Just whining. Pretty bummed.

[dirtyhippiegirl]

So my IUI in late September turned in a eight-week long odyssey of miscarriage-ectopic pregnancy craziness. We can't try again until March because of the methotrexate. When I entered the monitoring program two years ago, my husband and I had to nix our "really belated honeymoon" trip to Rome. So my thought: why not make the best out of a bad situation and see about re-scheduling that trip? I am technically allowed to leave the country and I have the PTO...

Of course, new rules with the monitoring program state that if you want to leave the country, you have to get the trip okayed by the state BON. The BON knows about my monitoring program because of my relapse early into the program but I do not have an open case with them. I have left four messages over the last two weeks with the BON and not heard anything back, of course. I don't think that I will. I doubt the vacation plans of a dysfunctional, "bad" alcoholic such as myself merit much attention in the hierarchy of BON problems.

I feel like I am stuck in this continual punishment loop that I can't get out of no matter how hard I work at sobriety. It's...disheartening, to say the least.

[dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN]

Well, an update on my situation --

I finally talked to someone from the BON! This was Monday. They said I needed to send a letter to the BON before the next meeting and they would vote on it. Of course, the next meeting is 12/7 so I walked the stupid letter in the rain to the post office while on my lunch break. So if the BON gets the letter on time and decides to let me leave the country and gets back to us in a timely manner...I might get to go on vacation although the chances of all three of those things happening seems pretty slim, sigh.

re. everything else -- I am definitely a "hard core" alcoholic, unfortunately. While I agree with most of what gets said in regards to the monitoring programs - some of the stuff that gets said ABOUT addicts from the non-addicts on this forum makes me sad. This IS an addiction and recovery forum and there ARE actual addicted nurses on here, fwiw.

[SororAKS, ADN, RN]

I will light a blessing candle for you later this evening. Good luck and keep us posted.

As to the "non addicts", I find it interesting the lack of understanding and knowledge about addiction. I also know what ignorance breeds, and what ignorance/callousness tends to hide.

Better the devil you know than the one that is allowed to remain hidden.

[NurseDiane]

Send a letter certified, return receipt to whomever it is that you need to talk to. When you don't get a reply within a reasonable amount of time, make reservations & go on your vacation. If you get grief for it, you can present the little green card that showed the letter was signed for and that you made a good faith attempt to contact them.

I always say EVERYTHING IN WRITING. Every phone call or conversation needed to be recorded. You need every ounce of evidence to help you when you're dealing with the nursing boards.

[dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN]

Send a letter certified, return receipt to whomever it is that you need to talk to. When you don't get a reply within a reasonable amount of time, make reservations & go on your vacation. If you get grief for it, you can present the little green card that showed the letter was signed for and that you made a good faith attempt to contact them.

I am pretty sure I would get terminated from my program if I did that since the BON needs to okay the suspension of my daily check-ins and then my monitoring program has to actually suspend them...

My livelihood isn't worth a vacation, unfortunately.

[NurseDiane]

I understand. What I was trying to say is that instead of wasting time making phone calls that they could say they never got, they can't deny getting a letter that was signed for. They can ignore the phone calls, but they can't ignore a letter. I mean, they can, but they'd have a hard time saying they didn't ignore it.

[dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN]

So I actually received a phone call from the BON today! And the person on the other end was very nice! She said she was going to take my request to a smaller board that meets EVERY Thursday. She needs a detailed outline of what we plan to do in Rome. I explained that we were hesitant to purchase anything because I might not be able to go and she said to just write up a tentative schedule of what we want to do. I wonder if I should work in that I am going with my husband who has 2.5 years of sobriety in AA? I don't know whether that will hurt or help my case -- I guess it could go either way. :/ I might field that by my monitoring board person and see what she says.

I was *so* surprised to get a call on the first day the board was meeting. I'm not trying to get my hopes up but even just them being timely and honestly nice about everything was a plus in my book.

[SororAKS, ADN, RN]

Excellent! I'm so pleased that you got that call. I lit a blessing candle for you and asked that you get a little help for your plight a few days ago :)

I don't see that it would hurt to include a sentence or two about your husband's sobriety, you could work in that you plan on attending meetings in Rome, and that he has been a great source of support for you in maintaining your own sobriety. Do what you think is right.

I am so pleased to hear this. Let us know how things go!

[NurseDiane]

That's wonderful.

In my humble opinion, I wouldn't say anything about your husband being in AA and sober for 2.5 years. First of all, it's none of their business, and your husband's sobriety has nothing to do with yours----however, they could possibly use it as a deterrent and say he "only" has 2.5 of sobriety, etc etc etc. Write up an itinerary and "tentative schedule" (what that has to do with anything, I don't know) and give it to them. This is kind of stupid because you told them that you hadn't booked anything yet because you didn't know if it would be approved or not.

Don't ever forget that these people ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS. Do not make the mistake of thinking someone is nice, when they all have the same agenda. Stay on the line with them and RECORD EVERY CALL----trust me, you'll thank me later.

[SororAKS, ADN, RN]

Great point Nurse Diane, about remembering they are not friends. I think it takes going through what a lot of us do in monitoring to realize that. Nurses tend to think that if they play nice, everybody else will too. Nope. That doesn't mean they are all bad, it just means I remember what their job is: To protect the public. We think that they should also give a damn about the nurse as well, as this would facilitate a collegial and professional relationship versus adversarial. Experience, however, demonstrates otherwise.

[NurseDiane]

You got that 100% right. They'll turn on a dime, and they do. Never mistake their "kindness" or "niceness" for concern.

[dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN]

Excellent! I'm so pleased that you got that call. I lit a blessing candle for you and asked that you get a little help for your plight a few days ago :)

It helped! (me get an answer, at least). Thank you. :)

I think I've taken away from all this that it's kind of sad when I was happy that I was being treated like a human being?

I always recommend dealing with folks via email so it leaves a paper trail. Recording phone conversations without both parties' consent is illegal in 12 states.

[NurseDiane]

You're right. I am a big advocate of getting everything in writing. When there is a two-party consent law to record a conversation, I would get the consent of the person doing the evaluation to record it. If they will not consent to it, I would recommend telling that to IPN and finding another person to do the evaluation that will consent to it. However, one of the big questions to be asked is WHY the evaluator doesn't want the evaluation to be recorded?