My son remembered. #IMOA 12,169

Today, one year ago, my son Adam died from a heroin overdose. I share this so that the conversation about this poison and the thousands of lives it claims every year never stops.

We’ve all heard the statistics – More than 64,000 people died in 2016 from overdoses. Heroin epidemic, opioid crisis…..it’s almost a daily report on the news. What does it really mean…..

It means that every single day, more than 175 mothers/fathers, brothers/sisters find out that their son, brother, mother, sister, aunt, daughter, friend, has died from an overdose.

I’m a mother who had to make the decision to remove life support after my son, Adam, overdosed from heroin.

He went into cardiac arrest more than 4 times, was without oxygen more than 12 minutes, suffered 96% loss of brain activity….my hand was on his chest as he took his last breath….this is the reality of heroin death. It’s not dramatic, like the television show Intervention – no one sweeps in with Narcan and saves your child……it’s violent-it’s ugly-it’s horrific-they seize, and thrash, their heart arrests, their clothes have to be cut off of them, they have to be intubated, catharized, put on a machine to breathe for them-and ultimately they die.

Don’t stop talking about heroin deaths until we find a way to take this poison off our streets.

In Memory Of Adam
He lived 12,169 days

Please share this post so we never stop talking using #IMOA 12,169.