Nervous!! Counting down the days....

Nurses Recovery

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Hi everyone, I'm fairly new to these posts.... I've been around but never added anything. So here's my story...i live in Arkansas (which by reading many of your stories with the BON, I think this one sucks) anyway... in 2009 I got in a car accident....shattered and dislocated my talus (worst pain I've ever had btw. Though God would let you die before that pain) needless to say the Dr put me on pain meds..... couldn't walk for almost a year...(still worked as a nurse though...on crutches) So probably could have stopped taking pain meds before I actually did. I and I mean I alone, decided I needed to go to rehab to get off the pain meds. I turned myself in to the BON, as they always say turn yourself in we will go easier on you if you do. Anyway got probation for 3 years, drug testing, meetings, quarterly reports, psych eval. Etc. Did 2 years got put on bed rest while pregnant and could no longer do all that. Notified the board...and they said "you entered in to this agreement so if you don't do it you're noncompliant" so 2 years in I got a new consent agreement. This one said suspension for 1 year followed by probation for 3 more years for noncompliance. I called and talked to an attorney and they said just surrender. It takes the place of the suspension and I couldn't comply w suspension bc I couldn't go to mtgs, or drug test....or anything that cost all that money. So I called board they said make sure when u request ur license back it's about 6 weeks before your year bc it takes that long to reinstate. So April of 2014 I request my license.... nothing.... call multiple multiple times. They said "when we get your request you will get a letter in the mail" w ouldnt even check to tell me they received it. November 2014 sent second request (certified of course) anyway finally get license reinstated in July of 2015. 1 year and 3 months after request. (Their explanation was they have high turnover so they got behind) started my 3 years of probation all over again after another psych eval that was 850 dollars. Anyway. I have 5 months left. 5....and the closer it gets the more I worry some bs thing will happen....bc that's my luck. Also have ADHD and board says doesn't matter that I'm seen by a specialist can't take my medicine....bc its a controlled drug. Straterra didn't do any good. The board did tell me though that when my probation is over "you can take any medicine you want" BAHAHA isn't that what got me here in the first place!!!?!?!!? Anyway probably going to be posting some the next few months as it gets closer and I get more anxious.

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I had a friend who recently had to start testing for 3 months to get her license reinstated. The BON waited until she was done w her 3 months of testing and then told her that she had to do her 3 months over bc she had too many diluted tests. This BON will not let us see results of our tests and obviously doesn't inform us until it's too late. Makes me even more nervous as I have been worried myself about diluted urines as I drink caffeine non stop not realizing it will dilute ur urine. So now I try to go first thing in the morning so my urine isn't diluted....but don't know since they w ont tell us anything......anyone else have that problem? I'm so close I'm worried that they won't say anything until I'm done with my probation. Ugh!!

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Well I haven't had any of the runaround BS that you have, but I am 6 months away from being finished with my 3 year contract, and as the end gets closer, I am getting more and more paranoid that something will come up to delay the end of the contract. I've had one dilute urine, right at the beginning of my contract. Nobody ever contacted me about it. In Texas we can see our results. But yeah, I totally understand, as you get closer to being done, it's easy to start worrying more about everything.

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Yeah, I'm two years away from being done and in some ways the anxiety gets greater everyday. I think things like having a false positive now and all the time I served would be for nothing. However, I recognize (and hope you do if applicable) that although this is a minefield we are walking through seemingly blindfolded I make some of this anxiety out of nothing. Recovering all you can do is what you have been doing so far. You have been diligent in your compliance to the rule so just keep doing that. Every day that passes is a do closer to your release from this swamp of cruelty and ignorance. You deserve to put this behind you. As always if you need help here reach for it. Truthfully the people in this room have been the closet thing to an actual support group I've seen. We are all in the same boat and we offer what support and hope we can to one another & I (for one) will not stand for any nursey-poo hag regardless of genitalia judging anybody here seeking help. We can look to each other for help as the monitoring programs and the Nazi robots staffing them offer none. Be well Recovering. You are getting there

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Seriously.

57 days. I'm so anxious that something will happen to delay my release date.

I had one dilute in over 3 years, and I wasn't even notified about it. I only found out when I was offered a promotion at work and had to call my case manager to have my supervisor restriction lifted. "Oh, by the way...". My punishment was a hair follicle test.

I've emailed my case manager twice in the past month and have gotten no response. She's been so great returning calls and emails for over 3 years, now when I want to discuss the end of the contract, she's ghosted.

The anxiety can be downright crippling if I let it.

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Specializes in OR.

For those of us who have been around here a while, after seeing what SoraKs (Wizard1) went through at the end of her contract, I think the "coming down to the end" paranoia is quite justified. We all know these things have nothing to do with real recovery but are rather about power and money.

I don't quite remember who it was but in a previous post, someone's case manager told her to "take a chill pill." Uh? Yeah, remember the person your talking to and why? Real appropriate fool. Yet another example of how your actual recovery is irrelevant to them. The fact that you have diligently stuck to the rules of your contract and possibly learned something along the way and maybe even gotten into real recovery, I think, for most has had little to do with the program and more to do with the strength of the individual.

Nevertheless, My opinion is that calling these programs various forms of "peer assistance" is a sick joke. I've gotten more "assisstance" from my peers here (and I don't even know y'all beyond All Nurses) than from the crooks that run my program.

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Thanks everyone. We don't have a case manager here. We are sent a consent agreement with all the instructions at the beginning of our time. We are told no controlled substance even if a Dr prescribes it. (If temporary you can but not longer than 2 weeks no matter what) we don't get a list of what could show up positive in a screen.... my agreement says I will not use any mind altering drugs including alcohol. No poppy seeds and no products with hemp. And that's it. Freaked out many times since I started over various alcohol related things. Found out that the Japanese hibachi cooks with vodka.... my husband constantly wants to cook w beer!!! OMG I've been doing this crap far too long and can't wait until I am free!!! The 2 ladies I pee in front of are now like family!! I mean they have been watching me pee for 7 years now.

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We don't get the option of entering a program without our license being flagged. I have seen some posts about other states letting you enter programs without it showing on your license. Is that true? Not that it matters for me now it's too late. But that would have been nice especially since I self reported. There are nurses that I have met over the years that tested positive for meth stole ativan from a patient and got 1 year probation. 1 year!! I got 3 automatically and I didn't steal or do any illegal drugs. All my pills were prescribed to me by a Dr. I'm so ready to be done with this and can't wait. I can't count down the days bc they don't give us a date that we will be done. They say when your time is up u send a letter to request your license be off probation. Who knows how Long that will take them. Last time I requested something from them it took 1 year and 3 months to finally get it done.

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In Texas we have TPAPN and it does not show up on your license. I self referred, but then later there was a third party referral (I assume my employer but they didn't tell me) so they sent me a letter saying they'd changed my status from self referral to third party referral. However, it made zero difference in my contract, I'm still clear as far as marks on my license, as long as I successfully complete the program.

We also get an end date, and do not have to request completion or anything. It just happens. My case manager so far (2 1/2 years) has answered all my emails and phone calls within a day. So overall I've been fairly lucky. Of course, I haven't finished so things could still go south.

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how long is the program in texas?

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We don't have any option like that in Arkansas. We get whatever the BON tells us to do. Or we can fight it, which from what I've seen, will get you no where or with more than they would have given to start with. When we renew our license one of the questions they ask is if you have been in rehab since your last renewal. So figured better to let them know before hand. Pretty sure if i knew then what I know now, I would have never said anything to them and took my chances. They say self reporting is better and they will go easier on you but that's a lie.

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how long is the program in texas?

3 years for nurses, 5 for nurse practitioners. It used to be 2 years for nurses, changed to 3 about a year or less before I got in.

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