The descent

As I’ve said, I’m writing rather compulsively right now, and one of the things I’ve been doing is organizing the story of Henry’s addiction into chapters, to help myself start to make sense of everything that’s happened. I posted one of these mini-chapters over at Babble, detailing how I first became aware that my son was using drugs. And this is another one – another chapter in Henry’s story…

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The Descent

“Mom, I think I’m having a heart attack.”

My 16 year old son, Henry stood at the edge of my bed, where my husband and I had been sound asleep. Even in the dark, I could see that he was trembling violently.

I climbed out of bed, whispering to my husband to stay in bed with our toddler, who had been nestled in the crook of my arm until her oldest sibling had woken me. She stirred as I left the bed, but didn’t wake.

I took Henry by the arm and led him down the hallway into our living room, where I flipped on a light. He stood in front of me, pale as a sheet. His lips were tinged blue, as if he’d been chewing on a leaky ink pen. He looked skeletal, even thinner than he had the last time I’d seen him, several days earlier, before he left the house after yet another ultimatum from me in which I’d told him he had to go to drug treatment “or else.” He smelled of patchouli, sweat and pot, a smell I’d become accustomed to… and had grown to hate.

I knew that I needed to summon up some righteous indignation. How dare he show up late at night, slipping back into the house in the dark after leaving me frantic with worry over his whereabouts for more than 24 hours? But when I looked into his eyes, I felt terror, not anger. Because he was clearly terrified himself.

He told me that he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d ingested, but whatever it was, it had left him unable to breathe or think clearly. Sweat rolled down his face as he repeated his belief that he was having a heart attack. My maternal instincts kicked into high gear as I debated whether I needed to call 911. While I tried to think clearly, he vomited at my feet.

I quickly decided to drive him to the hospital myself. I ran into the bathroom, threw on some clothes, bundled Henry into the Honda minivan, and headed for the nearest hospital, which happened to be the regional children’s hospital. Taking Henry to Children’s seemed reasonable to me at the time. After all, he was still a juvenile – only 16 years old – and he still had his lifelong pediatrician as his primary care doctor. And we knew Children’s well. With 16 years of parenting three children in the same small city under my belt, I’d spent more than a couple of afternoons and evenings in the Children’s Hospital ER, waiting to see a doctor after hours for various sports injuries and high fevers. I knew it as a wonderful, compassionate place with highly skilled medical care. Now one of my children was very ill and it was late at night. Of course I would take him to Children’s.

When Henry and I arrived in the busy ER waiting room, however, it quickly became clear that the staff at the hospital didn’t agree with my decision. We approached the triage desk and I told the nurse seated there that we needed to register. I began fishing around in my handbag for my insurance card.

“What seems to be the problem,” she asked, as she warily eyed the nearly 6 foot tall boy standing next to me. Henry was visibly trembling, drenched in sweat and gnawing on his fingernails as he lightly swayed back and forth.

“My son is sick. He needs to see a doctor right away. We think he might be having a heart attack.” I paused, unsure how to proceed. I lowered my voice to a near whisper and leaned in closer. “He took some drugs. Maybe LSD or pills. I don’t know. He can’t remember. But he’s really sick, as you can see.”

She stared at me for what seemed like a long time. Unhappy and feverish babies and toddlers wailed in the background as I waited for her to say something, anything.

“We don’t treat those kinds of things here,” she finally blurted out. “This is a hospital for sick children.”

“He is a child,” I shot back. “He’s 16. I know you have 16 year old cancer and diabetes patients here. And he’s very sick. He may be having a heart attack or an overdose. You can’t just turn us away. Please, just find a doctor who will see my son as soon as possible. This is an emergency.”

I glanced back at Henry, who by this time had wandered over to an empty plastic chair and seated himself. He was hunched forward with his head between his legs, moaning softly.

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do,” she said, obviously dismayed by the entire situation.

I left the front desk and went to sit in the chair next to Henry. I rubbed his back gently as he remained hunched over, weeping quietly. His sweatshirt was now soaked. I told him that everything would be fine; that the doctor would see him very soon. We were going to get him some real help – finally. As worried as I was about his current condition, I felt a little flutter of hope that he had actually come to me, in crisis, asking for help, and had then agreed to go to the hospital with me. Maybe this was his “bottom,” that magical place that families of addicts are all waiting for their loved ones to find – the place where they finally see the seriousness of their addictions and agree to accept treatment.

Just then a uniformed security guard walked up to us. I was surprised, having never seen a security guard in a children’s hospital before. Everyone else in the crowded waiting room was looking as well. The burly, uniformed man, armed with a pistol on his belt seemed out of place in the room full of small children, exhausted parents and walls festooned with cartoon characters.

“Ma’am,” he said loudly as he approached. “Is this young man with you?”

“Yes, I answered. I’m his mother. What’s the problem?”

He very obviously put his hand over the gun on his belt as he replied in a booming voice, “If he’s going to stay here, I’ll have to escort him at all times while he’s on the premises. I’m just going to wait here with you until a doctor can see him. It’s for everyone’s protection. I’m sure you understand.”

Before I could respond that I did NOT understand, Henry looked up and saw the man with the gun standing over us, glaring down at him. He began shaking more violently. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Mom, please, let’s just go. I can’t stay here. They don’t want me here. They can’t help me here. Nobody can help me.”

With that, he bolted from his seat and ran out the sliding glass doors of the ER into the street outside. Without saying a word to the security guard, I dashed after Henry, chasing my son into the night.

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Note: We did send Henry to 9 months of inpatient drug treatment at two different nationally-acclaimed programs; he spent most of his 17th year away in treatment. Also, in no way do I blame or hold a grudge against the children’s hospital where we went that night. I remain a fan of the great work that this particular hospital does, saving hundreds of children’s lives every year. Hospitals (even “regular” hospitals, as we learned later that night) are simply not well equipped to deal with mental health emergencies. They don’t know what to do when confronted with something like this, particularly if it’s a child having the crisis. There is a lot of room for improvement and growth in this area, and I hope by telling our story, we can help spark a dialogue in our community about the issue.

Henry Louis Granju 1991-2010