Oops, I overdosed on fentanyl, again.
Luckily, this time around wasn't so bad - I was in broad public, during the last of the daylight hours, and I had just arrived in Santa Monica, to do some recyclables collecting, to supplement my income, at the end of the month. Along the way, on the ride there, I happened upon a suspect small plastic bag that contained some powder. Having been a previous overdose victim, due to snorting a substance that I'd assumed was something else, more innocuous and commonplace, I made sure to taste test the white powder, before ingesting it via insufflation. There was little to no taste to it. Mind you, my whole mindset was fraught against me, since I had used crystal meth, earlier in the day, heavily, and I was generally not all that satisfied with my take, with it, despite that it was a generous amount that I'd received. I waited until I arrived in Santa Monica. When I arrived, there, there were uniformed officers tending the Metro train station's gate exits, and we had to tap our TAP cards to exit, like they had begun in North Hollywood. No big deal, for me, since I paid for my fare. Once I was in, loose in the city, I headed to the bathroom. It had been about 30-45 minutes since I taste-tested the powdery substance. I should have known that it wasn't crystal meth, straight out, but my impulses led me astray, and I decided to nasally sample the bag's contents, in their entirety, once I reached a restroom. At that point, I knew that the substance was some kind of synthetic chemical, and I went about my day, thinking that I could perhaps outperform the effects of this product, if I simply remain vigilant.
I started out collecting recyclables, again, and some of the tourists there offered me some of their recyclables, out at a corner driveway, nearby the pier. At this point, which was 10-15 minutes after I had snorted the contents of the bag, I began feeling troublesomely woozy and a bit nauseous and lightheaded, but managing receiving the recyclables from this pair of gentlemen proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back, and I started to fall over, due to having lost my balance. I'd waited too long to get help, and get some Narcan in me.
Next time, I'll know better, or I'll do better, or something (I figured).
Of course I would do better, on the occasion of my third fentanyl overdose, in hindsight. I've started, for example, to take precautions, in conditioning myself, in a general sense, to live out a more sober set of lifestyle traits, now that my housing is stable, and I'm generally well-taken care of, with the help of the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department, and my Caseworkers, Nurse, and new Doctor, whom are somewhat my peers, generationally-speaking, so that's a nice feature of my treatment paradigm, at the moment. For example, I make sure to do small, simple tasks, like making out my Google Calendar, to mark not only tasks that need to be completed, but also, I cover events that I plan for, or happen upon, as I go about my day. I do this for some sense of accountability and for busy work's sake. It's one of my sober tasks that I keep up, being that I was trained on outright homelessness, for a long time, and that was a lot of recycling (that should be a clue, for me, next time), to a large degree, and I was also living outside, completely, with nowhere to turn, much, for a reasonable take on shelter. I kept on, in making sure that I kept the pigeons fed, regularly, during this time, so that was added activities to finance and support; essentially, much of my days, when I wasn't resting, was characterized by these and similar sorts of laborious and physically exertive tasks, as a homeless person, travelling, in this latest outset of homelessness, from Century City, back over to Downtown Los Angeles, and back, on a regular basis, to keep up with everything. I had been homeless since late spring, of last year, and last July was my previous overdose, which I don't really recall the foreshadowing details of, if there were any, and which was particularly detrimental to me and my work, since I had lost everything: my clothes, my wallet, my iPad Pro, all of my belongings. I was just set out on the street, anew, once I was released from the hospital, in that instance. Here, in this last weekend's hospitalization, I lost my wallet and recyclables, but I didn't lose my ID, so most of the items I had with me are really simple things to replace.
Overdosing, as an experience, in this instance, was fairly well met with supportive assistance and friendly service, from law enforcement and the fire department paramedics, who gave me a general rundown of 1. that I had lost consciousness and, essentially, I overdosed on fentanyl, 2. that I was going to the hospital, at which point I became aware of my surroundings - it was the same setting in which the two gentlemen were offering me recyclables to collect, and the sun hadn't quite set, yet, by that point - I lost consciousness amidst a huge crowd of pedestrian foot traffic, essentially, and 3. they gave me some timely followup talk with regards to what to expect, such as that I'd be feeling nauseous, and I might need to throw up. They gave me a portable vomit container, which I ended up using a few of. I figure that the dose of fentanyl that I took, given that I'd previously had melatonin, in pure powder form, which was supplied to me, with a 2 mg spoon, was about 8 mg - that's a lot, for someone with no tolerance to opiates - about a week's worth of dosages. If I had my senses and sensibilities about me, I would have rejected the found small bag of powder, altogether, but I had no oversight watching over me, and I took it, somewhat as a guilty, indulgent pleasure, that I felt I might get out of it. I see guys and girls smoking fentanyl all the time, where I live, but I suppose that they're more accustomed and experienced with dealing with negative side effects and overdose situations. One of the medics told me that he'd placed a catheter in to my arm, ostensibly to relieve some pressure, or to perform tests on my heart and blood pressure, since they had to figure out why I was unconscious.
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| Nearly a week after the overdose, I have some bruising in my arm, where the catheter was inserted. |
