I’ve never been so frightened in my life. My spouse came home from running errands and I was getting ready for work. I was worried when he left because a day prior, he had relapsed on meth and alcohol after being 12 months clean. But I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he sobered up and told me it wasn’t going to happen again. I wanted to trust that unlike all the other times, he wouldn’t allow it to happen. When he came home I immediately knew he was drunk, after he settled down he sat on the couch and I went in and sat with him. I can’t remember the words we exchanged I just remember crying and him saying he was sorry. I knew this might not have been a time to have a serious talk seeing how he was under the influence. I went back to getting ready for work.
After I just relaxed a bit before I was going to leave and I heard him snoring. I was like great he’s passed out and I don’t have to worry about him acting out of pocket. Then I heard a really loud choking snore, I went to go check on him and I said do you want to go lay down. He didn’t wake up and so I started shaking him repeatedly, he still wasn’t waking up. He let out that snore again and I saw he was struggling to breathe. His lips were blue. I pulled him to the ground and attempted to wake up him up. I have first aid certification so I knew to set his head back and chin up to open his airway and I began to rub my knuckle on his sternum. He wasn’t responding at all.
I called 911 and kept trying to wake up him up. He was still breathing and had a pulse. I was going back and forth to him and to the door, looking out for first responders. I went to check his pulse and he didn’t have one and had stopped breathing. I started cpr, I called back 911 and they told me they are 10 mins away. I started panicking and I was getting exhausted from doing chest compressions. I ran outside and screamed loudly to my neighbors for help and that my husband is not breathing. They came running in quickly and help me continue cpr. We were able to bring his pulse back but still continued mouth to mouth resuscitation. The paramedics had finally arrived and I let them take over.
They began asking me if took any drugs today, I told them he did yesterday and I was drinking today. I had no clue why this happened to him, I thought it was alcohol poisoning. They had administered naloxone and they told me it was an overdose. They were able to get him to respond and get him to the hospital. I was in shock. While driving to meet them at the hospital, I just had this thousand yard stare. I kept having to snap myself out of it. When I arrived in the emergency room, his nurse told me that he said this was his first time taking fentanyl and he had taken just one pill.
The whole ordeal was overwhelming, I felt I didn’t have time to feel anything and was locked on getting him help. The world around me was just blur. When we had the chance to speak, he told me that he was sorry and expressed that it was a suicide attempt. He was beating himself up and was thinking he wasn’t going to make it. I kept reassuring him that he was going to be okay and it’s okay. The hospital staff were amazing, they also arranged for a social worker to come and speak to him.
Finally, everything had come down and it all hit me at once. I was still trying to hold back because I wanted to be strong for him, for both of us. I just really had to talk about this, I keep having flashes of his lifeless body and the entire situation keeps replaying in my head. It’s haunting.
I’m grateful for every single soul that helped him. I’m grateful that he’s alive. This drug is horrible and fatal. Experiencing this was so scary and knowing that there are families out there who experience time and time again until it is too late.
At the moment we are home. He declined to go to a treatment center even after I encouraged him. He said he just wanted to go home. I’ve taken a couple days off from work and have been looking after him. He’s better but I am so afraid to take my eyes off him. We’ve talked a bit and he agreed to go to therapy. Where we receive our healthcare, his appointment won’t be until the 8th of August. So until then I hope we can work through this. I know that leading up to this he was overwhelmed with responsibilities. I didn’t address all the signs, his feelings of hopelessness. I thought he was just moody, because he tends to have mood swings. Also, our marriage hasn’t been the best in the past couple of years. I thought he was planning on leaving me and I almost welcomed it because I could tell how unhappy he was and so was I. Needless to say, we have a lot of things to unpack and only time can heal.