My Recovery Journey: From Homeless Heroin Addict to Wanting to Live

Hi all. um. I saw this app randomly advertised on my fb & I have been feeling so alone lately after getting so sick last year. The long & short of my story? I was a homeless heroin addict during a spike of covid19. picking cig butts off the road. So, I ended up getting it & not knowing. Went forever coughing up gunk & thought it was just a chest infection. Then i started throwing up back & that whole night i held my sides rocking in pain. no amount of drugs touched the pain. so, my mom called an ambulance the next morning & while the emts were loading me up into the ambulance i remember turning to the emt & crying about how much pain I was in. I knew they'd treat me differently once they found out I was an addict. Then I closed my eyes and didnt open them for 3 whole months. Both of my lungs collapsed as soon as I was loaded into the ambulance. They had to cut a hole in my throat to help me breathe. & stuck 5 breathing tubes in my chest in and out depending on which positions were working and which werent anymore. I heard it was craziness. of course, & thank the goddess, i dont remember any of that. i just remember waking up asking if i had OD'd again & the doctor shining a light in my eyes giggled & smiled at me & said. "oh. no hunny, you almost died, but not because of your addiction." I appreciate her optimism, but indirectly it was because of my addiction. If I wasnt living dangerously, during one of the worst times to be homeless & sleeping on cold shed floors & outside alot of the time...but it's ok. I dont live like that anymore! Once I gained better consciousness & could understand everything better, the doctors told me not only had both of my lungs collapsed but I also had an encapsulated infection in one of my heart arteries. they got the infection out after like 25 IV antibiotic bags, a blood transfusion, but then! I also had covid19, but according to my doctor, covid was an innocent bystander in the mists of everything else wrong with me. I was emaciated already going into the hospital cause I put the heroin before eating. so 3 months in a coma on a liquid diet didnt help & when I woke up I didnt recognize my legs! I weighed 90lbs & I am 5'7". I couldnt take for the next month, but practiced. i couldnt walk. & the hospital was jam packed so i had to keep acouple of those pink throw up bins within arms reach cuz the nurses couldnt always get to me in time if I had to go the bathroom. I'd wiggle one of those under me or in bad situations where I couldnt get it under me I did have like pads under me but I could sit there 30 minutes sometimes before someone could come clean me up. & even tho I weighed nothing, I'd have to wait for at least 2 nurses to clean me up. so one would come in, the have to go find another. another 15 minutes go by. I hit the call button again. it was bad. I gave up the call button a few times when the small tube under my trachea would come out & started banging on my bed & kicking as hard as I could. I couldnt breathe!!! i dunno why they're made that way where they come out so easily! then the training to come off the ventilator, gosh, was that traumatic for anyone else? I panicked 5 minutes into not having it. made them put it back on me. the whole experience was really awful. they never showered me. I was in there for 3 months. I dunno if they did it while I was asleep, but for that last month I was there and awake the best they had time for was to run some kind of shower cap thru the top half of my hair. my hair ended up in one big dreaded knot ontop of my head that my mom had to cut most of it away. luckily all of it didnt have to go, but I still cried. I forced myself to walk the few times someone came around my room in the hospital for physical therapy. they were literally stretched so thin I only saw the in hospital PT 3 times. the call nurses walked with me more then PT helped. sigh. there were good moments & really bad traumatic moments, just trying to HEAL! I'm home now at my Moms. oh, did I mention? while in a coma I kept flatlining everytime they tried to ween me off the opiates because my body was so weak, so they put me on methadone maintenance. They gave me the option to ween off of that while in my last month at the hospital but I declined. I'm still on it today & I have 8 months heroin free. I'm still learning how to walk correctly. while babing my legs I accidently conditioned myself to walk like I have a stick up my butt lol! so I am always reminding myself to bend my knees, even tho it hurts. & I can only walk 10 minutes at a time right now...but that's worlds better then where I was when I started! I dont use my walker anymore! I ran for the FIRST TIME on my treadmill 2 days ago! it was only for 3 minutes, but I did it! [& had to sit down immediately after while I gasped for air, haha!] & that made me so happy! I still havent been to see my lung specialist (that appointment is on Sept. 20th.) & I am having trouble finding an infectious diease specialist who is taking new patients & willing to take my case. lol! I'm scared everyday that I may not open my eyes again when I close them. so, in turn, trying to sleep is really hard. I'll go to sleep around 9pm. wake up at 1am. roll around for 2 or 3hrs. then sleep till 5am. & give up & get up. I'm not supposed to go out around alot of people until I get cleared for my covid shots so I am stuck at home all the time. so I work out as much as I can everyday. got my food stamps, finally, last month so I've been trying to meal prep as much as I can stand to do it. so I can eat healthier! I'm drinking 4-16oz bottles of water a day! [I used to hate water & wouldn't drink it!] as a active addict of 10 years I could've looked you in the face & in full confidence promise you I was ready to die. today? as a retired, recovering addict? I WANT TO LIVE! & I have never honestly wanted that before! I have 3 beautiful baby girls who I adore & they deserve more then me but today i want to be there for them as much as i can! i see them every 2 weeks for 2 nights at my dads place. & i am so happy with them now. it doesn't hurt so much when i have to leave them anymore. cause they know & i know i will be back again for my visit with them in 2 weeks. i talk to my oldest daughter almost every night now but shes a preteen so, too cool to talk to mom! haha!! anyway, I believe I've covered it all. I didnt mean to make this so long. I really intended to keep it as short as possible but I didnt realize how writing about it, even on my phone, brought up those emotions!!! sad, frustrated, defeat, uselessness...I still feel these things sometimes. but I always play the tape out in my head & no situation is ever worth giving up the little bit I do still have of my life for one more high. thank you for reading if you got this far! goddess bless you! ♡!