A FAMILIAR QUESTION
Tomeo’s journey through addiction, crime, recovery and forgiveness mirrors that of countless other casualties in the opioid epidemic. It’s a story that is quickly becoming a morbid classic. After sustaining injuries from a fall in her home in 1996, Tomeo sought help from an orthopedic surgeon, a gynecologist and even a neurologist. None of them offered effective solutions to treat her chronic pain. Her surmounting pain led her to a pain clinic, where she was prescribed OxyContin. “The first thing [the doctor] said was, ‘Do you want your pain to go away?’” she recalls. “I said, ‘Yes,’ and that was it.” According to Tomeo, she had taken prescription opiates before, but “not at that magnitude.”
“I went to a pain clinic, they put me on OxyContin and my life died.” - Lynn Tomeo, Client
REINVENTING DREAMS Throughout her addiction and arrests, Tomeo lost her home and everything in it, from the baby grand piano to her birth certificate. Why Not Prosper’s resource center helped her with the lost legal documents. The intangible losses take longer to reconcile, like her figure skating career and the relationship with her two children, now in their 30s. Patience pays off, and so does an open heart when interacting with other clients. “Some people don’t know how they feel. It’s kind of like they’re shell shocked,” Tomeo says. “Then slowly you start to see them open up… I think the ladies figure out who they are again.” She looks forward to the day when she can get back on the ice with her daughter, whom she calls a “born skater.” As she nears the end of her stay at Why Not Prosper, she feels ready to rebuild the life she once had. “I’m going to grab a pair of skates, get my daughter and hold her hand, and skate with her,” she says, “and I’ll probably be crying the whole time.”
“I went to a pain clinic, they put me on OxyContin, and my life died.” Tomeo says. Before long her husband’s insurance, which had covered the cost of medication, ran out. She was no longer able to afford the pills on which she had become dependent, which forced her to self-medicate through illicit means. The encounter she describes that led her to heroin is strikingly similar to her experience at the pain clinic. “I talked to a friend and they said, ‘Do you want your pain to go away?’” she says. “And I got on heroin.”
55
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker