"A Mighty Heart" - Riley

By : Kari Kanvas

317 lives in Alberta have been lost as of March in 2017 to drug related deaths, sadly those numbers are still rising. In 2016, 568 men and women lost their battles and died of overdoses. One of those deaths is why I am speaking out today.

On October 22, 2016, the love of my life took his last breath.My soulmate became a statistic that you have all read about in the papers. Riley was only 31 years old when he died alone in his childhood bedroom. Prior to Riley's death, he had been sober from all substances for 10 months.Riley was put into a medical relapse after needing a major surgery. Our worlds quickly spun out of control and within 3 weeks my best friend was gone forever. Riley had an accidental overdose after he had been over prescribed many deadly and illegal combinations of benzodiazepines, barbiturates and opioids.

Riley had open heart surgery on august 15th to repair his aorta, both of his arteries and to put in a mechanical valve. Riley was born with a congenital heart defect and years of heavy intravenous drug use caused many serious heart infections - which was what lead to his irreparable heart damage. If he did not have the surgery when he did, he would have only had approximately 2-5 years of life left.

Looking back now, we would have had more time together had we declined the procedure. We just didn’t know it at that time. The surgery took 3 times as long as it should have, his lungs collapsed and Riley had actually died not once but 3 times during the surgery.We truly believed that that was the worst day of our lives. The surgeon was not convinced that he would even make it through the night, so his family and I were given the chance 11 hours later, to say our "I love you's". To everyone’s surprise and absolute amazement, Riley not only pulled through the night but he woke up, could breath and was able to sit up all on his own within 11 more hours. No one could believe it. Riley was a fighter and he never gave up easily or willingly.

When we received the news that he needed this lifesaving surgery, we went into panic mode because Riley was currently 10 months into his recovery and we knew that he would be needing some sort of pain medication. We feared another relapse. We had just gone through a year of hell with his addictions.

Riley and I had our first date on February 19th, 2014 and it was love at first sight. Our date lasted over 6 hours and by the time we left, my face hurt because I had been laughing so hard. Riley was the funniest, sweetest, most caring and most genuine man I had ever met. I had no choice but to fall head over heels for him. He had a tough exterior with his stretched ears and heavily tattooed body but he had a pure heart of gold and two gold teeth to match. From that moment on we had become inseparable and our relationship had moved incredibly fast. He moved in with me within a few months and we truly were never apart for the next 2 years.Riley was always very open and honest about his life and his past. It was on our first date that he told me that he had just been moved back to Calgary from Vancouver, as his parents feared for his life. Riley admitted that he had a long history of drug abuse and that he was a recovering IV heroin user. He was 8 days clean when i fell in love with him and he had just completed a 5 day detox program for the X amount of time.

Riley had struggled for 15 years mostly with heroin and many other opioids. He also struggled with his mental health and had been admitted to the hospital for self-harm. Riley had a traumatic experience with a very close family member, who passed away and left Riley with a lot of guilt and self-hate. This really formed the path towards his destructive behavior.

His addictions started when he was prescribed pain medications for an injury…this continued to be a pattern for the next 15 years. He could not get away from it know matter how hard he tried. And he tried hard. Opioids were quickly, easily and constantly accessible to him. He completed detox, rehab and went to many counsellors and psychiatrists countless amount of times. None of these treatments were successful for very long, he was always just sent on his way with absolutely no follow up and no skills, tools or resources to live a happy, sober life.

I didn’t understand addiction at this time. I had no idea how it worked. I just knew that he was 8 days sober and he wanted to be, so I thought that that was it…he was no longer an addict. Well, it didn’t take long for me to discover that that is not the way it goes.I found that out the hard way, many times throughout our first year together.I loved Riley more than anything and anyone, he was the most amazing person I had ever had. I had never loved or been loved this way before. All I wanted was to fix him and to make him be okay because I knew who he truly was, and his addiction was not him.

The first year included a lot of lies - big, small and uncalled for, theft of money and theft of my own required medications, a whole lot of tears, swears and many sleepless nights. There were also a lot of mysterious illnesses and many serious reoccurring injuries which always resulted in trips to the nearest walk-in clinic or hospital. There was a lot of pain medications and there was a lot of withdrawals on our couch that usually lasted up to 5 days. I was in denial. I believed a lot of the ridiculous lies he would tell me, I believed that he was only using pain medications as prescribed. I believed that the spoons in his bathroom were from his morning yogurt. I believed that if I yelled, cried and begged everything would be ok. I was a fool and i believed him when he told me he was okay. It didn’t take long before I had to call his parents for an intervention. Riley knew he needed help and he truly wanted it. Riley went to a detox centre and then a 28 day rehab program.

He went willingly. When he left the treatment center, not only was he stone sober, he was the Riley that I fell in love with. He was so proud of himself. He was doing so well. His parents could not believe the changes this time around.I had such faith in him, our relationship and his sobriety. I actually sold my condo and bought us a house in Medicine Hat while he was in recovery. I thought that moving him out of Calgary, to a new city where neither of us knew a single soul would be the best thing for him and for us.I thought that moving him here would keep him safe.

The day we moved here, I was diagnosed with late stage Lyme disease on top of my other conditions, so we decided that I would not work and I would focus on my own treatment for 2 years. This put a lot of pressure on Riley to take care of me, our new house and a lot of our finances. Then 4 months later, we received the news that Riley needed to have open heart surgery.

We had only 5 weeks to prepare for that. We faced so many nonstop battles together, we were both mentally and physically exhausted. Aside from the fear of the actual surgery and the risks involved, we were terrified of the pain medications that would obviously be needed. We were terrified of what would happen once he had a taste of those again.

So a few weeks before the surgery, Riley, his parents and I had the opportunity to sit down with his surgical team. We spoke about Riley’s past addictions and we pleaded for alternative pain management.

Everyone was on board, and a NO Opioid contract was put into place. We had a solid, fail proof plan.Riley worked his butt off for his sobriety and he did not want to risk it and he shouldn’t have had too.But somehow, despite the No Opioid contract,Riley was prescribed many addictive medications. He also developed a severe lung infection and was hospitalized for a week and a half…THIS is where things really fell apart and our lives started to crumble.

While in the hospital, he was being administered morphine every two hours…orally and intravenously.To top that off, his roommate in the hospital just so happened to be a drug dealer. I didn’t know that until long after Riley passed. That dealer contacted me but that is an entirely different story for a different time. Today is about giving Riley his voice back!

I failed Riley. So did our police and our entire medical system.Sadly, he is not the first and he will not be the last to be over prescribed opioid medications. That taste of morphine while in the hospital was all it took to grab a hold of Riley and it refused to let him go. I lost Riley several weeks before he actually died.

The thing is, Riley was my soulmate and I knew he was dying. I could feel it. I fought like crazy with everything I had to try and save him and to bring him back to me. Despite all of my efforts, nothing worked. I begged, pleaded, screamed and cried. I called his parents in Calgary at 3am and 5am many times. I wrestled him in a cold motel trying to get his pills from him. I took him to the local hospital where we both bawled hysterically to the intake nurse to help us! Riley begged to be blacklisted from all pharmacies, medical clinics and hospitals-which they told us could not be done. Instead of actually helping Riley that night, even after he threatened to kill himself and had taken a handful of OxyContin, we were put in a back room for over 8 hours without being checked on not even once. By the time the Dr. arrived, Riley didn’t want the help. He was told a psychiatrist would contact him the following Tuesday, after Thanksgiving weekend…he was told this on the Thursday. 5 days he had to wait for help.

His family and I took turns calling the police, the hospitals, the fire department, Alberta health services. His family had even set up an interventionist for the Monday (Riley passed away 2 days before). All these people saw were the bloodshot eyes and the track marks up his arms and on his hands. He was treated like scum. No one helped him. "The doctors know what they are doing..." words by emergency responders as his mother pleaded for help while pointing out the FULL grocery bags of medications!

Eight days before Riley passed, his mother found him unconscious and blue in his childhood bedroom. She revived him. It took two hours for help to arrive to take him to the hospital. Once he was seen by the doctor, he was released with even more medications while his mother begged for them to keep him overnight. Riley had an overdose and no one even mentioned or supplied naloxone to any of us.We didn’t know about it until long after he was gone. This breaks my heart and absolutely infuriates me…because “what if”?

I wasn’t there when Riley died alone in his bedroom.I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to tell him I was sorry or that I loved him. I didn’t even get a chance to hear his new heart beat. I never will.

There were so many people with authority and even more opportunities for someone to step in and help him. If they had, Riley would still be at home with me. An investigation was started on my behalf into his death as I know that his death was 100% preventable. The director of Foothills Hospital and head of patient relations, apologized to me in a private meeting. They said that they were sorry that they failed me and his family. More importantly, with tear filled eyes they said they were sorry that they failed him. They admitted that they gave Riley a "loaded gun" despite the No Opioid contract. Riley begged for help. He pleaded and he tried so hard, but the system did not listen and they certainly did not care.

On October 22nd, my life changed forever. I lost a huge piece of my heart. The pain is absolutely unbearable most days. Other days I just feel numb... but never numb enough. The "what if's" and the "never wills" break my heart all over again each day that I wake up without him. I can’t believe I will never marry my best friend or hold his hand ever again. But seeing the faces of Riley’s parents now, are what breaks my heart the most.

We all fought so hard, we all truly did our best at the time. None of us were given any resources to help. We didn’t know what we were doing. We were all angry, scared and confused. I will never know what went on inside Riley’s mind, but I know that it was a living nightmare. Riley didn’t want to die but the way that he was treated and the way he had been denied help over 15 years, he started to believe that all of the terrible things he had done and that were done to him, made him unworthy of being happy and being loved. He covered the emotional and physical pain he was in, by injecting heroin or snorting fentanyl because he was told that he was nothing more than a junkie. He begged for help, it wasn’t there, so he gave up.

It has become my personal mission to do whatever I possibly can to prevent anyone else from standing in my shoes. If you or anyone you know is currently struggling, please believe that you are worth living in this life. Your addiction does not define you. Help is available if you are ready. Just don’t give up! To each of you reading this in Riley's memory always carry a naloxone kit (Narcan), you never know who may need it. You could save a life, so why wouldn’t you?