Naloxone Training
Day 1227.
As I research how to bring naloxone training to people in a warm, inviting environment I have 2 objectives.
To normalize the skill of administering lifesaving opioid overdose reversal meds with all the kudos that CPR skills bring.
Or if that seems too much:
Provide the basic skills to identify an opioid overdose, so that they may know to call 911.
This training is widely available in many places, as is free naloxone. You can learn it online and I am sure many other places, but an extensive online search brings up no easily accessed in person training.
Personally I would like a live person present to answer my questions, queries, concerns and not least, the legal liability aspects involved.
This training will be triggering for many of us who have lost those we love, with nobody there to revive them, or after failed revival attempts. I am one of them.
There are many online courses, but I have been unable to watch them. I load the page but before I press play, I pull back physically like a startled horse. My PTSD won’t let me go there.
So how the fuck am I going to successfully profess that we should all learn how to do this and pack naloxone when I myself, who is desperate for this empowerment, can’t even watch a video in the safety of my own home?!
What is stopping me? What am I afraid to see? What is it that I can’t bear to see?
It’s THAT moment.
As I sit here ready to press play, it brings me right back to that moment in my imaginings, when Luke was overdosing. Dying. Died. The imaginings of Marlon. Did he not see? Was he too scared to call for help? Did he just hope that Luke would pull through? Did he freeze in terror?
The very information that could have saved Luke brings me straight to a front row seat of that moment when he wasn’t.
You’d think I’d welcome the knowledge of how to save another boy like Luke with open arms and open heart and yet in my quest to seek it, I am brought to a full freeze. I have stopped sleeping, my stomach has been upset for days and I can’t cry.
It’s unlikely that I am alone in this. The people that I plan to train will likely regurgitate the very trauma that brought them there too.
How can we help them push through, what I can not?
Alright, That’s e-fucking-nough of this!
I will watch these videos in the safety of my therapists office. Observe what they bring to me, discuss what they may bring to others when the medical dummy is laid on the floor to demonstrate the signs of opioid overdose and revival, to see how can we make this training a safe space for their PTSD to kick off, to explore what we can do to help them, not harm them and so empower them to help another Mother’s child more fortunate than theirs, than mine, than Luke.
I love you Luke.
P.S. I eventually did watch those videos, in the safety of my trauma therapist’s company. I watched many versions, demonstrating revival with various delivery systems.
Immediately I dared to press play, my PTSD vanished (or rather my fear of it) and my hunger for the knowledge prevailed. Working to set this up.