Hey Blaker!

10/23/2019

It’s your mama. I’m writing to tell you that I miss you so much! Today marks 3 months since you officially left this earth. Part of me is still in disbelief, like you’re just away at an extended rehab. The other part of me knows the truth. The brain is funny how it allows just enough of reality to exist so that it can be sorted out. Sure, there are times when I hit a wall and can go no further and even days when I cannot seem to function at all. I have to accept that these are my limitations. I have to listen to the warning signs that tell me to stop and take care of myself.

Dad and I went and picked up a beautiful painting that Ashley did of a picture of a ginormous hen and chick that I took at Cedar Sinai Hospital. They have beautiful gardens there, filled with these succulents that don’t even look real. When dad and I needed a break from sitting in the hospital room with you, we walked with you outside and checked out the gardens. Now, we have this painting hung on the wall with all of these pictures of you and our family.

We have been so touched by the acts of love and support that your friends have offered. Cody is going to blow some glass with some of your ashes for a few people that would like to have you with them. He’s going to do a stone for me that I can get mounted into a ring setting. I’m thinking of doing our birthstone colors, purple and blue, swirled together.

I’m starting to collect your medical records. Can you believe we had two death certificates mailed to us and we’ve misplaced both of them? I guess that just indicates that we don’t want to accept the truth of this. I had to order another one though because I can’t get some of your records without it. I expect that the records will provide some more insight into what you went through, especially for the last 10 years. It might not be any of my business, but I want to write with as much clarity as possible. I think your struggles will help other people. I always felt that you shared pretty openly with me, but I’m sure you kept some things to yourself.

Remember when you told me you were using heroin? You showed up at home in the back seat of a vehicle that was literally falling apart. You and three or four other people nearly fell out of the car. I don’t remember why you came home, but once the car was stopped, it wouldn’t start again. It seemed like everything was in slow motion. There was so much confusion. You went into the bathroom, and you were in there forever. I was knocking on the door, asking you if you were okay and what was taking so long. I had a feeling you were using something, but I had never seen you like this. I was asking the other people what you were on. Of course they knew nothing. When you finally came out, we sat on the step leading into the garage, and I asked you what you were using. You admitted what I suspected but couldn’t imagine – you were using heroin. I was heartbroken.

I begged you not to get back in the car that dad had helped to get back on the road. In retrospect, this wasn’t the greatest ‘help.’ I told you to stay home, that we would figure this out. You didn’t listen to me that afternoon, but you called me much later that night and asked me to please come pick you up. Of course I did. I think that’s the time when you asked me to take you back to the friend’s house where you had been staying either the next day or a couple of days later. When you got out of my vehicle, I remember telling you, “I wish I could just spank you and make you stop this.” I’ll never forget that you looked at me and said, “I wish you could too Mom.” I know you hated what you were doing.

I don’t know how this all got started, but I think it was after you were in that dirt bike accident when you were 18. You called me in the middle of the night, saying, “I can’t find my teef.” I was like, “What did you say?” You repeated yourself. I finally deciphered the babble. You were out at the Reservoir in Prineville. I met you at the hospital, where you were wheeled in in a wheelchair. Your braces and teeth were a tangled mess, and you were drunk.

This started the long process of fixing your mouth, which required multiple surgeries. You had a bovine bone graft to rebuild your jaw, and your body rejected it. Then bone was removed from your hip and used to rebuild your jaw. I’m not sure if that required one or two surgeries. There was another surgery awhile later, but I’m sure by this point, you had become addicted to opioids. At some point, I told the doctor that you were in recovery and not to prescribe you opioids for pain management. I don’t believe my advice was taken. Because you were an adult, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

Even with all of the current lawsuits that have been filed, that have been settled, and that are still pending against giant pharmaceutical companies, there’s nothing safeguarding people in recovery from opioid addiction from being prescribed opioid based pain medication. There are alternative methods of pain management being explored though.

You know what I find ironic? I find it ironic that you, who saw through the systems that prey on vulnerable people, systems fed by greed, became a victim of a corrupt system. In your case, it was the pharmaceutical companies willing to peddle phony science for the benefit of their profit, with no thought about who they would hurt. Your vulnerability was empathy, and it made you hurt so bad for others. Being unable to turn your thoughts off due to your anxiety, depression, and bi-polar disorders, you self-medicated with heroin after the prescriptions ran out and the street pills got too expensive.

I see over and over and over in the addiction and loss Facebook groups that I’m in, posts by moms about the child, or even children, that they’ve lost. (By the way, I cannot fathom the pain of losing more than one child. Losing one is a nightmare. I’m not sure that the bitterness of the world would not just consume me.) So many of the moms describe their child(ren) just the way I describe you: kind, compassionate, full of love, intelligent,… I don’t think it’s just because we choose to remember our lost children that way. I think these traits made the world too hard for so many of you that have been taken by addiction. This is who you were before addiction. Even in active addiction, you did not want to hurt people.

October 27, 2019

I’m finishing this up on Sunday morning. I received your medical records from the psychiatrist you most recently saw in Bend. I really liked him, having first met him at a talk that he gave at St. Charles Medical Center about the adolescent brain. That was the first time I learned that the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until about age 25. I asked him if he would see you even though he specialized in adolescent psychiatry, and you were 22 at the time, reasoning that you technically still had an adolescent brain. He really cared about you. He sent us a hand-written card after our story was published in The Bulletin. Like many, he expressed that “I only wish I had been better able to help him.” He went on to say, “He was a lovely kid, and we’re all the less for his absence.” (Thank you Dr. O.)

Even in his notes, I can feel a sense of urgency, like he really wanted to help you but couldn’t without your commitment to continual substance abuse treatment. Your final visit to him was on June 22, 2016. In that record, he wrote, “I think it’s likely he has Bipolar II along with his severe and life-threatening substance abuse patterns, but medical treatment at this point (without a greater commitment to safety and recovery) would only increase his risk of suicide and serious self-harm….his prognosis re: mood, suicidality, and rapidly deteriorating substance abuse is very, very poor, and isolated outpatient psychiatric treatment will be futile.”

I also received the list of treatments and prescriptions from your oral surgeon. In total, you had five surgical procedures as a result of your dirt bike accident. And yes, even in 2013, you were prescribed Percocet.

On a cheerier note, Teresa sent me a video that you made for her showing her how to open and close her new hot tub cover. It was so good to hear your voice. You were such an entrepreneur and you had such a way with people. You worked your way right into many people’s hearts. I am going to go hang out with Teresa next weekend when she’s in Sunriver. I’ll never forget that call I got from you telling me that I was getting a friend request from her and that I needed to accept it because we would be good friends. Teresa told me later that while you were talking with her at her home, you grabbed her phone and sent the request yourself. Along with the video she sent Friday night, she sent me this message:

Of course this brought tears, but they were good tears. I think that the relationship that we shared is the only thing that’s keeping me sane right now. You were my hero too.

When you came into my life, I suddenly had a reason to become a better person, to fight for my life, a life that I would be proud to live, and a life I wanted to give you. It wasn’t enough for me to do this for myself – not then. I was in awe of you.

We moved into our own apartment when you were two months old. I would lay you on your tummy on a blanket on the floor with some toys around you. You had this big happy stuffed bear that wore a Hawaiian style shirt and beach hat. You were enchanted with this bear. I was sitting watching you talk to this bear and you were trying so hard to get to it. I half expected that at any second, you would just start crawling. The thought of it brought tears to my eyes. I could never slow you down or keep you still.

I’ve heard that a reason that part of you dies when a loved one dies, is because that person is the only person that knew you the way that they did, that the times shared with that person are now capsules of time stored in the grieving person’s soul. Knowing the tragic ending to your physical life, I’d do it all over again. That you are gone cannot erase who I became with you. I will carry you in my heart forever.

And on March 26^th, I will have your profile tattooed in the moon on my bicep. I’m using your drawing to create the tattoo. Your guy Andy is going to do it for me. You kept telling me, “I can’t wait until you have a whole sleeve.” I told you that wasn’t going to happen. You laughed. You somehow knew better.

I love you to infinity and beyond my beautiful boy.

Forever, I Am Your Mama

If you are or a loved one are a victim of the opioid epidemic, there may be a claim for damages. I am providing a link that was given to me by Ryan Hampton, author of “American Fix” and addiction and recovery advocate. The link: https://opioidrights.com/. Looks like you’ll need to copy and paste.