The great in-between

Last month, my brother's life was saved--yet again--by Narcan. He's been drug- and alcohol-free ever since. What happens next?

Over 18 months ago, back when I started this column, my second piece was about the opioid-overdose-reversing Narcan, my brother Phil and the connection between the two.

At the time, I noted:

“He’s used it to save one person’s life; it’s been administered twice to save Phil’s life, he has reported to me.”

Make that three times now. Thirty days ago, Phil’s life was saved on the CTA’s Pink Line somewhere.

Details are hazy, because I’ve not pressed him much. I’ve been piecing things together through a visit to the hospital 2 ½ weeks ago and two visits to his apartment after he was finally released from medical care.

Mostly, I’m just grateful he’s alive, grateful for whoever helped him in his time of life-or-death need. And I’m relieved the call I made to the Cook County coroner’s office three weeks ago—when I was still in the dark on his whereabouts—didn’t go the way I dreaded.

For hours, after learning he’d been hospitalized a week earlier but his whereabouts were a mystery, my heart grew increasingly heavy.

My call transferred to an investigator, I asked if they had a John Doe with a shamrock tattoo near one of his ankles, a white guy, late 50s with long hair.

Investigator: “Does your brother have any facial hair?”

Me: “A little bit of stubble, last I saw him, but not really much of a beard.”

Investigator: “Then he’s not here; the only person who otherwise fits his description has a really long beard.”

Enormous relief. I could exhale. Yet the enigma lingered: where in the world was Phil?

Later that day, a friend in the Chicago Fire Department traced the report of his being transported by paramedics to a hospital different from the ones closest to Phil’s apartment.¹

A week later, he came home and though he’s struggled to sleep and is in chronic pain, inside and out, thankfully he’s remained alcohol- and heroin/fentanyl-free.

The sobering reality is he’s too tired to do much of anything, and, fortunately, that includes returning to those substances that have ruled his life for so long.

I’ve shopped at the grocery store with him, done some domestic chores beyond his physical capacity, even watched a dark Christian Bale movie from Phil’s improbably vast DVD collection.²

After 40 years of wreaking havoc on his body, he’s facing battles on many fronts: physical, mental and spiritual, to name the most obvious. He’s now in a period of what I think of as “the great in-between.”

In between what’s been and whatever’s to come.

The questions that play over and over in my mind: What happens if and when he gets his energy back? Will he use it to continue along this new, sober life? Or to return to his old one?

As someone with absolutely no control over these things, I can pray for him, let Phil know that he’s got plenty of people who love him, and that we’re here for him.

So that’s what I’m doing, one day—one moment—at a time.

1. What happened: after his Narcan revival, Phil made his way back home. The next day, shaken by the experience, he tried to detox solo in his apartment. On Day 3, he experienced extreme distress and someone in his building contacted paramedics. They brought him to a trauma-care center with vastly more resources than the hospitals closer to his home.

2. It’s The Machinist, from 2004. Man, that’s one really dark film.