We Shot The Cat

Did you shoot the cat? It was a partly humorous aside, looking for the raised eyebrow, the what’s up with that? comment. And then we’d explain, we have a cat with diabetes; it's two shots a day. The cat was second. The dog, a cocker spaniel who died last year after almost four years of shots, was first.

Working with needles is a strange skill set. At first, my fear was the bubbles. As you draw the liquid from the wax topped vial into the needle, sometimes bubbles come in as well. Cue horror movie where bubbles are injected and we watch the person die, cue helplessly watching your pet in spasm’s.

 The fear was my first hurdle. Finding the right pocket of loose skin was my second. You have to inject the needle into the right place. Now, it’s a quick process. One two three. Anyone can get used to needles. Anyone can get used to using them. In the weird world I inhabit, needles are for good. 

In the world outside, needles are mixed. This strange skill set is one I share with my son. I found needles around the house after he moved to California. In his sock drawer. He had always told me he was too scared of needles to use them. The whole horror movie haunted him. But his addiction changed that. 

The urge, I suspect, to get the chemical into your body. If this was the only way so be it... overcame his fear. Unlike us, who use needles in our own home, he was using with friends, with other people comfortable with that habit, who inhabited the addicts world with him. 

Needles, I understand, are a fast form of transmission. If your body is screaming with pain; muscle pain, stomach cramping, brain signals because the brain literally creates synapses to handle the drug, you want the relief fast. So, he overcame his fear and used them. 

He became one of over 60,000 mostly young men and women who died last year when he injected fentanyl by accident. He had a slip after sobriety. He admitted to using, told his house manager he loved him. He went upstairs to get dressed for a meeting. He collapsed and time passed. By the time he was found, administered narcan, it was too late. Losing a son, a child, is learning to live with pain for the rest of my life. 

There’s much more about that but my point is this. There is another epidemic in this country killing young people. Its a disease, long term, ravishing families and generations. It crosses all color barriers, all socioeconomic lines, all age groups.  This year the numbers went up again. 

This particular form, with needles has hit the world again and again in waves. And I believe it will continue to do so. It’s not alcoholism. Its an actual rewiring of the brain disease. 

We need these young people. My son was smart, a great communicator, a good listener and a funny man. He wasn’t able to give his gifts to the world. The evil that is Fantanyl, the evil that is addiction took that away. He fought a good fight especially in the last couple years.

 One slip was deadly. That’s not allowed for in any other transition. We get to fail sometimes, to succeed. This evil doesn’t allow that. A slip is more deadly because tolerance is lowered from sobriety. An evil  more deadly because of the availability of drugs like Fentanyl. 

We shot the cat, I say today. But I don’t forget nor will I ever, the double edge of needles. We’re losing people in a generation that needs it’s best, going through these unimaginable times. And its not the first time, or the second time or the third this has happened in our world. 

Margot Storti-Marron is a psychotherapist in private practice. Her son Andrew Marron died July 8, 2019.