Wyoming: 'i Don't Want To Die Like This'

Drug Rehab Wyoming

Wyoming: 'I don't want to die like this'

The hospital room is dark, with indirect light streaming in from a small, shaded window. Medical equipment litters corners of the room, and trash cans overflow with discarded gloves and paper gowns. The faint smell of hospital sterility stings the nose, and occasional bangs come from the hallway, where a workman makes repairs.

On one wall, a poster depicts a mountainous nature scene, but otherwise the room is bare. There are no balloons, no get-well cards.

In the adjustable bed, a thin man with tattoo-covered arms, bed-mussed hair and lopsided glasses lays on his side, shifting in a desperate attempt to find comfort. There's a tube in his right arm from a previous radiology appointment, and a medical worker soon comes in to add an IV to his left arm in preparation for an afternoon CT scan. The man squeezes his eyes shut and grips the bed's headboard while the line enters his elbow.

Between visits from the nurse and medical attendant, he speaks quietly, with a hint of a moan in his voice, not trying to hide the pain wracking his body. At times, he hides his eyes behind his thin arms or turns his face away, words catching behind tears in his throat.

He wants to tell his story, though, he says. He wants people to know what happens after a lifetime of drug use, especially methamphetamines: Pain and prison, hospitals and, for many, the morgue.

"I don't want to die like this," he says. "(And) if I make it out, I don't want to live with this anymore."

Looking back

Mike Day has been using drugs for as long as he can remember. Uneasy with people, Day says he first started using marijuana as a child.

"I did it to fit in," said the 41-year-old Casper man. "That was my way to get along with people."

Over time, Day experimented with other drugs put before him by friends or sought out on the streets. When he found meth, nearly 20 years ago, he stuck with it.

"Nothing else was as good," he said. "First I snorted it, then someone introduced me to slamming (injecting) it. I've been doing that for 14 years."

He knew the drug was dangerous. He knew about the risks of liver damage, Hepatitis C and other diseases spread through shared needles. He knew it was responsible for the downward spiral his life was taking.

In the throes of addiction, though, such knowledge didn't matter.

"I knew the consequences," he said. "But once it's in front of me, I don't think about it."

Uncovering the consequences

Until now, that is.

On Jan. 3, Day was released from prison, after serving a term for receiving and selling stolen property.

"I was stealing from my job and selling stuff to get drugs," he said.

His intention upon release was to move to Montana, where his father is battling cancer and his mother is suffering from diabetes.

"I was supposed to go take care of my family," he said. "(Drugs) were the last thing on my mind."

But, he said, he stopped in Casper to visit his sister, who has stood by him through his ongoing habit and many mistakes.

While in town, though, he fell back into his old lifestyle and got high.

Later, he began suffering persistent leg cramps. Eventually, he went to Wyoming Medical Center, where he was treated with anti-inflammatory drugs. The pain, however, didn't go away, and Day returned to the hospital.

He underwent a CT scan, and doctors found an aggressive case of methacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a strain of the common skin disease, known as Staph, that has become resistant to most antibiotics.

Dr. Mark Dowell, an infectious disease specialist in Casper, explained that MRSA has been cropping up around the country among athletic teams, where players share equipment or come into close skin contact.

An article in last week's Sports Illustrated noted that players with the St. Louis Rams had developed infections and spread them to San Francisco 49'ers players during a football game. High school sports teams also have spread the disease in Wyoming and elsewhere, and some football games in Oklahoma were canceled earlier this year because of infected players, Dowell said.

Doctors also have noted a spread of the disease among intravenous drug users, who may spread the disease by shared needles, skin contact or sexual activity.

In rare cases, especially if left untreated, MRSA can develop into severe infections, Dowell said.

"It can cause anything from a mild infected cut to an aggressive deep infection in the skin that can spread rapidly up an extremity and do enough damage to require emergency surgery, and potentially skin graphs, because it produces aggressive toxins sometimes," Dowell said.

Day said doctors told him his infection likely came from a needle, and he was taken to surgery shortly after being diagnosed.

However, when he was released from the hospital, he turned again to drugs.

"I did more dope, like an idiot," he said.

Two weeks later, Day was back in the hospital.

Day now expects to be in the hospital for weeks, getting twice-daily IV doses of antibiotics to fight the infection. In the meantime, though, he suffers ongoing pain, both from the infection and, likely, from withdrawal from his drug habit.

"The doctors said if I leave the hospital, I could die," he said. Even with treatment, though, Day's not sure he's OK.

"They say everything will be all right, but I know my body," he said. "It feels like it's giving up."

"I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy," he said. "I've been stabbed, shot at, beat up real bad, but I've never felt pain like this."

Facing the future

"I always knew meth could ruin my life, but not this," he said.

Day said many of the extended family members he thought would stick by him have turned their back on his ailment.

His four children, from different wives and girlfriends, don't know what's happened to him or where he is.

He said he fears people will always look at him with judgment for being an ex-con and a drug addict.

And he wonders if the infection will truly go away.

"I've lost everything to this," he said.

Now, he said, he hopes he will have one more chance to turn his life around.

After being released from the hospital, Day said he plans to go immediately to Montana, where he's asked his parents to help him get into drug treatment. He's been in rehab twice in the past -- once due to a court order and once at the insistence of his wife -- but the treatment has never been entirely voluntary, and it's never worked. Day admits he doesn't know if it will work this time, either.

"You're supposed to find your higher power and what makes you happy other than drugs," he said. "I've been doing drugs since I was 8 years old. It's all I know. I don't know what makes me happy. I've never had my head that clear to know what's right and what's wrong, what's normal."

Still, he said, he wants to try.

"I'm tired of this life, of looking over my shoulder. I'm tired of staying up all night seeing things and doing things nobody does and thinking it's cool," he said. "I want to take care of my mom and dad and live a normal life."

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Wyoming: 'I don't want to die like this'