And I went back into management.......why??
In the interest of brevity: Three days ago I learned that my resident-care coordinator/lead medication assistant/lead caregiver has been diverting drugs and terrorizing the staff into keeping quiet by threatening to take everyone down with her if she were ever to be disciplined for it. On top of that, she has even been observed by several residents taking meds out of their apartments (this is a 42-room assisted living community). Some of us had been wondering about her mood swings lately, which have been increasing in both frequency and intensity; and as dedicated as she seemed to be, we had to wonder why she felt the need to come in to the facility at three and four in the morning when her shift didn't begin until six AM. (Hmmm........pharmacy usually delivers in the wee hours........couldn't
possibly have anything to do with it, do you think?)
So I pulled her out of the med room Friday morning, relieved her of all her facility keys, and the administrator and I sat her down to confront her about the missing medications. Well, it was like something out of the movie "Sybil"........she changed moods so swiftly it was frightening. One minute she was wailing and sobbing, the next she was quietly apologetic, and then her eyes turned stone cold as she told us that if she was going down, she was going to "take as many of them (staff) down with me as I can". Then she'd go right back to crying and begging, and before it was over we saw at least five distinct emotional reactions, at least five different times apiece.
And as we watched her decompensate right in front of our eyes, I couldn't help thinking that this must be the definition of 'going postal'.
She called me from her apartment (which is right across the street from the building) about half an hour after this and went through 45 minutes of apologies mingled with moments of self-pity ("What am I going to do now? My life is over"), brief snatches of realization ("I know I screwed up"), and even some scattered efforts to kiss-and-make-up ("You're the best nurse I've ever worked with in my 30 years in health care"). Now, I happen to like this woman, and I know she's got issues---don't we all?---but my trust is GONE. I can't have someone with an active drug problem in my med room. I can't have someone going around and terrorizing the staff and/or the residents into keeping mum about her extracurricular activities. And I can't have someone working for me who will lie, cheat, and steal like this.
Well, that's not quite the end of the story.........yesterday, my swing shift med aide called to tell me that
she'd called to let
him know that she'd left her apartment and gone to a motel, and was planning on contacting a lawyer Monday. He told me he thinks she's afraid we're going to have her arrested, which hadn't really occurred to either the administrator or me, though with all the discrepancies we're finding now, I suppose that is an option. But now, cut off from her supply, totally alone in town, and with God knows what going through her fevered brain, it sounds to me like she's completely gone off the deep end........and that, I suppose, could make life really interesting for a while.
This is WAY more drama than I ever wanted to deal with. Who knows, with someone this unbalanced running around loose, y'all may end up reading about us in the newspaper one of these days.
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I've learned to live with it, but I'm also pretty fussy about whom I delegate to.........unfortunately, this particular worker came with the job, and she certainly knows her meds!
