Fatal Facts of Fentanyl
The Fatal Facts of Fentanyl is dedicated to raising awareness of the illicit fentanyl crisis hitting the USA. It is killing tens-of-thousands of people who suffer from substance abuse disorders and first-time users.
There are no boundaries. It is straight across the board with the number of deaths without any regard to race, sex, socio-economics, age, education, religious background, location. It is in every community within our country.
The fentanyl crisis is deadlier than ever before for various reasons. It is time to address the many issues surrounding this crisis. It is time to listen and learn from experts. It is time to hear the many stories from people who have lost their loved ones due to death by deception.
Change begins with each of us as individuals and collaboration with others towards this positive transformation. The goal is to save lives and families from this travesty.
Awareness and Education are the key.
Knowledge is Power.
Fatal Facts of Fentanyl
From Cancer to Addiction: Peyton's Story Will Change How You View Addiction
Addiction doesn't discriminate—it can begin in the most unexpected ways, even through legitimate medical treatment. In this powerful conversation, Kelly shares the heartbreaking journey of her son Peyton, whose battle with opioid dependency began after cancer treatment.
At 16, Peyton was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. The high-dose steroids used to save his life had devastating side effects, deteriorating his hip bones and requiring a full hip replacement by age 19. The prescription pain medications that followed created a pathway to addiction that eventually led to tragedy when what he thought was a Percocet turned out to contain a lethal dose of fentanyl.
Kelly doesn't hold back as she shares the raw truth about addiction's grip and the desperate struggle for recovery. She speaks candidly about treatment attempts, the challenges of Vivitrol therapy, and the overwhelming statistics facing families: childhood cancer survivors are five times more likely to fill opiate prescriptions, while only 3% of people with addiction disorders fully recover. Most importantly, she challenges us to reframe how we talk about these deaths—not as overdoses, but as poisonings and drug-induced homicides.
This episode shatters misconceptions about addiction and forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about our healthcare system, border security, and the stigma that prevents proper treatment. Kelly's powerful advocacy reminds us that behind every statistic is someone's child who didn't want to die, who had dreams and ambitions cut short by a preventable tragedy. Her message is clear: we must stop the stigma, change our language, and demand better from our systems before more lives are lost. Listen, share, and join the conversation that could save someone you love.
The Fatal Facts of Fentanyl podcast is dedicated to raising Awareness to the illicit FENTANYL crisis hitting the USA.
The goal is to SAVE LIVES and families from this travesty.
Awareness and Education are the Key.
Knowledge is Power!
Let's end the stigma of addiction and the placing blame on the individual and their loved ones. No one is immune in our society. My next guest is Kelly, who understands this fact firsthand. Kelly is the mother of Peyton. When Peyton was 16 years old, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. He had extensive treatments and surgery. The high doses of steroids deteriorated his hip bones. He suffered with extreme pain. He would cry to his mama. At 19 years old he had a full hip replacement. He would cry to his mama all I want is a normal life. At 19 years old he had a full hip replacement and was prescribed pain medications. This began Peyton's journey with an opioid addiction. Kelly, though very painful, please share with our audience Peyton's story. His story is very special and unique as he is as an individual. Our audience needs to hear the facts. You and I have shared with each other our stories. We both feel strongly that transparency is so important in addressing the many issues of addiction.
Speaker 2:We agree the stigma needs to stop. Thank you, lisa, for having me today. And I cannot agree enough about the stigma needs to stop. I had no idea his high school life going for him and then one day he has a lump come up on the side of his neck and we go to the doctor and they start running tests and he's diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. By the next week we're at St Jude Hospital and he did.
Speaker 2:He went through extensive treatments, you know for a young boy at 16 years old. You know he's out of school. He's, you know he's out of school, he's out, you know, can't play football for his remaining high school years. He's, you know, having chemotherapy and you know, like I said, the high doses of prednisone, the surgeries, the opiates he had to have because of pain during the surgeries and he didn't have a normal life as any other 16 years old. He didn't want to be thought of as the child of you know, I'm the kid with cancer. At school he would say that a lot. Mom, I don't want to be thought of as the kid with cancer, I just want to live a normal life. So that causes a lot of psychological problems for a child, which St Jude, does you know they offer during treatments because they understand this and they understand it can cause psychological issues with people. A lot of people don't understand that with childhood cancer, that these children as adults are two to four times likely to be on antidepressants. They're two and a half to five times likely to fill a prescription for opiates. And you know because of the big pharma companies that we've had in the past or how they used to hand out all of the opiates we don't, they don't give opiates. So where did the where do these children turn? They go to the streets and that's what happened in Peyton's case and we we saw some signs of by the time he was a year.
Speaker 2:After he went through treatment he started having the pains in his hips and then he was diagnosed with a vascular necrosis. And what that is? A vascular necrosis is due to the high doses of steroids. It deteriorates your hip joints. It deteriorates any joints in your body. Some people have had shoulder replacements, some people have had wrist replacements, knee replacements, ankle replacements and Peyton's it deteriorated his hips. So for two or three years he was in and out of St Jude after his treatment for the Hodgkin's lymphoma and he was having something called core decompressions and they were trying to save his hip. But core decompressions, this is where they feel your hip joints in with like a cement. So he's, he's in all this pain.
Speaker 2:They're giving him opiates, they're, they're putting him, you know, under anesthesia each time they're doing these. Cert, cordy compressions and his hips were just crumbling and by the age 19 he's having to have a full hip replacement. He couldn't walk, he's limping and trying to go to school, go to college and he's in pain. And when the doctor did his hip replacement he came in and told us his hip just crumbled in his hand. So imagine your joints, you know you're in so much pain. You want pain medicine. You want that to stop that pain. After he's learning the walk again. You know, with his new hip he's learning to walk again. You know, with his new hip and he's.
Speaker 2:I remember after he got off surgery he said that medicine made him feel good and I didn't think anything of it. I'm just thinking because he's not in pain anymore. Of course that made him feel good. But what with these opiates? It changes the brain chemistry and what I've learned now that I didn't know then, that I wish even St Jude would have educated families on is the possibility of opiate addiction, the possibility of opiate addiction. But one in four people are addicts and that can be the person you think about that in a, let's just say, at church. You have a person sitting in front of you, you have a person sitting beside each side of you, you have a person behind you. One in four people are addicts. They have not, may have not gotten that, uh that right drug, or it could be sex, it could be gambling, it could be anything that forms addiction, but one, four people are addicts and once they are addicts and they recognize that, out of the whole general population, three, 3% of addicts recover.
Speaker 1:Kelly, I so appreciate your honesty and transparency with this. That means so much. Thank you so much. Your story, Peyton's story, is truly just heartbreaking but needs to be shared so people will open their hearts, open their minds and have compassion and understand that quote unquote addicts are not second class citizens Okay, and it's like they're not. They should not be looked upon or stigmatized, and thank you for sharing this.
Speaker 1:I understand Peyton was in remission for one year and eight months and he conquered this childhood cancer. Did you ever think in a million years childhood cancer, Did you ever think in a million years that his illness would lead to this opioid addiction? That innocent began with prescription drugs and, like you stated, you wish the doctors or hospital would have told you. Well, perhaps they didn't know themselves back then, I don't know. Um, there's so much controversy about that.
Speaker 1:I mean pain medication. Prescribed pain medication is necessary, but they do have strong addictive components to them and, like you said, one out of four people have an addiction and this is probably the most potent and this is probably the most potent, unfortunately, deadly, addiction that we have and we need to face. I want to ask you something I know through Peyton's addiction. Can you lead us into the treatment that he sought and how he so desperately did not want to have this and what he did you know as an individual to conquer it, what you did as his mom, and can you elaborate on what Suboxone is and the Vivijal shot is for our audience, so they will know.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, before Peyton passed away, he was actually seven years cancer free. Um he February 15th of 2021, he celebrated seven years of being cancer free, and probably the last two years of his life is when we really saw that he had an addiction to these opiates. And when we learned that, you know he had this addiction to Percocets, we got him into treatment immediately. And that came after a car accident. And when we took him there, we did not even I don't even think we even realized at that time of how this addiction had a hold on him. And until he got out of the rehab, which he just did a detox for a couple of weeks, and when he came home, he was going through secondary withdrawals. And during those secondary withdrawals I was like wow, we really have an issue with this. And I took him, I seeked out therapy, I seeked out an addictionologist for him and they started educating me on addiction and learned about all the different plans of needing to do the 12-step programs and again, all of those are not guaranteed because that's the 3% of addicts recover. And so, one of the things by that October of that same year, we went to a long-term addiction center in Nashville, tennessee, and we learned about the Vivitrol shot and with that Vivitrol shot that is an opiate blocker and it blocks the opiates. It's just one simple shot once a month and he would get it every 28 days and so during that time it made him so lethargic, it made it had side effects on him that he couldn't function. And like with every drug, every drug that is administered to someone, you know, you have this possibility of side effects and that he decided he didn't want to do that. And it kind of puzzles me sometimes of why we have you're trying to get off drugs but then they give you another drug to get you off of that. That's always been a little puzzling to me. But that Vivitrol shot, once it runs out of your system, what I learned from Peyton and saw is those cravings came back twice, two to three times more. And so February 13th he he got off, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:February 9th he came off that Vivitra shot. He decided because he wanted. In his mind he thought OK, I'm good, just like what I compare it to is if you're taking antibiotics and you think after you start feeling well, after a little while you're, you're good, you know, you stop, you don't take your full prescription and then all of a sudden it comes back. You know, the virus or the sickness comes back. Same with this. Those cravings came back and they came back with a vengeance. They came back he, those signs of his addiction. I could tell something was wrong. And he, he was back out seeking drugs and at this time he didn't get that Percocet that he thought he was going to get. He got 43 nanograms of fentanyl and that fentanyl is what ended his life.
Speaker 1:I am so sorry, but sorry is not enough. This country needs to do something to combat this. I was going to ask you how do you feel about your statement. You quoted this my son did not overdose. He was poisoned 43 nanograms per milliliter of fentanyl. He was a victim of a drug-induced homicide. He should be on this earth. He did not want to die. How do you feel?
Speaker 2:about that, kelly, I know, I know. And that with the stigma and that's why we say the stigma needs to stop that my son did not want to die. He talked about his dreams and his admirations. He loved sports, he loved music, he loved life, music, he loved life. You know, he wanted to be something in this world and he fought that addiction. He was ashamed of that. He did not want to be thought of as a drug addict and he's very ashamed of it. But he and I were very close and he talked to me about his dreams. He talked about his fears. He just wanted people to be proud of him and and I know for a fact that if two is it two millimeter that can kill a person Mm-hmm A fentanyl and 43 nanograms was in his toxicology report. That is murder, that is pure murder, and I know my son did not want to die.
Speaker 1:I know my son didn't want to die from this either, and, speaking to all the parents that we know across this country and in the groups that we are in, we know for a fact that our sons and daughters did not want to die, and these quote unquote accidental overdoses need to be treated as homicides in this country, and I know that you feel strongly about that. Also, kelly, everything that you've learned throughout this what is your hope for, not only yourself and your family, but for every person in our country right now?
Speaker 2:What do you hope happens? I hope that a lot of the verbiage can be changed, as you said, that it's not an overdose, that it is actually a drug-induced homicide. I know that I know who sold Peyton the drugs and I know that since he died, that there has been at least four other people that has lost their life as well, and that I know for a fact. And what I would like to see is that these people are, that justice is served, these dealers are caught, and that they're just it's not a slap on the wrist, that it's they have to serve this time. And I mean they're just, it's not a slap on the wrist, that it's they have to serve this time. And I mean they're taking lives.
Speaker 2:And that's just a small portion of this. You know it goes so much deeper, as you know, as, as grieving mothers, we're having to fight. You know for it to be a voice for our, for our children, but, as everyone else sees and says, that's in part that has lost their children. I mean, we know that China is selling it to Mexico and these borders need to be closed and we need we need a strong government behind us to represent us.
Speaker 1:We do. We have so many issues surrounding illicit fentanyl crisis and travesty hitting our society and it's increasingly getting worse and it's going to until something is done, and I just hope our audience really listened and learned from Kelly's transparency. This is an attribute that she always taught Peyton. He could always come to her without having judgment. That's unconditional love. As you can hear, a substance use disorder is a disease. It's not something that can be logically explained or a failure on the part of the individual or parents or their loved ones. Nor is your loved one's addiction something for which you must navigate alone, even though it does feel that way at times. Sometimes, as a parent, you're between a rock and a hard place. There's a thin line between love and enabling. Every parent tries to do the best at their ability to help their child. Please try not to quickly judge or do the blame game. That helps no one.
Speaker 1:Stigma is a fundamental hindrance to the United States. Opioid now elicit fentanyl crisis. Open your hearts and minds and stop the stigma. Our children are more than a label attached to them. Our children's lives matter. No one wants to be an addict. Our children's lives matter. No one wants to be an addict, and I know for damn sure, no one wants to die as one, especially to the illicit fentanyl that is growing and growing and growing in our country. Wake up. Thank you, kelly. Hold on to your strong faith's not easy. There's always hope, and I just want to say my continued prayers for you, my friend, my love for you and your family, and God bless you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much thank you so much for having me, lisa.
