This week marks the anniversary of a difficult day in our lives. I’m pretty certain that the anniversary will never pass without a tear or two but also with much thanksgiving. Our story could have been so different than it is. In fact, for a family in New Brunswick it did turn out much differently. It makes me so angry that the same horrible incident was repeated when it could have been prevented so easily.
Dija, at 19 months of age, was poisoned with methadone on January 8, 2009. After being resuscitated and spending time in the IWK she moved to our home January 13th. (Happily ever after…) There were no charges laid even though the incident was investigated, but the case was closed due to lack of evidence (read: 2 adults in house had different stories). There is not much I can do to change any of that.
On January 8th, 2010 one year later, a 23 month old girl ingested methadone in NB and was transported to the IWK. On January 13th she died. I read in the news this week that her father pleads guilty to criminal negligence causing death. This is a sad ending for such a little life. This angers me.
There is a simple solution to prevent such things from happening. Do not allow children to live in a home where there is methadone present. Yes other drugs are dangerous as well but they do not look like orange juice! Most addicts have to go to the dispensary to ingest the medication… make this mandatory. There must be a way to prevent this from happening again. What can I do to change this?
Now for the thanksgiving part – I am so thankful for Nana who saved Dija that day and continues to help us parent the kids… Trey and Dija think that all three of us adopted them and we sort of did. I am thankful for the health care that we have here in town. I know people complain about hospital visits or waits. I don’t like waiting either but when I’ve gone there with an actual emergency there was no wait. We have a great emergency department and should be thankful to have it in our town. I am also very thankful for the EMS workers who appeared at Nana’s door when she called them. They did what they do – they saved a life. Wow, I can’t imagine being faced with such situations on a regular basis. They have a tough job. If you see them coming behind you please pull over and let them pass you – do not keep driving and hope they just pass. You could really help them save a life just by getting out of the way because seconds count. I am thankful that there were angels watching over Dija that day because it is clear that the story could have been so very different. I cannot imagine what our lives would be like right now without Princess Dija. I thank God that we have these two little noise machines because they are becoming great people with a bright future that they might have missed otherwise. I know I already changed that.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 15th, 2012 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.