Beat The Drum - That Night


	That Night Late on the night of Thursday, March 27, 2003, Katie had come to me and told me She needed to talk to me. She asked if we could walk around the block while we talked. That would make it easier, she said. She also needed to smoke a cigarette while we talked. She looked so cute in her bandana. She took a deep breath and said that she was afraid that I wouldn't love her anymore, after she told me what she was about to reveal. I assured her that nothing could do that. Drawing a deep breath, she told me that she had gotten back into drugs and that it had gotten worse. She hemmed and hawed and hinted, but left it to me to actually say those dreadful words, "Do you mean heroin?" "Yes", she said, and cried. With a sense of relief that it was finally out, she began to talk more freely. She told me that it was a monster that she could not control, that it was bigger than her, that it had changed who she was. She told me that she had even pawned her treasured gold necklace that she'd worked so hard to earn the money to buy. All for nothing more than a momentary high, and now she had nothing to show for it. She did not like the way she was at all, and wanted to stop, but couldn't. She told me that she had to be sent away, that she had to get inpatient treatment, because outpatient would not work. She'd already been through outpatient twice before for other drugs and it obviously had not helped. In fact, she told me that all it did was help her to make new drug-using friends. We talked about the implications of inpatient care. I told her that she would probably lose her job and possibly have to repeat the 11th grade. She said she realized that, but that this was more important. She said that if she didn't, she could lose her life. And, she said we needed to do something right now, before she changed her mind. I reassured her that I still loved her very, very, very much and told her I knew how hard it was for her to tell me this. And, I assured her that I would take care of her immediately. By now we had circled the block. It was late, probably 11 pm or later. I was SHATTERED by Katie's revelation, but I had to act, nonetheless. As soon as we entered the house I pulled out the phone book and began calling every drug hotline I could find. I was physically shaking with fear and shock. I really had NO IDEA what to do or where to turn. I got referred from one number to another, until finally, one of them told me to call my health insurance company. I called them, surprised to find that I could actually talk to a live person at that hour. They instructed me to take her to any emergency room for evaluation. I followed their direction, even though I did find it a bit odd. Why an emergency room? Katie was in no immediate physical danger at this moment. It was an extremely serious and potentially life-threatening mental health / substance abuse crisis, but not yet a medical emergency. Why didn't they tell me to take her to some type of emergency drug treatment program? Why just "any ER"? Perhaps the outcome would have been different. I'll never know. Of course, these are questions that I ask myself now. At the moment, I was too shook up to do anything but follow orders blindly. I immediately took her to the closest hospital emergency room. When I explained to the doctor, why we were there, she was puzzled. She asked, "Why would they tell you to come here? We don't have any detox or substance abuse treatment programs here". I replied that they had not specifically told me to bring Katie to their hospital, but that they had said, "any hospital emergency room", for "evaluation".