An Australian doctor first prescribed Sam Ware opioids after a dental procedure. Dozens of overdoses and a fight for his life followed. By KristenGelineau
Sam Ware, 22, hugs his mother, Deb, after seeing her for the first time since his last overdose in Fountaindale, Central Coast, Australia, Friday, July 19, 2019. It's been three weeks since he cut Deb off. He says he's been staying in a hostel, but has no money left, no place to go. He says he can stay clean, if only he had a roof over his head.
For three years, she had battled to save his life, a lonely war against a system that made pharmaceutical opioids cheap and easy to get, in a country that has quietly endured what was once thought to be a uniquely American crisis of skyrocketing opioid addiction and deaths. . It has all unfolded despite the glaring warnings from the U.S., and despite more than a decade of warnings from Australian health professionals about a looming disaster.
Deb had worked for years as a nursing assistant. She’d seen plenty of kids prescribed opioids after wisdom tooth extractions. And so there was nothing that initially worried her about Sam’s pills, medication that combined paracetamol and codeine. Initially, the codeine was an occasional treat. Soon he realized he felt lousy when he wasn’t taking it. He took more, moving quickly from a few pills a week to 40 a day. Then 80. Then 110. His abdomen began to ache, which he feared was a result of all the paracetamol in the drugs. So he went online and learned how to extract the codeine from the pills.
Deb called and wrote letters to the doctors whose names she found on Sam’s prescriptions, warning them that he was addicted to the medications. His first overdose came around four months into his addiction. “I don’t feel well,” he told Deb, heart hammering, face pale. On the nights he slept at home, she checked to make sure he was still breathing. On the nights he was gone, she would awaken to the sound of the train going by and wonder whether Sam was on board, dead in his seat.
One day, she was tending to a patient Sam’s age who had just had his wisdom teeth removed. She handed him his discharge papers, along with the prescription a doctor had written for the same opioid Sam was prescribed after his own teeth were pulled.“Only take it if you really need to,” she said of the prescription. “Get your mum to hang onto it.”“No, really,” she urged, tearing up. “It’s really addictive. Just be really careful.
Deb jerked the wheel left and right. Sam wailed, pressing his flip-flop clad feet against the dashboard so hard they left scuff marks.Then she heard the beep-beep-beep of the seat belt alarm. Saw Sam unbuckling himself. Watched him yank the emergency brake and open the door.She went from manic to calm in two seconds. Sam stumbled along the street, blood pouring down his legs, frantically trying to wave down passing cars. She went after him.“I’m not going to hurt you, Sam,” she said.
Day after day, she sat by his bed and prayed. She held up her phone to his pale face and played a song they both loved, “When the Rain Comes” by Third Day.But I will hold you ’til it goes away”After 10 days, the doctors successfully awakened him. He looked terrible. Deb went home that night with low expectations.She returned in the morning to find him sitting in a chair, eating breakfast.She began recording the moment on her phone.
When she gets to the hospital the next day, a nurse delivers another blow: Sam has withdrawn his consent for Deb to be updated on his medical care.And yet, she’s not. She is his mother. He is her son.
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