Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers. Here is an update on the situation.
From a post I made 24 hours ago (12 am Wed night/Thur morning) on my lj:
Not long after I posted my most recent post, I showered; when I got out, I found my husband lying unconscious on the ground, cyanotic (totally blue in lips and fingernails), unresponsive, barely a pulse, barely or possibly not at all breathing. Later I was to find an uncapped syringe, a length of rubber tubing, and an empty, unlabeled vial which I believe contained alpha methyl fentanyl.
I called 911, at 3:24 am. I had to drag his body several feet because he had collapsed in front of the entrance to our apartment. I do not know cpr and my attempts did not have much effect (neither did the parademedics', when they arrived).
He had a heart attack in the ambulance. His lungs have completely failed; he is on a ventilator but still not getting enough oxygen into his bloodstream. His heart has sustainted considerable damage; his blood pressure is very low (80/60) and his heart rate is too high (was 130, currently more like 140). He aspirated (vomit got into his lungs) and as a result he is believed to have pneumonia as evidenced by his high fever (was over 104, now 101-102).
In the nearly 24 hours that have elapsed, he has not improved, and if anything, appears to be detoriating. He may have been oxygen deprived for up to 30 minutes. If his body recovers, it will be a miracle if he is not siginficantly brain damaged. But I do not believe he will recover in any form, and the drs agree, though they are hesitant to say it explicitly. I can see it in their eyes and I am not a pessimist. Only a true miracle would save him at this point.
Ryan's father just got in from CA and is with him now; I will attempt to sleep as I have not done so in over 36 hours, and as it is my sense of time is extremely wacked. Minutes seem to last hours.
I was the only one with him until now and the only one local and thus have been the phone relay system for both our families and all our friends, but I can no longer answer the phone. I just can't.
The current situation:
Ryan is completely brain dead. He has no responses or reflexes whatsoever. He is still on the ventilator, but that is only until he can be transported to a hospital for organ donation. He will be pronounced dead officially sometime in the next 12 hours, when they confirm death (again) once he is completely off all the meds.
The one silver lining is that his liver is in good condition and both kidneys are in excellent condition and they will be (hopefully) saving 3 people's lives. Unfortunately he won't be able to donate tissue (non-organs) because of his drug (ab)use.
Another thing I should state is that in the past 6 weeks Ryan had undergone withdrawal twice, first from fentanyl, then more recently from amf. I learned that he had ived fentanyl at least once (this is to me, the first I have ever known of him iving) during his addiction to it. The amf withdrawal was extremely intense and he took some naltrexone for it which made it all the worse.
To my knowledge and based on his mood, he had not used for a week before his OD. I do not know why he decided then and there to IV. The most recent IM messages that I found on his computer do not indicate anything. It seems random.
