Joe and Heidi Custin know the crushing pain of losing a son.
And they know the unutterable joy of getting him back after all hope was lost.
When their deeply troubled schizophrenic son, Union High school graduate Adam Custin, attempted suicide in November by taking a massive dose of narcotics, doctors said he had no brain activity and urged the Custins to take him off of life support.
They gave their permission to unplug the machines.
"We thought he was gone," Heidi said.
"Joe's brother and sister picked out a casket and paid for it. We picked out a cemetery plot. We called his childhood friends to act as pall bearers."
The Custins' ordeal with Adam began when he was 14 and in the ninth grade in Tulsa, where he was born and raised, and where his father was a State Farm insurance adjuster and his mother ran Heidi's Home for Early Learning in Broken Arrow.
Out of the blue, he attempted suicide.
"It was a total surprise to us," Heidi said.
He was diagnosed with clinical depression and given medication that only made the symptoms worse.
Over the next several years, he was in and out of school, stayed in his room much of the time and began to self-medicate.
He attempted suicide multiple times by overdosing on drugs and by throwing himself in front of a car.
For a long time, he did not tell his parents about the voices in his head - loud, incessant, insistent voices, Heidi said.
"He was afraid we would commit him to a psychiatric facility."
Four years ago, Adam moved to the Kansas City area with his parents.
Two years ago, when he was 20, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
His condition worsened.
"It got so bad there wasn't anything or anybody that could help him," Heidi said.
In November 2012, he was having a really bad time and not sleeping, she said.
"He was literally up for a week. He yelled. He went outside. ... He was so angry. We became a little frightened that he might turn on us," she said.
Later, when his father went into his bedroom to check on him, he was slumped over his computer. He said he was tired and wanted to go to bed.
Heidi checked on him the next morning, and he was still asleep.
"I thought, thank God, he's sleeping. He hasn't slept for days," she said.
He slept all day.
The next morning, Joe found that his son was not breathing and rushed him to the emergency room.
After extensive tests, doctors told the couple that a massive drug overdose had caused extensive brain damage, liver damage and heart damage.
They immediately notified everyone they knew to start a prayer chain for Adam.
"I wasn't praying for him to live because he showed no brain-wave activity whatsoever," Heidi said.
"Neurologists told us you can't rejuvenate brain cells. We were advised he wasn't going to survive. He would never wake up, never function as a normal person.
"We were praying for peace, for a painless death, that it wouldn't drag on.
"We chose to take him off of life support on Nov. 28," she said. "He had been in a coma since Nov. 25."
But Joe kept saying he didn't think his son was going to die.
"We kept thinking we saw signs of life," Heidi said - a squeeze of the hand, a tear in the eye.
A neurologist called them involuntary responses.
"She made us feel like fools," Heidi said.
Joe insisted that Adam be put back on fluids, over the objections of doctors.
On Dec. 1, one of Adam's uncles came to the hospital, and said to him, "Buddy, I love you. I'm going to miss you so much."
And to everyone's shock, Adam responded: "How are you doing?"
Then he spoke to another relative, and then he said to a nurse, "I'm hungry. Can I have a piece of cheese, please?"
A hospice worker came into the room to have the family fill out end-of-life paperwork, saw that Adam was awake, and said, "Never mind. I guess you're not going to need me."
"He's here. He's alive," his overjoyed mother said. "We're going to work with what we have."
Adam's recovery was up and down. His psychotic voices were more strident than ever. His health deteriorated, and he slipped back into a coma. His weight dropped to 98 pounds.
Five weeks later, he woke up and said "Hi" to a doctor.
Over the next several months he regained his ability to walk and to talk. The voices are silent.
"It's as if he went under a second time so his brain could be washed free of all that horrible stuff," Heidi said.
"To this day he remains a positive, awesome individual. He reads. He writes. He handles his own bank account."
Adam, who has spoken at a prayer retreat and a United Way event, is taking training to speak on mental health issues and is looking at some college courses.
"He's getting stronger every day," Heidi said.
"Today I feel like we have our son back. He's the really neat young man I knew before this horrible disease took over his mind.
"We just treasure every day."
Speaking by phone from his parents' house, Adam said he is "feeling pretty good."
He said he met God while he was in the coma.
"He was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. His love is so amazing and incredible. You just can't imagine how much God loves you," he said.
Adam said God told him: "I'm not ready for you to be here. You have to go back to your home. Everyone has a purpose. You need to go back to your family."
"It made me cry," he said.
Heidi said, "I believe in the power of prayer, and I believe in miracles because I've lived through one with my son."
Bill Sherman 918-581-8398
bill.sherman@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Family sees miracle that their son is alive
Religion
Yom Kippur service. 11 a.m. Saturday, at Iglesia Oste Asamblea De Dios, 3615 W. 51st St., the new meeting place of Holiness to the Lord Congregation (Kodesh L' Adonai Kahal).
Mikey Weinstein, a controversial figure who has been called a champion for religious freedom by some and a notorious anti-Christian zealot by others, will speak Sept. 21 at a Tulsa Interfaith Alliance awards reception.
