Help my wife got caught diverting

got_nurseing73 · Nov 10, 2017

Heres question. For those of you with a Nar restriction while on probation, does it go away after probation or is that forever? Also if the issue is drug addiction, will you be banned form alcohol while on the probation too?

Thanks

SpankedInPittsburgh, DNP, RN · Nov 10, 2017

Yeah no booze either

funnie17 · Nov 10, 2017

I check in every day and when they tell me I go get tested. I have several testing facilities in my area. I get tested 3-4 times a month at totally random times. The cheapest test I take is $44 ($15 dollar collection fee + $29 test fee). The most expensive I've taken is about $200 for a blood (PeTH) test. Usually its a couple hundred a month. In addition I have to pay for my weekly support group meeting I must attend no matter what (work is not an excuse for missing) at $25 per week. In addition I had copays for inpatient / outpatient rehab, evaluation fees. Also I lost much income due to not being released to work and then work restrictions. Between lost wages and all this other stuff it came to about $30K this year. I was OK financially and now I'm drowning in debt and looking at a bankruptcy. Factor all this in. No easy road but I'm doing it miserably

I am really glad to hear that you have been hanging in there, and I wanted to mention something about bankruptcy because so many people have the wrong idea about who should use it. The simple fact about bankruptcy is that it's available for one thing and secondly it was written in order to protect individuals who happen to be experiencing financial conditions exactly like the ones your'e facing. Think about it, if a large corporation found itself drowning in debt because of some mistakes which it had made and was about to go under, you can be the bank that they would run as fast as they could to bankruptcy court. Believe me, they would take full advantage of every opportunity available to them in order to stabilize their financial situation with the sole intention of promoting their own well-being and future. Sure, you need to find out how filing will impact your future but there is no shame in taking advantage of a mechanism that was designed with private individuals in mind. After all, you only have so much time to experience this thing we call life, so make the best of it as soon as possible. Oh, one more thing: if you eventually decide to take advantage of our countries bankruptcy laws, do some research and be sure to maximize it's benefit.

Kind Regards,

funnie17

got_nurseing73 · Nov 13, 2017

Question. Does the testing you have to check everyday weekends and holidays too ? Are facility's open 7 days a week?

got_nurseing73 · Nov 13, 2017

is it 7 days a week and holidays too?

Recovering_RN · Nov 13, 2017

Every program is different, but mine is 7 days a week including holidays. I have to check in, using an app on my phone, every single day. When I check in, I receive a message about whether I will need to do a drug test that day or not. This includes checking in on holidays, yes 365 days a year. However, in 2 1/2 years I have NEVER been told I had to test on a weekend or a holiday.

I know there are some people who have had to test on a weekend, and there are places you can go that are open. Here in Texas the Care Now clinics are open weekends. Your program will give you a list of labs to go to.

got_nurseing73 · Nov 13, 2017

Thank you. I wonder if a person could ask to do monthly blood or hair tests those go back 90 days and you wouldn't have to check in daily. Since your the one paying for it but I guess they cant control your every day life that way :/

Recovering_RN · Nov 13, 2017

I think it's all part of making you accountable. It's part punishment and part keeping your recovery in the forefront of your mind. Like the first part of my, and many other, monitoring contract included "90 in 90" where I had to attend an NA or AA meeting every day, 90 consecutive days. To keep recovery as part of your every day thought processes. They don't just want to be sure you aren't using, they want to be sure you are thinking about it daily. And we have absolutely no say in how they execute the contract terms. Offering an alternative to daily check ins is simply not an option.

3ringnursing, BSN · Nov 13, 2017

Hello got_nurseing73, I'm so sorry for the stress and misfortune you and your family are enduring right now. This type of situation is tough on everyone in special ways unique to them, especially in the very beginning.

I find it appalling that you wife found herself in this situation due to unrelieved chronic pain. It is sad these are the times we currently reside in, and non-acute pain is viewed with such suspicion. Sadly, pain which is not properly treated can tend to drive a person insane.

To answer your question, in my limited experience every facility seems to behave differently amongst individual circumstances in regard to pressing charges.

23 years ago when I was a young, fresh-faced addict I saw a variety of scenarios occur. The police never entered the equation for me, however they were contacted regarding a travel nurse in the midst of her 3rd contract in a row with our facility one morning after a winter holiday night shift many years ago.

Everything seemed as usual, then without warning her behavior spiralled more and more into the truly bizarre: arguing loudly with one of our unit's difficult frequent flier pt's in her care, becoming increasingly lethargic, eventually nodding out multiple times after sitting down to chart (back in the days of mostly hand written paper charting) and while speaking (then resuming her sentence exactly where she left off 5 mins later upon nodding awake again).

I had just returned to work in my old job newly in recovery a few weeks prior to the onset of this incident after having taken a couple months off (i.e., quit out of shame) upon suggestion of the SBON after having difficulty finding another job (I was so close to actually still being a new grad that I had only a few months work experience).

When I returned to my unit a recovering addict I recall encountering 2 differing subsets of coworkers: 1) supportive and kind, and 2) scornful, judgemental and openly laughing at my predicament (she was amongst the latter group before her own incident).

I remember that night watching in disbelief and fear for her, kicking her chair to try to rouse her, and wondering if she could possibly manage to pull herself together before someone else noticed.

She didn't.

Oddly, they would have let her go home "tired" or "sick" (we had a young, sweet charge nurse that night) had the narcotic count not been so badly off in discrepancy.

The charge nurse quickly gathered the rest of us in a corner of the nurse's station prior to report, and asked us all to please leave the unit ASAP after giving report and not to linger. No explanation was given, but none was necessary.

The police had arrived.

Later I learned from her that she had a few very bad hours being interviewed by administration and the police while still pretty high, followed up by a very bad trip to the police station to be booked, finger printed, processed and incarcerated until she sobered up and posted bail.

Even then I believe she got probation and not jail time, as she joined the mandatory weekly nurse support group I was already involved with at the time.

She wasn't offered the diversion option program like I had been probably due to her circumstances - she received probation instead, but she retained her nursing license and freedom, plus she continued to work, just not at that facility ever again.

Within 6 months I secured a better paying nursing position elsewhere, and also helped her to get a job there too by letting her know they were hiring, as well as providing a written letter of recommendation. That blew up spectacularly another 6 months down the road when she began to divert again - this time implicating me in the process as another addict in recovery also working there (so much for kindness) although I was cleared almost immediately by a random UDS.

So, got_nurseing73 it really depends on the circumstances, the administrator doing the reporting, and the facility.

In my own personal observations travelers and other temporary employees tend to be treated more draconian than permanent staff nurses whom tend to fare a bit better. This is possibly due to permanent staff being better known, and having laid down roots, which is viewed as more easily monitored, whereas a traveler - whom by definition is considered temporary staff and not as well known, may be viewed to be more likely to go somewhere else to start the same patterns all over again (which is not factual, because once out of the bag so to speak, that traveller will be staying put and starting recovery if they want to keep their license).

I know you are stressed out too, but I can't emphasize enough how much your wife needs your nonjudgmental support right now. In my own personal situation I didn't get that. My husband, in his indignation and righteous fury added even more stress and guilt than I was able to handle. I barely coped.

I was so scared and lost. My mother whom I had been very close to had just unexpectedly died a couple months prior - and I also had just had a baby right after taking the NCLEX. But my dear husband wasn't the forgiving sort, therefore he wasn't supportive - instead focusing only on himself and how it affected him. This thoughtless, selfish, callous behavior killed our relationship, and now, many, many years later - long after I completed my program, our relationship has never been the same ever again.

It's times of extreme duress like these that we discover just exactly what we are made of, and of those around us ... please, be supportive and forgiving to the woman you promised to love forever. This will be difficult enough even with your support - without it the load will be a terrible burden to bear alone.

I wish you both the very best of luck to get through this.

got_nurseing73 · Nov 13, 2017

Thank you. We/She are both worried and stressed and not sure what will happen. She did the 30 day outpatient and is going to aa meeting 3 times a week on her own rite now. She did find another job...we need the income and apparently will with all costs coming eventually. She was a new "user" so luckily so far no relapses or needs. We meet with a lawyer Thursday she has 2 weeks to submit a written response to BON. Do you think a lawyer is worth it or not? We have read both . The guilty part isn't an issue she admitted and failed drug test. Its the probation part I imagine that is in question. In Missouri.

SpankedInPittsburgh, DNP, RN · Nov 13, 2017

I wish I would have had a lawyer but I'll be honest I have no first hand knowledge of it will help

3ringnursing, BSN · Nov 13, 2017

I wish I would have had a lawyer but I'll be honest I have no first hand knowledge of it will help

I agree with Spanked (may I call you Spanked?). I didn't have an attorney either, but in hindsight it would have been prudent. There was no proof at all of diversion in my case - I even had a clean UDS, but with everything going on in my life my behavior was far from stellar, and there was "suspicion". And truly, unless you never passed or administered a narcotic EVER, then if they look hard enough into your documentation eventually they could make a case of presumptive diversion. I was reported, and by then I readily admitted guilt (just not specifics of why I was guilty).

After all, it's not about proof really - it's about protecting the public from a possibly unsafe practitioner. The SBON doesn't exist to protect nurses - it exists to protect the public.

Speaking to an attorney may not be a bad idea to inquire if charges are likely. Until you know that for certain having legal council is damn smart. And it may provide some relief knowing what a lawyer has to say on the subject.

You are a good man. Stick together, watch each other's back and you'll both get through this. If she toes the designated line she could come out with no record of this whatsoever on her nursing license when all is said and done.

I also hope her chronic pain gets better too. Pain sucks, and in some cases it's so awful that it becomes a sentient being in it's own right - demanding and impossible to ignore. I'm awfully sorry whomever is handling her chronic pain hadn't been listening to her. Sometimes OTC's just don't make a difference. She must have been desperate for relief.