My Son Died From Accidental

My Son Died From Accidental Prescription Drug Overdose

By Dr.Fourkan Ali

I would much rather be talking to my son Kent than talking about Kent.

Kent was my second child. He was a sweet, gentle, very normal child. He liked dinosaurs when he was little. He liked to play outside. He liked to play Super Mario Brothers and Legos. He performed self-taught magic and card tricks at his younger cousin’s birthday party.

Kent had a fantastic sense of humor and would make everyone laugh.  Kent could master the most complex puzzles and mazes – he had a keen sense for how things worked.  Toss him a Rubik’s Cube and he could solve it in minutes!  He loved to read. He was a good student and a good friend. He was a Boy Scout, sang in a school choir, went to church camp, went on missions trips and volunteered in the tech booth at church. We went to church as a family. Kent loved his family and enjoyed spending time with his aunt and uncle, grandparents, sister and me, his mom.

He began to change when he was a sophomore in high school, and I noticed that he became restless and spent more time in his room with the door closed. When he was 15, he called me the night before Thanksgiving and told me that he was out with some friends and wasn’t coming home that night. He said he was fine and was calling because he didn’t want me to worry. He hung up. I was frantic and spent part of the evening driving around and the other part calling every one of his friends to find him. I knew something was very, very wrong! Kent had always obeyed the rules.

He came home about 6:00 am, and I was waiting for him.

Life changed that day for us. He went to the doctor and was drug tested. After I learned the results, his computer time was restricted, he was not allowed to close his bedroom door, and his comings and goings were strictly monitored.  He did not want to be a drug addict, and after some time, it seemed like he made it out.

He seemed to get his dreams and goals back. He asked if he could go to a different high school in the fall because he wanted a “clean start, and we found a charter school that suited him to a T.  In fact, he completed his junior and senior years in less than one school year.

He loved going to school and work.  He was happy and enjoyed spending time with his family. I thought we were in the clear.

It was the Christmas before Kent would turn 18. His dentist recommended that he have his wisdom teeth extracted, and as a normal routine, gave him a prescription for a painkiller to be used after his oral surgery. I had it filled and put it in the kitchen cabinet, but I noticed the bottle looked different a couple days later. With a pounding heart and a feeling of dread, I counted the pills and then confronted my son. After a while, he admitted to taking some. I was heartsick. I thought we had made it! And I felt so bad for unknowingly putting the drug right in front of him.

I asked Kent why he wanted to take drugs, and the answer he gave was bone-chilling.

He asked me to remember a time that I felt “GREAT” – “the best.” When I had the memory,he said, “the first time you get high – it’s BETTER than that. “All you can think about is feeling that way again – only it’s physically, chemically impossible.” He then explained how brain chemicals are altered and why people take more, stronger drugs and increase the frequency trying to get back to the feeling of that first high.

But Kent didn’t want to take drugs. He worked very hard to live his life without them.

At 18, he moved into a house with a couple of other young adults.  He was finishing his first year of college, had a great job, and was able to support himself. For the next six months, Kent enjoyed the freedom of being on his own.

He would call often and have us pick him up on Sunday mornings to go to church and have lunch together afterward.

Then on a Monday in September of 2003, I had a life-changing knock on my door.

My heart dropped as I heard the words that my son- my handsome, sensitive, funny, talented, smart son - died from an “accidental prescription drug overdose.”

Kent and two other kids crushed up Oxycontin and washed them down with beer. Kent got sleepy and told the other two kids he wanted to go to sleep, so they left. Kent went to sleep and as he slept, the drug slowed his respiratory system down until it stopped completely. His roommate found him the next day – already gone.

I wish I had been better educated about drugs.  I also wish his friends had been better educated and more aware of what was happening to Kent. Maybe Kent would be alive today.

But he isn’t. And I live with the pain every day. I’ll never see him grow up, get married orhave children. I’ll never see him live his life and realize his dreams.

I could spend the rest of my life being angry, but I’m not sure who I should be angry with.  I was a good mom! I put a lot of time into my children.  And I forgive my son. I’m trying to honor his memory by helping other parents and kids understand the dangers of using drugs – especially prescription drugs.

I’m hoping that by telling Kent’s story perhaps, just one person will make a different choice…

Maybe a parent will follow that “gut feeling” or maybe find out what is still hanging out in their medicine cabinets and dispose of or safeguard their Rx drugs.