When you huff air duster the aluminum can gets extremely cold, cold enough to melt the skin. The third degree chemical frost burns are so severe that they require skin grafts to heal, and avoid septic infection.
I found myself in the burn unit of New York Presbyterian hospital, Cornell on 68th and York. I had to get 2 skin grafts (right hand, right arm).
Painful blister removal, painful hot showers, painful bandage removal and redressing. Fentynyl, Dilaudid and oxycodone delivered intravenously.
When I first arrived my mouth was burnt And swollen shut, so I was on a liquid diet with IV nutrients.
One would think this level of physical agony would scare me straight but I left the burn ward against medical advice after the surgery to keep getting high. After all I had 91$ cash benefits on my EBT card.
I want to let that insanity sink in: I left a world renowned BURN WARD to jump back into my death spiral of substance abuse on the sidewalks of NYC.
After 2 weeks of excruciating burn recovery, after my mother traveled 6 hours from Boston to visit me as I was nodding In and out on hardcore opioids (I hadn’t seen her in years). After all that I ran off to get back at it.
I spent the 91$ on crack in just a few hours and shoplifted duster from every target store in Manhattan, passing out all over the city. It isn’t even pleasurable, the compulsion defies all logical analysis.
It isn’t like there’s a private place to hide and huff chemicals, pass out and have seizures in midtown Manhattan. I was always in public and some good Samaritan always called 911. I’m forced to take ambulance rides to nearby emergency rooms multiple times a day. As I wait to escape the ER I’m surrounded by gunshot wounds,stabbings and heroin overdoses.
Beset on all sides by death, just a normal day for me, I was on a loop from stretchers to staples, escaping hospitals with fractured bones to keep going. No sleeping no eating no rest…ever.
To be continued…
https://link.medium.com/6RmQ1KApXob
