When Your Rescue Dog Ends Up Saving Your Life, Too

Almost 12 years ago, I was brutally date raped.  It came out of nowhere.  My first instinct, even after all these years, is to blame myself.  At the time, I was a Nurse…a strong single Mother.  To say I was blindsided by what happened only hits the tip of the iceberg.  My entire world, my entire being was rocked to the core.  I would love to say I am over it but, that would be a lie.  I am not who I was 12 years ago.  I am  shell of that strong, confident  person.  I have done the therapy, talked about it, exercised, but, the one thing that helped me most find a tiny sliver of me was my rescue dog, Amia.

After the rape, i was terrorized by the thought that he might come back and kill me or my children.  He was a Detective and former special forces so, having me out there knowing what he did was a threat to all he held dear.  This man had a lot to lose.  I didn’t report it because he was a cop and I was terrified he would get away with it and hurt me or my children.  That’s the way things were then.  I couldn’t take the risk.  I remember walking out to go to my car each morning for my early shift wondering if this would be the day.  I didn’t plan to fight back because as sick as it sounds, part of me wanted the noise in my head to be silenced.  After a few months of this morning terror, I began to relax a little but, that didn’t do much to calm my racing thoughts and out of control fear that were with me constantly.

I decided to get a dog for protection.  One morning, I answered an advertisement for a free Husky/Malamute mix that was scheduled to be put to sleep.  I arranged to meet Amia that morning.  She was beautiful but aloof and to be honest I was more than a little afraid of her.  She was 85 pounds of muscle and fur and gave no indication whatsoever what was on her mind.  She had a calmness that was terrifying.  She wasn’t cuddly and never once wagged her tail.

To this day, I have no idea why but, I told the girl I would take her.  She was delivered to my house a week later and she took some getting used to.  I bought a kennel for her which she promptly escaped from, she tore through garbage, ate an entire tube of toothpaste and didn’t show much of a personality.

I was wondering what I did but, was determined to win her over.  Little by little Amia became my dog and I became her trusted master.  Over the years, a tiny hand signal would become a command to her.  She watched every move I made and knew ever mannerism and exactly what it meant.  I rarely had to speak to her.  We both knew what the other wanted.  We became a part of each other.  She was always by my side,  It was truly beautiful.

This past winter, it became apparent that age was getting the best of her.  She had trouble sitting and standing and I knew what was coming.  He hips were going and I could see the pain in her beautiful blue eyes.  We could no longer go one our long walks, which she loved.  I spend a lot of time laying with her and cuddling.  I talked to her softly and she licked my face as if she was the one comforting me.

Last Friday morning, I woke up.  I had slept longer than most nights and was surprised she didn’t immediately stand up when I moved around in bed.  I got out of bed , sure that she would get up and do her little dance she did each morning when she knew I was going to take her outside.  She just sat there with a pained look in her eyes, a look that sent a shock wave straight through my heart.  She could no longer stand up.  Her demeanor was one of such sadness mingled with pain.  She knew it was bad.  I knew then what I had to do.  that moment had finally come.  I could not let my sweet baby girl suffer.

Both my adult children came with me to the veterinarian with us without me even asking them to.  The Veterinarian examined her and agreed that it would be best for her to end treatment and allow her to go peacefully.  They laid blankets on the floor and I layed down with her.  She licked my face over and over as if to comfort me.  I held her beautiful face in my hands and told her over and over that it was ok because Mommy was right there with her and she believed me just like she always did,  I kissed her a million times.  She was calm and happy just like she always was when I was right there with her.

When it was time and she was given the medicine we were looking into each others eyes.  I held her gaze to the very end……talking to her quietly and holding her.  She knew I was there and she knew my love enveloped her.

When I came home, I cried for 3 days.  I still cry a few times a day but, not as often.  I still think she is here.  I forget that she is gone.  I had no idea what a lifeline she was for me.  I only now realize how much she helped me get through the worst time in my life and what an incredible bond that created between us.

My son sent me a text later that night.

He said-

The best thing to do is recognize how beautiful sadness is,  The opportunity to have something so beautiful makes the sadness well worth it.  I love you Mom.

Amia will forever be a part of me.   I have never loved a dog like that.  I saved her life and gave her the gift of 12 more amazing years and she saved my life and gave me a lifetime of the memory of  the unconditional love and devotion she gave to me.

I will never forget that and am eternally grateful that I took the chance on loving her.

We saved each other’s lives.

It just hurts so bad.

My Heart Just Grew Bigger #Refugeeswelcome

I rushed home as soon as I could after work yesterday.  My daughter had a list of errands for me to run with her mainly because she just got her learner’s permit and wants to drive EVERYWHERE and of course, being the good Mom I am, I accommodated her.  I, however, did not take the time to cook dinner…it was a sandwich night.

I took a shower, got into my comfy pajamas, positioned a bunch of pillows on my couch and settled down for the night.  The first page captured me and would not let go.  My initial plan was to read of the book, some last night, and then read the remainder today on my gloomy, rainy day off today.  It didn’t work out that way.

A couple of chapters in, I knew my plans had changed.  I could not put it down.  I had to know what happened next.  I fell in love with this former refugee, her beautiful life, her family, and the never ending love that surrounded her and created a world beyond the horrors of war, that would lead her to flourish.

I will keep this book in my special bookcase and treasure it always.  It means that much to me because my beautiful friend Becky http://backtowhatever.com/ is the Author.  I have read every word she has written here with delight, sorrow, laughter, and love but, never imagined her book would capture my heart as deeply as it has.

Becky you have a beautiful, mind, heart, and soul.  You, at your young age, have done more to contribute to this world than fifty people will in a lifetime despite having such a difficult start at life.  It is impossible not to love you, and I do.

Golden Valley Silver Flowers is available at:

https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=golden+valley+silver+flowers&type=

The proceeds are generously being donated to help the world’s new refugees because THAT is who becky is…selfless.

I am not telling you to buy this book for any other reason than that it will change your life…it will inspire you and make you truly believe that nothing is impossible.

I love you Becky.

NA and DPH- When the Help is not Helping

http://10yearsasinglemom.com/2015/01/19/the-agony-of-ignorance/

http://10yearsasinglemom.com/2015/03/10/an-open-letter-to-anyone-considering-suicide-as-a-solution/

In order to get most of what I am talking about it might be helpful to go back and read the two previous blog posts that I linked to above.

When I first got caught I was told to start going to NA meetings.  It was more like a mandate.  I was asked every week what meeting I had attended and where.  I was terrified NOT to go so I began going to NA meetings.  I met there a group of very sweet, kind but, completely broken people.  None of them could hold a job.  I saw no progress in my time there.  All I saw, were people who were going to 3 to 5 meetings a week.  Missing one, even to be with loved ones, was not an option.   A broken Nail would propel them to a meeting so that they wouldn’t use….I’m not kidding….a broken fingernail.

I was introduced to the 12 steps and told to find a sponsor.  I looked through the 12 steps and thought, there is no way I am doing all this.  I don’t believe in God so, was I supposed to imagine a higher power?  Why couldn’t I just work on myself and believe in myself?  I was basically told that thinking I could believe in myself was the drugs talking…holy crap, are you kidding?

As I sat in on these meetings, I saw what the message was- keep yourself feeling bad…never feel bad enough to use and never feel good enough because you might use.  One day, I went to a meeting and had gotten some very good news that day so, I shared it with the group.  I was happy for the first time in months.  It felt good.  I was told by a chorus NOT to be happy because I might use!  Now, this might be necessary for some but, I was  Nurse, a Mom, I had accomplished things in my life.  The whole point for me of getting help was to get my life back on track.  I was astounded that they told me I could not be happy.  I can’t tell you how many times I was hit on in those meetings.  A guy wearing an ankle bracelet tried to pick me up multiple times.  I was not there to find a date for God’s sake!

I was also seeing a counselor weekly.  I told him that I didn’t see how NA was going to help me.  He told me to try AA.  I went to my first and last meeting in one day.  The moment I started talking and they found out I was not an alcoholic but, had used narcotics I could feel the room silently judge me as not worthy of their meeting.  I was not imagining things.  Someone actually walked up to me after the meeting and TOLD me to go to NA.  AA thinks they are more élite than NA….well, isn’t THAT fucking healthy.  The next time I went to my counselor (who was an AA lifer) he said, “Oh, yeah…I should have told you to tell them you had a drinking problem.  They don’t like the people who go to NA”.   I’m supposed to be helped by an organization full of people who act like they are still in High school.  The fact that my counselor told me to LIE was not lost on me either.  This was my help.

The DPH (Department of Public Health) was worse.  They wanted to cause me harm.  I was first contacted by them by a drug enforcement agent.  She was there to investigate my diversion.  She was the one and only person from that department to treat me with any respect or dignity.  She encountered one new Nurse a week who was diverting and knew how horribly painful the whole process could be.  I am eternally grateful to her for her kindness.

The next DPH person who contacted me was the prosecutor.  I picked up the phone and she started threatening me, screaming at me and telling me how I was going to lose my license and never work as a nurse again.  When I could finally get a word in, I told her to shut up and listen to me because this was my life and my kids lives she was threatening me with.  I didn’t take very kindly to that.  I think she was so shocked that someone stood up to her she couldn’t speak.  She calmly listened to me and quickly realized that I was not someone she could walk on.  When my case went before the board she hugged me afterward and told me she knew I was going to make it.

After that, I was given a 4 year consent order (probationary period).  If at any time during that 4 years I was thought to have disobeyed the consent order my license would be suspended and maybe lost.  One of the terms of the consent order was that I could not eat poppy seeds for four years because it might show up as opioid use on the drug test.  So, now I was taking a drug test that was not always accurate…how reassuring.  I feared everything I ate would throw my drug test.  I feared taking motrin for a headache because, I was told it could give me a positive result.  This is where the fun really began.  Bonnie at the DPH was in charge of all of us delinquent Nurses.   My Boss and therapist had to submit monthly reports the first year, quarterly reports the next two years and then back to monthly reports the last year,  Our every action was under scrutiny.  If we called out too often at work, didn’t get along with a co-worker, were late too often, missed an appointment with our therapist, and many other reasons unrelated to drug use we were called by Bonnie or her assistant and verbally admonished and our license was threatened.  We had to submit to random drug tests and if for any reason we couldn’t make it the day we were called to, our license was threatened.  I was under constant, unrelenting stress for four years even though I was NOT using drugs at all.  If our therapist or boss did not fax the reports on us when they were supposed to it was our fault and responsibility.  I can’t tell you how many times I got a call on a friday evening at 4pm and was left a message from DPH telling me the reports were not in and they better be by monday or my license would be pulled.  Now, I was left with a weekend to worry and freak out because I was so afraid and there was nothing I could do to fix it because it was a weekend!

I was diagnosed with PTSD, not because of my drug abuse but, because of the constant fear I was put under for 4 years.  I am just starting to be able to get the mail out of my mailbox daily like a normal person.  I lived in fear of getting a letter threatening me from DPH so, I would not get my mail for, sometimes, weeks at a time.  I hated it each time my phone rang for fear it was them calling to threaten me.

I am just starting to be the person I used to be, although, I will never be the same.  Four years of unrelenting stress changes you.  Having you License dangled in front of you for four years changes you.  I had many points during that time that I wanted to just tell DPH to pull my license because it was killing me to be so stressed.  The funny part is not one time during that four years, I did not think of using drugs once….not one time.

This whole experience has left me acutely aware of how easily someone with authority of you can abuse that authority and destroy your life.  When you are a licensed professional you covet that license.  It is precious to you.  To have it under unrelenting attack is horrifying.  I love being a Nurse.  It is a huge part of my identity.  I am good at what I do.  I am an asset to my profession.

What was done to me was 100% punitive.  My consent order is attached to my License until I retire.  It is there for the world to see.  if I lose my present job I will not get another one.  I have applied for hundreds of jobs, as an experiment, and have never received one call.  They look up your license first, and if it has that little red x next to your name they skip over you without even giving you a chance.  I am marked for life in my profession.  My personal health issue is on public record for the world to see.  HIPPA doesn’t apply to me.

Apparently, science is irrelevant when it comes to impaired Nurses.  If I ever treated one of my impaired patients in this manner, I would be fired.

I love being a Nurse but, it will be a joyous day for me when I can let my license lapse, retire, and forget I was ever a Nurse.

If not for the love of my children, I never would have made it through all of this.  I still resent the DPH for the part of me they stole from my children in those four years.  That was the worst crime in all of this.

Families of Conn. vets celebrate passage of suicide-prevention bill

Let’s hope this helps.

The Agony of Ignorance

Ten Years ago,  I had just gone through a nasty divorce and was severely depressed.  My Stepmother was going through two cancer surgeries with brutal chemotherapy and my Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer at exactly that same time.  I felt stupid going to them for support during my divorce while they were fighting for their lives.  I was alone in my fear.  After trying many different antidepressants and finding no relief, I complained to my MD that I was experiencing physical pain and she gave me percocet.  Physical pain is a symptom of depression.  I found that the percocet took the edge off.  My next visit she asked me how it was working and I told her it helped a little so, she gave me oxycontin.  Oxycontin is the time release form of oxycodone.  It can last from 8 to 12 hours in your body for pain relief and is a great drug for cancer sufferers….not depressed people.  If my depressed mind were thinking correctly I would have recognized this.  My depressed mind just wanted to feel better.  When depressed, a persons mind is not thinking normally…it is very obvious to me now, that mine was not.

After a while of this, I asked her to stop giving it to me and she never even mentioned getting help for my depression.  I was ok for 3 months and began diverting.  I am a Nurse and diverting means taking narcotics from work.  I never took anything that was meant for a patient.  I did not divert much and got caught almost right away.  My Boss called me at home and told me that I was being investigated by the hospital and the police for diverting narcotics.  I dropped the phone and curled up into a ball and cried.  I was so alone and felt that to the core of my being.  Finding yourself in the fetal position, knowing that your body went there automatically as a response to such deep emotional pain that your mind shuts off is something I never want to experience again.

My union rep told me the best thing to do was go in and fess up to what I had done…..so, I did.  I was secretly recorded and the hospital lawyer told me the police would be in contact with me to have me arrested.  I was devastated.  They acted like they were going to help me but, were only tricking me into confessing so they could destroy what little there was left of me.  I went home that night and sat in my garage with my car running and a full tank of gas.  I knew carbon monoxide was the easiest way to die. You just fall asleep.  The only thing that made me turn off the car was that I knew my kids would be the ones to find me.

I was working at UCONN Medical Center in Farmington, Connecticut.  I sought out treatment and the insurance would only cover one visit with an addiction counselor once a week even though my counselor TRIPLED the amount I used in order to get me into treatment.  The DPH treated me like I was a common criminal and was intent on making my life as much of a living hell as they could.  I could not afford a lawyer for that case or the pending criminal arrest.  Somehow I was steered toward UCONN Law School where they provided free criminal representation provided by the students with the Head of the Criminal Law Department overseeing them.  Luckily for me, he took a special interest in my case.  The investigator for the CT DPH was angry at UCONN for arresting their nurses because they felt it put patients further at risk because a Nurse would be less likely to try and get help if she or he feared arrest.  I was required to provide her with a statement and she advised me to have my lawyer make the statement for me so that it would be considered hearsay.  She knew the state Police were waiting for my statement so they could use it to arrest me.  She called me a week later and told me not to tell anyone she called and that I was NOT going to be arrested because of lack of evidence thanks to her.

During that time, at the lowest point in my life, I also managed to write a letter to the President of UCONN Medical Center asking for a meeting with various state agencies, the CT Nurses Association, the DPH (they all agreed to attend)and a threat to go public in regards to how a Hospital that was doing research on addiction was treating it’s Nurses this way. It was because of me that UCONN stopped arresting it’s impaired Nurses.  I am the type of person that can make things happen when I believe in myself.

I was then put on a 4 year probation by DPH that required weekly random chain of command urines and weekly counseling…for FOUR years!  I was mistreated by my employer and any misstep, my fault or not, was reported to the DPH and I was harassed and degraded on a routine basis.  If I had the sniffles

co-workers would snicker and whisper about how I must be snorting cocaine.  I have not ever used or even seen illegal drug,  My consent order (probation order) was, and still is, online for anyone who looks up my license to see.  Anyone who googled me was brought to that page.  It was humiliating.  My kids were young at the time.  I never used any drugs around them or when they were in my care.  I planned to tell them all about what I had gone through when they were grown and better able to understand it.

One day, during a hand off of the kids with my volatile ex husband he, as usual flew into a fit of rage.  He ended this fit of rage by screaming, “You are nothing but a piece of shit drug addict.”  This was after me not using any drugs for over a year.  My kids were standing right there…..six and nine years old.  I was stunned.  I later found out, that his wife had looked up my license at a party and the entire group of people at the party laughed and ridiculed me.  I shook the shock I felt out of  body and looked over at my children’s beautiful faces and saw such confusion.  I got my bearings and ushered them into the car and was forced to have a conversation with them that I didn’t feel any child should have to hear.  Their father had forced my hand so, I made the best of it, telling them everything, and they were amazing.  They both knew how distraught I was even though I did my best to hide it.  The kindness and love they offered me was probably not the outcome their father was expecting.

I could not live my life without this haunting me.  Nine years later it still haunts me.  If I applied for a job, I would never even get a call because they look up your license.  I actually, have been applying for jobs for years now compiling a list of all the jobs I don’t even get a call for.  My resume is amazing and I am a very experienced and knowledgeable Nurse. Before this happened, I got a call for an interview for virtually every single job I applied for.   On a personal level, my dating life suffered.  I would meet someone and hit it off and everything would go well until they learned my last name and googled me.  They would then never contact me again.  I was not even given the opportunity to explain what had happened.  I lost friends.  People avoided me as if I had murdered someone.  Eventually, my computer savy son made me invisible to search engines (I didn’t ask how).  I love that kid.

I have suffered from, at times,  debilitating anxiety and depression since then.  I was diagnosed with PTSD a few years ago related to that experience.  I still work as a Nurse but, occasionally  take leaves of absence because of my anxiety/depression.  I am forever changed because of this experience.  It was only recently by the director of a substance abuse clinic that I was told that I was NEVER an addict.  I was an abuser.  I never went through withdrawal.  I have no desire to use any type of narcotics.  I have never recovered financially.

They mandated me, at the time, to go to Narcotics anonymous and the other addicts couldn’t understand why I was there.  They all told me I wasn’t an addict.  They told me I got the death penalty for jaywalking.

Now, I know some of you may be reading this thinking I got what I deserved.  I am acutely aware of how negatively people with substance abuse issues or even histories of them are viewed.  I see it every day at work, in the media, in personal conversations with people who do not know my history.

My profession tried to destroy me.  My ex husband tried to destroy me.  All for something that is now considered to be a disease by the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association.

I was not destroyed…just knocked off kilter for a while.

So, if you get anything from this, educate yourself.  It has been proven that the outcomes for overcoming drug or alcohol abuse are greatly improved by treating the addict with kindness.  This whole movement of abusing them further, humiliating, degrading, punishment, and imprisoning them is not working.  That is painfully obvious.  When you are in a room speaking unkindly of people suffering from addiction, remember, I might be in that room standing there silently listening to you assassinating my character without you even knowing you are doing it.

The few people who were kind to me got me through this.  I am now at the point in my life where I don’t care who knows.  It is a part of my distant past that has made me who I am.  It has taught me more about compassion that anything in my life ever has.  I feel lucky for that.

Thank you for giving me courage Michael Lawrence Langan, MD

http://disruptedphysician.com/