I woke my friend up, we threw some clothes on, and jumped into my brother’s truck. He filled us in on what he knew at the time. Our brother had stolen and taken some of my grandmother’s pills, Methadone and Valium. A horribly deadly combination. How many, we did not know, but it was certainly this combo, they were sure of it. So many young people die constantly from the mixture of Opiates and Benzodiazapine. Drugs like Hydrocodone, Dilaudid, Heroin, Morphine, and Oxycodone mixed with drugs such as Xanax, Valium, and Clonosopam. This mixture is so deadly because of the way it slows down one’s system, it almost stops the breathing, and slows the heart to a point of giving up. I have no doubt that it was a combination similar to this that did my best friend in. We traveled at lightning speeds toward the hospital in Newnan, Georgia where my brother was waiting. Completely oblivious to the state he was in I’m sure. Total blackness, void, coma. On the brink of death was the condition he was in when we rushed into the hospital emergency room. His pale, grey, and slightly purple lifeless young body lay on the hospital bed, with a machine breathing for him, and tubes, hoses and monitors doing all the work that his other vitals could not. My mother was at his side, in utter despair, shock and grief. Unable to contain herself, she rushed to embrace each one of us one at a time. A horrified stunned silence swept the room as we drank in the scene in heavy, heart breaking gulps. Beeps, moans of machines, and high pitched whines were the only sounds in the universe as we floated to spots next to his lifeless body, each in our own numbed trances. My older brother took his frigid right hand, and I clenched his left. Tears were automatic, and prayers were fluent and unspoken, with the exception of the loud, earth shaking “Please Gods”. “We love you buddy”, “C’mon brother, wake up.” “C’mon son wake up buddy, I’m so sorry .” These were the most commonly spoken phrases, pleads for grace and mercy on behalf of my kid brother. Memories of us playing as children flashed in my mind. All the times I had mistreated him. All the good, and all the bad. So many emotions hang around in moments like this. Grief, fear, regret, despair, heartache. One of the doctors came in and explained to us that we very well may be losing a member of our family today. He explained that they had already administered so many of the life saving drugs to reverse the overdose, and that giving him any more might not have any effect. He may in fact, be too far gone. He was explaining these things, as he was drawing up medication into a syringe, and hooking it up to the adapter in my brother’s left arm. He pushed down onto the plunger of the syringe as he was looking into my mother’s eyes and trying his best to offer some sort of comfort. The last of the fluid left the tool, entered the tiny tube, and entered by brother’s blood stream, forced in by the I.V. fluids. Nothing. I believe we sucked in all the oxygen in the room at once, gasping in anticipation and hope. Nothing. The earth had no spin. There was nothing outside of this tiny room. Precious seconds hammered on. Nothing. The doctor pulled the cap off of another syringe with his teeth and spit in on the floor, hooked up another shot, and plunged quickly. As his thumb forced the last of the fluid into the tube, and into my brother’s system, the most ungodly and horrific gurgle exited my brother’s lungs. The doctor screamed for people to hurry in, and soon the room was chaos. Flash lights to the eyes, defibrilators, panic. They worked and worked and worked on him, until finally his body lurched and fought the trauma he was under. He coughed, he squirmed and finally, his eyes opened. He was going to make it. Cheers from our family, and from the doctors erupted as a sense of hope and relief once again filled the room. My baby brother was going to be okay. And he was. I had NEVER been so scared in my entire life. Thank God that he is still here. So many are not.
Once my brother was back to a state of awareness and unaided life, we were told that he would be needing some quiet time to heal and rest, my mother agreed to stay back with him while the three of us were asked to leave and come back the following day if we wished. My mother agreed to keep us updated on his condition and promised that she was okay with this unwelcomed change. We showed him all the love we could, told him we loved him and said our good byes, we still had matters to attend to at home. We were still being evicted and had no where to go. We headed back to Peachtree City and to our apartment. I hug my older brother and tell him I love him, and after some shared sighs of relief and prayer, we hopped out of the truck and started toward our apartment to start packing. We had no idea what we were going to do, we hadn’t even told anyone about our situation. The shame and the humiliation were too much, especially at a time like this. I inserted the key into the lock, turned to latch, and pushed the door open. The apartment was destroyed. Someone had broken into the place, ransacked the shit out of it, stolen everything of value, and then set off two fire extinguishers inside the place. The whole apartment was covered in the dried and stiffened white foam, the ceilings, the walls, the carpets had been bleached randomly by our cleaning supplies from under the sink and the back window had been smashed out. They even smashed the tank of our toilet. The place was absolutely destroyed. In shambles. And we had 24 hours to be out of the place. With no where to go. This was one of the worst three day spells I’ve ever experienced.