Life after overdose is trauma beyond imagining for loved ones. My son Josh lay there in the trauma room comatose and hooked up to a ventilator and everything else that could be. As a physician, I was used to taking care of others in that situation; now the shoe was on the other foot. Straddling being a mother and a physician was difficult at best. At worst I was annoying to the staff as my mother brain and doctor brain dealt with the situation.
Josh’s overdose that landed him here had stroked out his entire brain except the brainstem. He had a heart attack, was in kidney failure, and his enzymes that should have been single digit were nearly 60,000. He was in Rhabdomyolysis. He had a huge open wound on the back of his scalp approximately 8 inches in diameter.
The vigil I had been dreading for nearly 20 years began. The doctors told me he would die. The neurologist told me that the addiction area of his brain had been affected by the stroke. I remember thinking “Great. If he doesn’t die he’ll be in a PVS (persistent vegetative state) without addiction problems.” After seven days I was able to help the hospital understand that even though Josh was young, he would not want to live in a coma. We decided to take the ventilator out. The neurologist and I were standing on opposite sides of Josh’s bed talking about the fact that he would not live through this. I looked over at Josh and his lower lip was quivering (around the ventilator tubing) the way it had when he was young and in trouble. I wondered if he could hear us.
Three days after we took the ventilator out, Josh had not died. He opened his eyes on day 10 after being admitted. I could tell he knew who I was. I told him then, “You flunked dying and now you must learn why God has kept you alive.” He smiled.
Josh walked out of the nursing home four months later on a cane. He had a traumatic brain injury that would develop early onset dementia. He had lost his hearing (eventually he obtained hearing aids) and could no longer work as a chef, but he was alive. Was that a good thing?
So many parents are losing their children this way. Let me say that the aftermath has not been easy for me. While I am happy that my son is alive, I couldn’t help being angry with him most of the time, and I couldn’t seem to get over it. Josh still has addiction problems, and now problems with mood swings due to the brain injury. I felt I should have been able to deal with these issues, especially when he pushed my buttons. Surprisingly, he remembered where they were! I now felt I couldn’t deal with the smallest of issues with him. It was as if I was completely out of fuel. I had no reserve left.
Finally, one day while meditating, the answer came to me. I had been prepared to lose my son, but I didn’t. I wasn’t prepared for life like this. I had no emotional tools to cope with his life after a catastrophic overdose. It sounds strange but it was indeed an epiphany. At least now I knew why I was angry all the time. Angry at him and also at myself.
I am constantly working on my feelings about Josh’s living when he was supposed to die. And the fact that he still has problems with addiction. These don’t have to be my issues. They are his. I can’t make him well again.
It’s wonderful that my son is still on this side of the curtain, and I love him more than life. I understand this. I also understand what a good friend told me: “You’re still watching him die every day. At least my son went in one day.” While that is all true, in my Mother’s heart there always resides a spark of hope.
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