Seven Days of Heroin: Elliana's story

In July Stephanie Gaffney instructed The Enquirer she turned into in medication for her opioid dependancy and aimed to create a pretty good life for her child. Ten days later, she died of mind damage after an opioid overdose. The Enquirer/Cara Owsley The Enquirer/Cara Owsley

Beth Arcail snuggles along with her granddaughter, Elliana Russ, 1, after a Dec. 3 determination in Hamilton County Juvenile court docket that gave permanent custody of the girl to Arcail and her husband, Joe. Arcail’s daughter, Stephanie Gaffney, 28, who shared her event with dependancy with Enquirer readers, died July 23 from mind hurt after a deadly opioid overdose.

(picture: The Enquirer/Cara Owsley)

What we reported: within the Enquirer's special document, "Seven Days of Heroin," we met with Stephanie Gaffney, the hopeful mother of an 8-month-old. 

The phone on my desk within the newsroom rang that July morning with a name from a spokesman at Cincinnati infants’s sanatorium medical core. “be aware that younger mom with the child you noticed right here on the NAS hospital?”

Stephanie Gaffney become challenging to forget. She turned into a spot of hope amid the devastation of the opioid epidemic in enhanced Cincinnati, crammed with resolve at 28 to make life more suitable for her daughter. yes, I remembered her.

“Her obituary changed into for your newspaper the day past.”

Heroin: Reclaiming Lives.

 (photo: offered)

 

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

just two weeks before, photojournalist Cara Owsley and i interviewed Gaffney on the particular health facility for babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome, an array of deficits and behaviors in these born affected by or stylish on opioids. Elliana was 8 months historical that day.

Gaffney advised us she had been sober sixteen months, having long gone cold turkey when she learned she turned into pregnant. Now that she had Elliana, Gaffney aimed to graduate from rehab, get a job and marry fiancé Stephen Russ. She wanted “as general a lifestyles as addicts can have.” She noticed the challenges forward, however she sounded assured and whole of possibility to give her daughter every little thing.

Her obituary talked about the provider can be at Strawser’s Funeral domestic in Blue Ash. Gaffney’s bereaved mother Beth Arcail and stepfather Joe Arcail greeted company near the open casket. Then a tall, gaunt young man approached and bent over the physique. “I’m sorry,” he wailed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

behind me came a whisper, “That’s the fiancé.”

After the provider, I asked Joe Arcail what he knew, and he spoke of now not a lot. “They referred to as us from institution health center one night and talked about our daughter became in a coma.”

At work day after today, I talked with my colleague Terry DeMio, who has written about the heartbreaking affect of this epidemic for four years. I stated: She appeared to be doing so neatly. What did we omit? She replied: You didn’t leave out anything. She changed into doing neatly. until she wasn’t.

Gaffney’s death introduced a journalism challenge. Her hospital discuss with become an ingredient in the Enquirer’s special record, “Seven Days of Heroin,” then in construction. Her dying passed off outdoor the task’s one-week timeline, but we needed to say some thing. We settled on one sentence: "Ten days later, Gaffney is dead from a heroin overdose."

but there is greater of her story to inform.

Stephanie Gaffney bounces her daughter, Elliana, when she turned into eight months old and visiting the neonatal-abstinence syndrome hospital at Cincinnati children’s medical institution clinical core. Gaffney advised The Enquirer she become in medicine for her opioid dependancy for greater than 16 months and aimed to create a good lifestyles for her infant. Ten days later, she died of mind hurt after an opioid overdose.

 (image: The Enquirer/Cara Owsley)

 

She became improving

After five years of combating addiction, Gaffney was broke. She had the liver an infection hepatitis C and a crook conviction for drug possession, with $1,800 in fines yet to pay. Her list made job browsing complicated. Her family unit wasn’t crazy about Stephen Russ, her boyfriend from Erlanger. Beth Arcail sensed he became probably in a rehab application, too.

but existence gave the impression to turn a nook with Elliana. Russ gave Gaffney an engagement ring on mother’s Day, and the end of her formal drug remedy approached.

She had been at the start Step home, the Walnut Hills residential program for pregnant ladies and mothers with young children, since March 2016. Margo Spence, executive director of the 25-yr-historical program, known as Gaffney a job model for members. Gaffney wrote a very good-bye letter to heroin: "This time, or not it's distinctive. I do not ever want you once more. I even have anything to work tougher for this time round. it be no longer just my existence anymore, it's mine and my daughter Elliana."

with the aid of July 1, Gaffney had earned the liberty of a primary Step domestic sober-living house with less constitution and fewer restrictions. Her mother had misgivings. “i believed she essential more supervision until Elliana was a yr historical, but she wanted to stream. What may I say?”

On July 13, Gaffney and Elliana took two buses in a rainstorm from the brand new house to the appointment on the NAS hospital, where Gaffney held her wiggly daughter and talked to Owsley and me. Elliana was pronounced in good fitness and growing well.

In July, Stephanie Gaffney, 28, introduced her daughter, Elliana, for a checkup at the neonatal-abstinence syndrome medical institution at Cincinnati children’s hospital medical core. On that day, which The Enquirer witnessed, Gaffney observed she had been sober for sixteen months. Elliana changed into stated in good fitness. Ten days later, Gaffney died from brain harm after an opioid overdose.

 (photo: The Enquirer/Cara Owsley)   a person’s voice to 9-1-1

5 days later, on the morning of July 18, Gaffney called her mother to crow about a new tattoo, and she sounded first rate.

simply before eleven p.m. that night, a 9-1-1 recording captured a man’s voice filled with worry saying his fiancé had overdosed. He said he had gone to the shop and got here lower back to locate her no longer respiration. court files recognized Russ, 30, as the speaker.

on the house, Gaffney acquired eight doses of Narcan, the overdose-reversal drug, but she didn't awaken. At university of Cincinnati medical middle, she changed into put on life guide except Beth Arcail made "the toughest decision of my existence" and removed the intervention. On July 23, Arcail lay Elliana next to her mom unless Gaffney died. 

Spence talked about Gaffney become the primary deadly overdose in First Step home’s history. within the days after, consumers mourned in restoration conferences and held a memorial provider. “It truly shook absolutely everyone. She became doing so very well here.”

Dr. Mina “Mike” Kalfas is an authorized dependancy specialist in Northern Kentucky. when I described Gaffney’s condition, Kalfas heard a well-known ring. “It’s a combination of stressors, and perhaps some denial, considering, i will open the cage door and close it again earlier than the beast gets out.”

Two revealing objects

In October, the postmortem report by way of the Hamilton County coroner grew to be purchasable. Two information stood out.

First, Gaffney overdosed no longer on heroin but on cyclopropyl fentanyl, a all of a sudden lethal mixture opioid that got here into the more desirable Cincinnati drug market in late spring or early summer time. Two dozen others in Hamilton County fatally overdosed on that drug between may and September.

The document's other key reality: “multiple fresh needled puncture marks are recognized on the inferior portion of the stomach.” The criminal of her left arm also had a needle puncture.

So Gaffney had began using again. Even with household materials, greater than a yr of medication in a program with a 25-12 months tune record and a future she embraced, Gaffney had opened the cage door. This time, she faced a beast she had on no account considered before.

The night that Gaffney overdosed, county child-features officials got here to the condo and found her child in a portable crib. within hours of getting the hospital’s name that Gaffney become in a coma, Beth and Joe Arcail took transient custody of Elliana.

Joe and Beth Arcail of Bethel walk out of Hamilton County Juvenile courtroom Dec. 3 after obtaining permanent custody of granddaughter Elliana Russ, 1. The child’s mom, Stephanie Gaffney, died at 28 in July from a deadly opioid overdose. The Arcails mentioned they intention to ensure the child’s father, Stephen Russ, stays in her lifestyles: “She’s already lost her mom,” Beth Arcail mentioned. “We don’t want her to lose her father.”

 (photograph: The Enquirer/Cara Owsley)

 

losing one mum or dad ample

Beth is fifty two, Joe 55. The toddlers of their first marriages are grown, and grandchild No. 6 is due in February. Having saved cash all their lives, the Arcails dreamed of taking exotic retirement vacations and finishing the rehab of their Bethel farmhouse in Clermont County. as an alternative, they grew to become fogeys once more. along with her wide-set blue eyes and cupid’s-bow mouth, Elliana bore any such likeness to her mom that Beth Arcail perpetually stifled tears in order that the child would not see her unhappy.

The Arcails petitioned the Hamilton County Juvenile court docket for everlasting custody of Elliana. They joined the Ohio tide of grandparents and other spouse and children taking within the babies of the epidemic. the general public little ones’s services association of Ohio discovered the number of kinship custodians within the state rose sixty two percent between 2010 and 2016.

The Arcails desired Elliana to peer Russ as a result of "she's already lost her mom," Beth Arcail stated. "She should not lose her father, too." So when Russ might get a ride from Erlanger, they met at Eastgate Mall so he could cuddle his daughter and tell her how a lot she looked like her mama.

In September, when she become 10 months historic, Elliana Russ smiled for the digicam at her grandparents’ residence in Bethel. Beth Arcail and her husband, Joe, got custody of Elliana after the baby’s mom, Stephanie Gaffney, died after a fatal opioid overdose in July.

 (picture: The Enquirer/Cara Owsley)

 

Beth Arcail watched him, desperate to understand what came about the nighttime of Stephanie's overdose - What did you do? Who else became there?. but she didn’t believe herself to ask whereas the custody concern turned into pending. She saved conversations focused on how massive the child became getting.

To the Arcails, Stephen Russ seemed to be struggling. He became a roof craftsman, so his work changed into seasonal. He had no car. He referred to he changed into in a sober-residing condo in Northern Kentucky, however he didn’t provide particulars. In early October, a Hamilton County choose issued a warrant on a probation violation.

once I asked Stephen Russ, 30, for an interview by text message in September, he referred to he would pray on the request but has no longer answered observe-up texts or facebook messages.

Beth Arcail sits along with her granddaughter Elliana Russ Friday, September eight, 2017, at their domestic in Bethel. Arcial and her husband Joe Arcail, were granted criminal custody after her Elliana's mother Stephanie Gaffney overdosed and died this summer time.

 (photo: The Enquirer/Cara Owsley)

 

Who will raise Elliana?

In September, Russ shocked the Arcails with the aid of all at once declaring he wanted custody of Elliana. The case was kicked over unless November, and the Eastgate Mall visits became annoying. “occasionally,” Beth Arcail wrote to me in e-mail, “I want to shake the reality out of him.”

On Nov. 13, Elliana grew to become 1. The Arcails threw a quiet birthday party for her. 

The custody listening to turned into set for 1 p.m. Nov. 30. Russ was late. The lawyers went to talk with the Justice of the Peace. in the ready area, Beth Arcail nestled a drowsy Elliana into her stroller. Minutes handed. Then Russ arrived in a rush of words. He bent over the stroller cooing that his daughter certain looked like her mama. Then he grew to become to Beth Arcail. “am i able to consult with you?”

They stepped about 10 paces away. Russ talked and gestured with both hands, then he put a give up his eyes. Arcail touched his elbow, and her shoulders shook from crying. They stood that manner, Russ speaking and speaking, for quarter-hour, until the attorneys reappeared. Russ stepped away, and Beth Arcail sat down with a sigh.

“He says he realizes that the smartest thing for Elliana is for her to stay with us," she spoke of. "however I’ll probably by no means know what took place that evening.”

The subsequent Monday, the Justice of the Peace signed the custody order and thanked the Arcails. With Elliana in her arms, Beth became to Joe and said, “Now we can plan.” With tears in her eyes, she smiled into the child's face, and the baby smiled returned.

 

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