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Daughter's heroin death: A painful but crucial story to tell

The first time Diane Dungey talked to Gary Fusz, he wasn't planning to write an essay of 1,600 words on the loss of his daughter to a heroin overdose.

It was a few weeks after the obituary for Alexis M. Fusz appeared in the Dec. 15 Daily Herald. Beyond knowing the newspaper has done much chronicling of the heroin problem in the suburbs, Gary didn't seem sure of what he wanted, says Diane, our senior deputy managing editor. But he was reaching out because he thought he needed to do something, anything, to help ensure that the death of "Lex," as he called her, wasn't in vain.

They talked for an hour.

Diane's handwritten notes from that talk paint a vivid outline of the tale Gary told in Friday's editions. And it's a one that's become all too familiar: Lex, who attended Bartlett High School, battled heroin addiction for more than four years; she tried to clean up numerous times, showed up at her parents house irregularly and left unannounced. Before she died, she had numerous close calls. Friends had died. Her dad asked if that scared her. Yes, she said, but nothing is more powerful than the drug's hold on you. Gary said Lex was a good person; she genuinely wanted to kick the addiction and help others. She had a great spirit, a great smile.

The way Lex died sounded eerily familiar, too. She had been sober for several months, Gary wrote. He genuinely thought she had turned the corner after several false starts. But she didn't check in with Gary as usual at 2 p.m., and the next day he got the call he had been dreading all that time: Lex had overdosed, she was in the hospital and it didn't look good.

In that first talk with Diane, Gary mentioned that today's heroin is particularly lethal because it's often cut with fentanyl, a drug much more powerful than heroin. I remember well the story we did a few months ago in which a suburban coroner described fentanyl as "heroin on steroids" and how opioid deaths were escalating in the suburbs.

But in Gary's essay, there were some new details; one was especially jolting: During one of Lex's rehab stints, she told Gary that drug dealers would stand outside the gates of the treatment center and throw bags of heroin over the fence to tempt the patients who were sitting on nearby picnic tables, getting a breath of fresh air while trying to get their lives back in order.

Diane's notes from her talk with Gary sat on her desk for a few weeks. She wasn't sure how his story fit in. But in February, we launched our Straight from the Source initiative, in which we ask people from all walks of life and all circumstances to tell their stories in their own words.

Gary seemed perfect for this.

"His words carry a lot more weight than ours, and you can feel his pain," Diane says. "Only a parent can tell it a way that makes you think, 'There but for the grace of God ...'"

And then, there's that video.

It's attached to the online version of the story. If you want a firsthand lesson of the pain that heroin can cause, watch Gary reading his essay. He struggles to get out the words when he describes still looking at his phone daily and "waiting for that call from Lex that will never come."

Painful, yes. But a process he was willing to go through for the greater good.

Afterward, Gary told Diane he had gotten encouraging feedback from family and friends.

His brother Michael Fusz, a Lake County judge, offered to help arrange for Gary to address court personnel. His sister works in Wood Dale schools and is posting the essay.

Gary says he plans to continue in this new role of building awareness about the dangers of heroin and the importance of giving support to those who are struggling to get off drugs.

"I just want this to be the beginning," he said. "If we don't shed light on it, it will never get better."

jdavis@dailyherald.com

A grieving father's pledge to fight heroin

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