by Lori Wyman

Created on: May 29, 2010

It was a Friday night in June of 1996.  I walked into the hotel lobby and woke up on the floor.    

I was hauled in by ambulance to a local hospital in my hometown.  I had fainted.

The next thing I knew I was being wheeled into the emergency room onto a stretcher and hooked up to machines.  

With needles strung through my veins, I was defenseless against security when they got the word to search my purse.  They found an empty pill bottle and interrogated me.  I did not give them permission to go through my purse and I felt violated.

The pharmacy had given me three pills to cover for the next several days until I could refill my prescription.  The pills were put in the same bottle and the bottle read 30 pills.  When the emergency room doctors noticed that I only had three pills left, they thought I overdosed. 

I told them what had happened but they didn’t believe me.  They decided to take a blood test although the lab was closed.  The results would be read the next day.

I was angry for being disbelieved and confined against my will.  I had to get out of there.  Clad in my skimpy hospital gown, I unhooked myself from the machines and promptly ripped the IV out of my arm.   I made a bee line down the hall as fast as I could.  Blood squirting all over my arm, bed and floor as I darted to escape, I was looking for an open door.  I was determined to do whatever it took to gain back my dignity and go home.  I was hoping to dodge them but it didn’t work.   An orderly and an aid vehemently ran behind me, caught me, picked me up and carried me back to my gurney.    

Despite my desperate pleas to let me go, they were convinced that I had overdosed and thought that there was poison spreading throughout my system.  They wouldn’t listen to me.  I felt invisible.  I sadly knew I had to succumb to their wishes in order to leave.

I could feel the sedative effects of my drugs taking hold and I was uptight at the loss of my control.  I felt like they were demons trying to take over my mind and body.   

I noticed a young nurse approaching me with a clear container in her hand.  I could see that in it was a thick, gritty charcoal substance. As she walked over to me, she told me that I would need to drink this to combat the poison in my body.  I assured her that I didn’t have poison in my body

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