what to do now?

[bearrn88]

I new I wanted to be a nurse at age 5. I got my CNA in high school and my LVN 9 years later. I was determined to become an RN and did it in 2003 with an ADN. Ive been working as an ED RN for 16 years and took on travel nursing in ED. I was the only traveler in this ED and worked 2p-2a and did very well and the hospital extended my contract another 13 weeks.

On 1/22/14, I came into work and I was told to go to managers office and the manager escorted me to HR where they accused me of diverting 26mg of morphine on 13 patients. They cancelled my contract, drug tested me on the spot, and reported me to the BON. I contacted my agency and was instructed to drug test for them as well. All tests came back negative. The BON summoned me to a diversion program or be investigated a month or so later. I had never used drugs and would never even think about taking from my patients. So, I told them to "Investigate me"!. 3 years later, I received a letter from the board they were going to revoke my license for failure to document my morphine waste properly. The order was to give 5mg now and repeat in 15min. The pyxis only had 10mg vials so I took the entire vial and administered 5mg now and repeated the other 5mg in 15 min as ordered. Well, I should have pulled out 5mg, wasted 5mg, then in 15min pull out another 5mg and waste 5mg. The patient was not charged properly due to the way I had pulled out the ordered med. Then the board said I was selling it then because my drug screen was negative. I had to have character letters written by colleagues, friends, personal physicians, my church leaders, ect.

I continued travel nursing in ICU and ED during their "investigation"

By this time, 3 years later, I was a Supervising RN 11 at a facility Part time, ED per diem at a local hospital, and home health 3 days a week. I was terminated "at no fault" as a supervisor for 2 years when 7/6/17, the BON restricted my license and one of the restrictions was that I couldn't supervise RN's, work over 40 hours, work for a registry, cannot float, and just have another RN working with me at least half of my shift.

I gor hired by a high school friend at a dialysis unit in which I have never done in my life. It was scary, new, and knowing my license was restricted I depended on leadership to support me and teach me the ropes. Well, it never happened. The preceptors yelled at me in front of patients and patients requested to not have me hook their CVC lines up. When I asked questions, the charge nurse ignored me and said, " What is it that need?" "What is your question?" I had never felt so helpless and lost in my life as this was all new to me. The manager had me floating from clinic to clinic to train with people who would train me. The staff were cold and quiche to report me on many things including not removing my PPE or asking for a clamp prior to priming a machine.

After 3 months of this fear and intimidation and lack of support, I resigned only to find out a week later they too reported me to the BON. I cashed out my retirement, sold my home of 15 years, and took another job in a subacute facility where I has worked 20 years ago as an LVN. In February, my probation monitor violated my probation for going over my 40 hours on many occasions as an admissions nurse. The facility knew my restrictions but they kept giving me admissions that I couldn't just leave in the middle of med reconciliation or assessment due to being the only admissions nurse. So now I am facing revocation of probation in October 2019 hearing. In addition, the probation monitor rescinded my job approval for that facility due to failure of administrators to respond to her multiple requests in which I had no idea of.

The facility is paying unemployment for me as well a health insurance as of now.

The BON has ordered me to pay the $12,500 for the investigation on the accused drug diversion, now another accusation on my first job being on probation in a dialysis unit, probation monitor violated me for going over 40 hours on numerous occasions, and at 49 years old, I don't know what to do with my skills. I am broke and plan to surrender my RN license with no choice. I am depressed over the loss of this career as I have loved doing what I do for 30 years.

What do you think I can do for work in this situation? Where do I start? I only know nursing and was very good at it. I have applied for babysitting/nanny jobs, private duty caregiver jobs. I moved to Los angeles to be near my kids for the moment but have no idea how to make a living. I keep getting denied for nursing jobs with a restricted license. The BON might as well have just taken my license at this point.

Thank you for reading my story. Any input is welcomed.

[J.Adderton, BSN, MSN]

If you attend support meetings, ask another nurse in recovery for recovery friendly employers. There are many nurses in recovery and monitoring programs and connecting with a few will help you feel less isolated.

[sonyarn88]

I have reached out to those groups but my order does not say I need counseling for substance abuse so the group leader said due to confidentiality reasons I was not able to attend without a BON order to do so

[J.Adderton, BSN, MSN]

I would try a different group. You don't need any type of outside "order" to attend AA, NA ect. If the leader told you this, it is gross misinformation. You don't give any personal information at the meeting aside from first name... and you can just throw any name out there.

[Nitenurse03]

Organ, tissue and eye donation call centers hire people with medical background. You dont need to have any active license to work for them. Look in your area for one. Most states have several options

[voicefamily]

Dear BearRN88, please, try to communicate with VykingBoyRN on this AllNurses Board. Hope and pray that you find a solution soon.

Voicefamily

Please, do not rush with any payments (12.5K) by using your hard earned money.