my constant companion for so long was receding, along with everything else.
I blacked out quickly, and so the next paragraph was all relayed from the mouth of a parent. After a period of time my parents returned home and evidently noticed I was missing. They opened the locked doors, saw me on the ground, and called 911. They learned all emergency rooms in the area were full, so I would have to be airlifted in a helicopter ambulance to another hospital. They knew I might not make it in time, and so used connections to discover there was room for one more at St. Micheal's Hospital emergency department. I was comatose the entire ambulance ride downtown and remember nothing. I could have been out anywhere from an hour and a half to 4 hours. When I got to the hospital they administered naloxone, a drug that negates morphine. It removed the morphine from my system and narrowly saved my life. I woke up slowly to see myself surrounded by a ring of 4 concerned doctors and one of my parents. After a few seconds of me comprehending I wasn't dead, I broke down in tears and asked in a choked voice: "WHY AM I ALIVE?!?" I still to this day have flashbacks of that moment, along with saying goodbye to my dog.
Memories of my stay in the emergency room are fuzzy at best. I remember throwing up numerous times and convincing the nurse to let my go to the bathroom by myself. I was very weak and gaunt from my overdose and the months spent at home. My anesthesiologist who prescribed the morphine was out of the country and so sent his resident medical student in his stead. He explained that the morphine in my system was gone and my prescription is discontinued. I didn't hear from the doctor again. Unfortunately, a decision was made that I wouldn't be slowly weaned off morphine as is commonly done, it was all stopped immediately. Because of this I experienced a terrible withdrawal while in very uncomfortable circumstances. With the constant beeping of heart monitors from intensive care units in the emergency room you can't get much sleep. So I was up all night, vomiting and sweating. You can't stay in an emergency room long, they are always trying to get rid of you. You can't really blame them. I almost had to go in a helicopter because there was no room for me anywhere. The annoying part was they didn't give me a room at the hospital to wait out the withdrawal, they were discharging me all together. Well not discharging per say, I was to be transferred to the children's psych ward at Humber River Hospital. I was wheeled into an ambulance, which became the worst car ride of my life.
I had the normal morphine withdrawal symptoms. Anxiety, drug craving, irritability, sweating, goose bumps, muscle aches, hot and cold flashes, twitching, restlessness, not being able to keep food down, nausea and of course, vomiting. Normal stuff, but I had these symptoms in a cramped, bumpy ambulance. I threw up repeatedly and it felt like there was a snake in my stomach that shifted with each bump. The best part is-- they took me to the wrong Humber River hospital location. We went in the building, up the elevator, to only be told we had to go back in the ambulance and drive somewhere else. It was quite the fuck my life moment. After a grueling car ride, we got to the child-adolescent psych ward. An unpleasant place to say the least; a place where I would be spending the next few months, whether I willed it or not.
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