I graduated from nursing school and received my Registered Nurse
license in 1972. Newly married, and pregnant with my first child, I accepted a
transfer to work at a new drug treatment center on the grounds of the Los
Angeles County hospital. Patients were initially admitted into the
detoxification unit where we helped them withdraw from whatever drug they were
addicted to. At that time the favorites were barbiturates, sedatives, and heroin.
These patients writhed in bed for the better part of seven to ten days,
hallucinating, sweating profusely, vomiting, and having diarrhea. There really
wasn't a good way to withdraw from drugs. Eventually they would recover enough
to be transferred out of the acute ward and onto the general ward. If they
progressed well during therapy sessions, and stayed clean and drug free, they
would then move to the next unit where therapy was more intense and they
enjoyed a bit more freedom. The ultimate goal was to be able to transition to a
halfway house on the hospital grounds before being reintroduced into the
community. Sadly, there were many failures and few successes. I remember some
of the failures vividly.
The first one that comes
to mind is a young black female prostitute who was seven months pregnant when
she came in for detoxification from heroin so her baby wouldn't be born
addicted. She didn't last through the first three days of withdrawal and was
packing her bags to leave AMA, (against medical advice) when I noticed her
syphilis test had come back positive. I notified the doctor right away and
before she left I injected her buttocks with more penicillin than I'd ever
given anyone before or since. I've wondered all these years if that poor little
baby was born alive and what happened to it. I can only imagine.
One weekend I was
working when the lab technician came up to me and said someone had stolen all
of the used needles and syringes off of his lab tray. Alarm bells went off in
my head. I figured that someone most likely had gotten ahold of some heroin and
was planning a party. I had to work fast. I called the medical director and
told him what had happened, and then gathered all of the patients together. Of
course no one admitted to stealing the syringes and needles, so I mobilized the
staff to search every inch of the unit. We finally found the stash hidden
inside the zippered vinyl cushions on the chairs in the sun room. However, it
was too late. The patients were already exhibiting signs of being high. Using
drugs while going through drug rehabilitation was a violation of their
individual contracts. I called the medical director again and he told me to
discharge every patient that showed signs of being high on drugs and to do drug
testing on all of the other patients. I still don't know where I found the
courage to stand up to all those people who didn't want to leave, but with the
help of my staff, I somehow managed to escort them out and lock the doors
behind them. In retrospect, I was so angry at what they'd done on my watch that
the adrenaline was flowing and most likely kept fear at bay. I was a bit
worried when I left to go out to my car at the end of my shift, but no one was
lying in wait. Once the weekend was over, several of the people came back, were
remorseful, and were readmitted to the program where they had to start over
from the beginning.
One of the young men who
returned was a teenager. He was a really cute little guy with blonde curly hair
and big blue eyes. He’d been fun to have on the unit as a recovering drug
addict. He was accepted back in, but changed his mind and left. Shortly after
he left, another man came to the door and told us the teenager had shot up with
heroin and overdosed. Someone dragged him inside and the doctor and I started
working on him. He was in full cardiac arrest but we managed to resuscitate him
and inject him with a medication to reverse the effects of the heroin. We saved
his life, but I often wonder how long he lived. I still think about him and
whether or not he managed to become drug free make it to adulthood.
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