I spent the better part of last night on suicide watch.

[Madrone]

I have NO idea why I'm the one people seek out with their drama.... but suffice it to say, I'm very, very tired today. Person involved took an unknown number of vicodin, percocet, and flexeril pills on top of being shit-faced drunk. I managed to get her to vomit repeatedly, and stayed with her until 3:30 am when she seemed coherent enough for me to leave without worrying much.

There are reasons I didn't want to call the cops - even though I didn't want to deal with it AT ALL.

[MrScorpio]

1. At least you were there

Someone had to be

[Madrone]

2. I know - and that's why I was.

Fucking bleeding heart liberal conscience!!! :grr: I just kept thinking about what if I DIDN'T get out of bed and go over - how I'd feel if I found out something bad happened. She has a baby at home ... :(

[GOPisEvil]

3. Jesus!!!

Why did I know this would happen? It always does with you. ;)

:hug:

[Madrone]

4. I KNOW!!!!

:cry:

Greg just sent me an email that he's working behind the scenes to try and get me tomorrow off PAID because ... it *is* sorta kinda loosely "work related". I am NOT holding my breath though.

She didn't call me, btw. Some other dude from work did after he asked her for my phone number. I already didn't get home until TEN THIRTY after dealing with the other crap from the evening. I don't know how much sleep I had before the phone rang - but I didn't get to bed until a good bit after 11 at least, and the phone rang and woke me up at 12:30.

[GOPisEvil]

6. Well, all in all I'm glad for her sake that you were there.

I really, REALLY hope you're done with this stuff. Please tell me she has family she can turn to.

[Madrone]

11. I'm thinking (hoping) she is going to stay with his parents at least for the weekend.

Praise jesus (and forgive me for saying that!!) ;) I can't turn my back, but I really don't want to deal with it either. It's really a lot.

[GOPisEvil]

12. I hope she can find someone to stay with (that isn't you).

You have enough on your plate as it is.

[Zuiderelle]

5. That's awful.

I had a friend many years ago that I had to be that with. Finally another friend of hers DID call the cops, which was probably the best thing to happen for her. I'm not ashamed to say that I'm glad she's not my friend now.

[Madrone]

8. The weird thing is I only loosely know this person.

I wouldn't call us "friends" ... but for some fucking reason people turn to ME with issues and drama all the time.

I chose not to call the cops because I didn't know how serious it was without going over, and if you knew what she'd been through yesterday you would really understand. That and she had a baby in the house ... I didn't want to cause her to lose EVERYTHING (she's really almost already there after what happened yesterday w/ her boyfriend - looooong story) because of a bad choice SHE made after having her world crumble around her because of some asshole she called "boyfriend". It would have looked REALLY bad to have the authorities show up with her in that condition - I just couldn't do it to her. I was prepared to haul her ass to the hospital at a moments notice, but I didn't want to call the cops on her or have them come to the house.

[Zuiderelle]

10. Oh nooooo.

In that case you did the right thing. But I just read Heddi's response below, and I agree that you should encourage her to get medical attention to make sure she didn't do any damage, and get treatment if she did.

Good luck with all this. Sounds like a really difficult situation.

[Heddi]

7. Please encourage your friend to go to an ER or doctor

I'm a nurse, and I'm only suggesting this because vicodin and percocet have acetamenophen (tylenol) in them, which is very very very toxic to the liver. She may be coherent, but she may have some damage to her organs because of this, and the evidence will not necessarily be seen or felt immediately.

There is a medicine they can give her called Mucomist that is the antidote, if you will, to acetamenophen toxicity. They just have to run a blood test to see what her acetamenophen level is, and if it's too high, they can give her mucomyst and other meds to bring her liver back in order. It doesn't necessarily mean her liver is failing, only that a high dose of tylenol can and does damage the liver to varrying degrees. And that risk is doubled because they were drunk at the time---alcohol and livers are no friends. Alcohol and tylenol and livers are even worse friends.

[Madrone]

9. She won't go, I can guarantee it.

No insurance, no money. Breadwinner for the family in jail and most definitely jobless after yesterday. That's why I just kept making her throw up as much as possible. :( Very, very sad situation overall.

[Heddi]

14. Will you do this, then

Keep an eye on her. Keep an eye on her skin and her eyes and her stomach (seriously). With liver failure/damage, the notable signs are jaundice (yellowing) of the skin. It will start off very slight, and go to a bronzy look, and after years of liver failure, it's quite yellow. If she's got dark skin, or tans, look at the whites of her eyeballs. Those will turn yellow, too.


Also, try to note if she mentions or if you notice her gaining weight specifically in her stomach. When the liver is hurt, it cannot process proteins properly so these proteins "spill" into the abdominal cavity. It's called Ascites, and it's protein-rich fluid. 1 liter of fluid = 1kg = 2.3 lbs, so it takes alot of ascites before it's noticeable.

If you notice her mentation is off---I don't mean depressed or whatever. If you notice she's acting WEIRD, this could be a sign of increased ammonia levels. Ammonia is toxic and is broken down by the liver. If the liver isn't working properly, ammonia builds up and will cause very strange mentation. It's called Toxic Encephalopathy because the ammonia mostly messes up the brain. It's easily fixed by giving a special medicine that binds to ammonia, and levels come down quickly and normal state of mind returns.

If she tells you that she's coughing up blood, or pooping blood, that could be because livers in trouble cause Portal Hypertension---the big veins in the middle of your body get very stressed out and it can cause hemorrhoids where we normally get them, and basically hemorrhoids in the esophagus/throat. They're called Esophageal Varices, and they are swollen veins in the esophagus. They can burst and cause bleeding. Sometimes enough can burst and someone can die from bleeding to death. Generally that's a pretty severe and rare thing, and if she has these, they can put little rubber bands on them to dry the out-pockets and decrease risk of bleeding.

I'm sure your friend is going to be okay. The things I'm listing above happen mainly with people who have taken BOTTLES of tylenol, or who have drank large amounts for decades.

But any ingestion of acetamenophen above the reccomended amount can cause damage to the liver. If she's not willing or able to go the ER or Dr, then keep an eye out for these things in the weeks to come.

[Madrone]

20. I'm going to call her in a bit and give her this information.

She's not at home, and I believe has gone somewhere else for at least the weekend. I am still worried about her, but know that she is with people that care and will help make sure both she and the baby are safe.

[mduffy31]

25. I will second it

As a nurse I have to say if the amount of APAP and ETOH that she has ingested she really needs to get some mucomyst into her system, I have seen people try to kill themselves with Tylenol PM thinking that the "PM" ingredient was going to kill them but that is just Benadryl and they end up on the transplant list.

[Heddi]

26. I had 3 APAP od's in three days

two were accidental, or at least the patient had no previous signs of SI/SA. The third was purposeful and with intent, and that person did not live to see the weekend. Their liver just shut the fuck down.

[S n o w b a l l]

13. Good for you, Madrone...

You're a good person and no doubt that in the end, you'll be rewarded for being the kind, compassionate woman you are. That people seek you out should be flattering..it's telling of who you are. I hope you never get tired of being that person. We need more people in the world like you.

:hi: :hug:

[UndertheOcean]

15. There is an old Arab saying : " Do Good , and throw it in the Sea"

Meaning , that when you do a good deed , you shouldn't complain about it or expect a reward.

Maybe someone will be there for you in your hour of need . How will you feel if he/she complained later about helping you ?

"She has a child at home" , so that's why she deserves help ? if she is childless then what ? fuck her ?

This attitude of yours makes suicidal people feel more like a burden and more inclined to off themselves.

What if she reads DU and finds your post ? Are you sure she does not.

[Madrone]

18. This is the deal -

This "attitude of mine" as you say is due to being severely sleep deprived and suffering the ill-effects both health-wise and work-wise today. Sorry but it WAS a burden. A BIG ONE. But you know what? I got my ass out of bed and dealt with it ANYWAY. For a person I barely KNOW. So if you want to question the kind of person I am you may want to think a little more deeply on that fact. If I didn't give a shit I wouldn't have drug myself out of bed and gone over there. I'm NOT going to pretend like it wasn't an inconvenience because it most certainly was.

The fact that she has a baby at home has nothing to do with her being deserving of help and EVERYTHING to do with my reluctance to just call the cops and go back to sleep. I am NOT equipped to deal with this sort of thing. SHE didn't even call me. Someone else I barely know did. I went and didn't call the cops because she didn't need OR deserve the drama that would ensue from that scenario after everything else that happened to her yesterday. You can imagine what would have happened if the cops showed up with her shitfaced drunk and overdosed on pills with a 6-month old asleep in the next room. Beer cans and liquor bottles strewn from one of the house to the other.

There are many that would say I did the WRONG thing and that I should have called the cops - and that most certainly would have been the easiest thing to do.

[callous taoboy]

21. Dude- You certainly did nothing wrong in posting here. You done good.

[moriah]

22. I wouldn't have called the police....

But I would have seriously considered calling an ambulance.

I had a neighbor decide to mix pills and booze -- I did know her and occasionally hung out with her, so it wasn't quite like what you described. She also wasn't attempting to kill herself, but was just "trying to have a good time". Chickadee took 4 Vicodins, two bars of Xanax, and drank some liquor (we aren't sure how much, the guys who were with her said they only saw her take 3 shots, but I don't know if I believe that.)

She did this right before going with some friends of mine to Riverfest, where there was an outdoor concert. About 15 minutes after they got there, she literally fell out -- dropped straight to the ground and started convulsing. They got her back into the car and took her back to our building, and by that time she'd come to some. So they attempted to help her out of the car but didn't think she needed as much support as she did. She fell face-forwards again, breaking her nose and cutting her face really badly on the gravel.

The ruckus was enough to get me and my roommate out of our apartment to see what was going on, and since my roommate's boyfriend (who was there too) had his EMT license, he tried to fix her nose and clean her face up, but he said she needed stitches. She also was going in-and-out of consciousness, and he didn't feel comfortable trying to give her ipacec to make her puke unless she was at least somewhat awake. So we took her to the hospital.

They did the whole activated charcoal thing on her, etc, but when they got her to the hospital her breathing was depressed and they ended up putting her on a ventilator. When they did initial labs on her, her BAC was over .4, and it barely went down at all six hours later. They said the tylenol in the Vicodins combined with the Xanax was blocking her liver's ability to process the alcohol. She had to stay in the hospital for three days.

I admire you for doing what you did. But I think I would have probably either taken her to the hospital myself, or called an ambulance. After that incident, if someone mixes booze and pills and is unconscious, I don't trust home care alone. That's not accounting for the child, but I think I would rather babysit the kid than babysit an overdose. Just my opinion, not faulting you at all for what you did.

[moriah]

24. It sounds like you mean "Spit in the do-gooders face".

Posts like yours certainly do not encourage a person to go out of their way to help anyone.

And I have a feeling that the OP would have given the person "help" no matter what the situation was -- but that "help" might have been a phone call to let an ambulance crew deal with a medical emergency instead of trying to deal with it herself, if a child was not involved.

[Writer]

16. I am so sorry that you had to go through that, but this person was very lucky to have you there.

Someone who truly cared whether or not she lived or died.

I hope she gets professional care very soon. That's frightening! :hug:

[supernova]

17. You are an angel to her

and that's a good thing.

:hug:

And I do hope you get some rest after all that.

[Guava Jelly]

19. You are a good friend to her Madrone

Karma will surely pay you back. :yourock: oh and :hi:

[Inchworm]

23. *hugs*

for long time

:hug:

[mnhtnbb]

27. This person needs a support system beyond you--especially for the baby.

While not calling the cops might seem like the right thing, it also would have gotten this person
into the system for psychiatric care. She clearly needs professional help. Sometimes family and friends are not enough.

[old mark]

28. Madrone, that person needs professional help.

I have seen several people kill themselves, including a hospital patient who was on 15 minute checks 24 hours every day.
If she is serious about doing it, she will do it.

This is not your job - she needs someone with real skill and experience.

It's good you are concerned, but it is something for 911.

mark

[Taverner]

29. NEVER call the cops in an OD situation

They only know how to arrest. Take them to the hospital, call an ambulance - but do not call the cops.